Leading SA scientist meets the elite of Germany’s sustainability researchers
Kerry Bobbins, a South African researcher at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO), is amongst the 25 winners of the international Green Talent Awards who have just begun a tour of hot-spots of sustainable development in Germany.
Bobbins has been honoured for her outstanding achievement in making our society more sustainable. She is investigating ways of integrating Green Infrastructure and the principles of social sustainability into the city-region’s resource planning.
She is one of 25 selected Green Talents winners, who hail from around the globe.
Part of her prize is the opportunity to join her co-winners in gaining exclusive access to the hot-spots of sustainable development in Germany through a special tour which started on the 26th of October 2014 and ran until the 7th of November 2014.
For the sixth time, the Green Talents Award was presented by German research minister Prof. Johanna Wanka. Out of more than 800 applications from over 100 countries, a high ranking jury of experts selected 25 up-and-coming scientists. Their prize is one of the treasured tickets to the “Green Talents - International Forum for High Potentials in Sustainable Development”.
Two weeks of interaction with some of the most renowned research institutions and leading experts now lie ahead of the newly minted “Green Talents”. Getting connected to the science community and exchanging ideas with its key innovators allows the winners to promote their approaches and to lay the foundation for future cooperation. Such efforts are supported by the invitation to return to Germany for a fully funded research stay at an institution of their choice in 2015.
Prof. Johanna Wanka, as the patron of the Green Talents Initiative, personally honoured the winners in Berlin on the 7th of November. The festive awards ceremony was one of the first events held in the new ministry building.