University of KwaZulu-Natal

The city, as you well know, is dealing with violent anti-immigration protests, murder, looting and serious questions about public safety.

In that respect, I want to talk to Professor Brij Maharaj from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

He's a professor of geography and he specializes in urban governance and local economic development.

And a very simple question, Professor, and welcome to you.

Aubrey, I think as I indicated earlier, all the issues that you've raised in your opening comments is what we can resonate with.

And hence, we did a very similar initiative at the University of KwaZulu-Natal where we made a donation and we'll obviously talk about it just now exactly what we did.

But I did not know Nabila.

I mean, I'm in Durban.

Yeah, so as I mentioned, the Space Agency, the Observatory, and then in industry, we have a company called ESL.

ASRI is based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and they are developing rockets.

for our own launch capability in South Africa.

And Petrowell, they've completed all our composite materials.

No, no, no.

So when I went to Natal University, my first year there, when I looked at my results in the first semester, there was this part one company.

that was attracted when they saw the result, and they gave me actually a scholarship.

The company is called Afrox.

that.

We met at the optometry clinic at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, very briefly engaged.

Yes, yes.

But really, I've watched your journey from a distance.

Uh, my, uh, uh, father then went to complete a BA in 1965, um, majoring in, uh, economics and private law at what was then called the University College of Durban.

Later it became, we know, uh, the University of Durban-Westville, and today the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

And, uh, uh, my Marhum father would always joke and explain how he had fancy ambitions, uh, of going to study at Lincoln's Inn in London to become a barrister there, and the next thing he knew was that, uh, his elder brother, uh, Amajee Dockrat, you know, who, who, who, uh, who was also a very influential person in our community, uh, he at that time had made arrangements for my father to go, uh, and, and he put him onto the, uh, the, the, uh, to, to the station, got him onto a train, and, uh, uh, and, and sent him off to Durban to study there.

At that time, the university was situated on Salisbury Island.