Self-made South African billionaire Mark Shuttleworth is helping to build up South Africa's science skills. Thirteen school children were handpicked for his HIP2B² education programme to make maths, science and technology hip. Some of them have already made their mark, like Simone Abramson, a straight-A Grade 11 Herzlia High School pupil who has patented a new identification system that is set to replace fingerprinting. Simone represented South Africa at the International Science Expo in Beijing and attracted international interest with her method of identifying people by photographing the back of the eye. Her system involves taking pictures of the fundus using a Topcon Fundus camera. Measurements of the photograph are then taken and put into a formula to get a fundus identification number. It’s run through a computer programmme developed by Simone, to check that no two numbers are the same.
Another Grade 11 Cape Town pupil, James Gowan (16), has used his love of maths to trade on the stock market since he was 14. Pretoria Boys’ High School inventor Louis van Biljon (16) has patented a foot-operated tap and an electronic eye for the blind which beeps when the wearer is close to a danger spot. He is is also working on an electric toothbrush cleaner and a resealable can. Effingham Secondary pupil Senaly Singh (15), a maths whiz and vice-president of Teenagers Against Drugs, has used maths as a formula to show how people fall in love.
