On Friday, 16 April 2010, we had our yearly prize giving ceremony. During this ceremony, we honoured our best Computer Science students of the past year. Our dean, Prof Eugene Cloete, the chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Prof Ingrid Rewitsky, representatives from S1 and IBM, as well as student and staff members from Computer Science, attended this function.
We presented three prizes. The first prize, the Van der Walt medal, was presented to Niel de Wet for being the best undergraduate student. We averaged the marks for all the undergraduate modules (1st to 3rd year) to find the best student. Together with this medal, Niel also received a cash prize of R5000 sponsored by S1.
We also presented the prize for the best BSc(Hons) project to Gideon Redelinghuys. The IBM-prize, named after its sponsor, carries a monetary value of R5000.
The best MSc student in the Faculty of Science for 2009 is also a computer scientist. Morné Charmberlain was awarded this prize at the end of last year, but we took the opportunity to celebrate with him.
We presented the Van der Walt medal for the first time this year. The medal is named after Prof Andries van der Walt. He was a professor at Computer Science and sadly passed away in 2008. We were really privileged to have his family, in particular his wife, Mrs Nettie van der Walt, at the prize giving ceremony.
We would like to express our gratitude to S1 and IBM for their generous contributions to our day of celebration.