About Dumisani Nqobile Ndaba

1988 -2016

Hailing from KZN, Dumisani was one of the original ACCESS bursars (Master’s degree), and has been one of the longest serving students in the HPW programme and moreover one of the most passionate and dedicated. Dumi was a great character, larger than life, the centre of attention, good-looking, affable, a friend to everyone, enthusiastic, serious about his work, ambitious and full of potential as an emerging researcher, making his passing all that much more tragic.

To cut a long story short, if there was any new HPW initiative in the years from 2011-2016, Dumisani was involved in some capacity. He first joined the programme as a participant at the workshop in Grahamstown in 2011, while he was an undergraduate at UKZN. Dumisani was then one of the first cohort of HPW alumni to train as core lecturers at the first “teachers” training weekend, held in Laangebaan later that year. Despite his discipline, Town Planning, having little or nothing to do with astronomy, nor coming from a numerical background, Dumisani chose the HPW talk which calculates and compares the effective temperatures of various planets: “not too hot”. He was a natural at it. His lectures broke the complicated concepts down through the lens of a loveable idiot who didn’t know anything about astronomy or maths: himself(!). Often amusing, but without diluting the science, his lectures were instantly popular with the HPW participants. He went on to lecture at several workshops, notably the first international one in Namibia. There was a time where I couldn’t envisage running a workshop without Dumisani delivering “Not too hot” as the 2nd talk in the programme.

When the first online version of the course was developed (2014) it was only natural that he gave the “Not too hot” lecture. In the same year he also took a lead role in the first HPW promotional video. By this time he had moved to Pretoria, graduated from UP and taken up an internship at the CSIR. Not to be content with just inspiring students at tertiary level, Dumi got together with other Planeteers based in Gauteng to plan and run the first mini-HPW schools outreach programme in the region. In recent years he had taken a back seat in the programme, to let the next generation take over “not too hot”, but still joined the recent VUT workshop, brining a group of alumni from his schools programme with him to experience the “grown ups” workshop for themselves.

Dumisani also made a huge contribution to the workshops' spirit with his continual good humour and positive attitude, that both made him popular with the students and an asset to have on any project above and beyond his material contribution. Coming from humble beginnings and with no financial support from his family for his studies, Dumisani was also continually broke. At the Namibian Habitable Planet workshop he stayed in every night, rather than going out with the group for dinner, in order to save money. He was however charming enough to always manage to persuade someone to stay behind and keep him company; usually someone female! One more serious outcome of him supporting himself through his education, however, was that he choice to buy a motorbike, not though a love of two wheels, but as the only economical means of independent travel around Pretoria. It was a decision that ultimately proved fatal.

Dumisani died tragically in a motorbike accident on the 18th December 2016.

Let his passing also be something to learn from, which is most likely how he would want it to be – take risks where necessary, but remain careful and vigilant so that we can enjoy our contribution to our society in its fullest way. To conclude on a positive note, the founder of ACCESS, Prof. George Philander, who met Dumisani at several ACCESS events, wrote “We can find solace in knowing that Dumisani will continue to be with us because his considerable contributions will always be evident in the success of the Habitable Planet Workshops. Each Planeteer is the beneficiary of Dumisani's efforts, and can find inspiration in what he accomplished. We have to keep that spirit alive.”

• Dr Carl Palmer, ACCESS Education and Training Manager