A South African scientist, at the University of Pretoria (UP), has been awarded the 2018 Olusegun Obasanjo Prize for Scientific Breakthrough and/or Technological Innovation. The award is made by the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), and covers the year 2018, for the award is biennial not annual. 

The winner is UP Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology Professor Daniël Christiaan de Wet Swanepoel, for his innovative work in the field of mobile health and tele-health, particularly with regard to audiology. In addition to the prestige, the prize brings with it $5 000 in cash.

“Congratulations to Prof Daniël Christiaan de Wet Swanepoel for achieving this feat,” highlighted AAS president Professor Felix Dapare Dakora. “This award is a testament to his ingenuity in audiology and his dedication to improving the quality of life of Africans suffering from hearing impairment.” 

“It is an honour to receive this prestigious award and it serves as a further inspiration to see access to healthy hearing become a reality for every African,” affirmed Swanepoel. The UP professor, who is also a senior researcher at the Ear Science Institute Australia, has 20 years of experience in ear and hearing research. He has gained wide international recognition, with more then 160 peer-reviewed articles, chapters in books and books.

His research is focused on using advances in information and communications technologies to research, develop and evaluate both innovative service delivery models and technologies, to improve the provision of ear and hearing care. The aim is to make ear and hearing health easier to access, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

“Prof. Swanepoel has pushed the boundaries in science to come up with innovative and impactful solutions to improve ‘ear and hearing’ care in Africa,” pointed out Dakora. “As I extend my congratulations to him, I also welcome him to our growing membership of Fellows.”

Swanepoel is the fourth South African scientist to win the prize since it was first awarded in 2011. The prize is named in honour of a former President of Nigeria, who sought to foster the development of African science and technology.