College of Human Sciences

First prize for African writing contest awarded to a Unisan

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Offered by the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law (CIPIT) under Kenya’s  Strathmore University, the inaugural junior and professional writing competition gives Africans an opportunity to submit their best competitive works. Dr Shadrack Katuu, a research fellow in the Department of Information Sciences from the College of Human Sciences (CHS) won first place in the professional writing category.

Winning the competition for Katuu signifies the importance of holding your head up high especially during tough times. He says: “It is important to invest deeply in your work and to always maintain the highest level of integrity.”

Dr Shadrack Katuu (Research Fellow: CHS)

Katuu was excited and felt highly honoured to receive such an important award from CIPIT. “I am grateful for the recognition I have received for my work because I am sure that there were other nominees for this award that would have been as deserving,” adds Katuu who hails from Kenya.

He won after submitting a chapter entitled “Tapestry of the education and training landscape for archives and records management in Africa”, which he had contributed to the book Managing digital records in Africa, edited by Professor Mpho Ngoepe, Director of the School of Arts at Unisa. The purpose of the chapter was to provide an overview of the archives and records management education and training landscape in Africa. The chapter draws from research work conducted by the African team of the InterPARES Trust project led by Prof Ngoepe. The team members were fellow researchers from several African countries, including Botswana, Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Katuu’s submission contributes to the overall InterPARES Trust research project by providing historical context to national and regional efforts in African archives and records management programmes, as well as a discussion of a systems thinking approach to the further development of these programmes.

CIPIT is a think tank and training centre established in 2012 at Strathmore University in Kenya. Its mission is to study, create and share knowledge on the development of intellectual property and information technology, especially as these fields of study contribute to African law and human rights. Its scope of work includes evidence-based research and training in intellectual property, information technology law, and policy. CIPIT launched the professional writing prize in 2021 to encourage scholarship focusing on a topic that affects Africa.

Congratulations Dr Katuu.

#TheWinningSchoolofArtsTeam

*By Tebogo Mahlaela, Communication and Marketing Specialist, College of Human Science

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Publish date: 2022-08-11 00:00:00.0

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