Three DUT staff members were honoured for excellence at the 3rd International Empowered Administrators’ Conference (EAC) on 11 and 12 September 2014.
The event was held at the Southern Sun Elangeni & Maharani Hotel and was hosted by the Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT).

Over the past two years, the EAC has been attended by more than 600 delegates in office administration, ranging from personal assistants, secretaries and/or administrators to CEOs, general managers, managing directors of corporations, universities and parastatals.

Philisiwe Maphumulo, Personal Assistant to the DVC: Technology Innovation and Partnerships at DUT, won the overall 2014 EAC Brand Ambassador Award. “I knew I had it in me to win because of my competences and personal attributes but did not expect it to actually happen. The competition was exciting, with some good competitors to go up against. The speakers at the conference were informative and really stirred and motivated one into action. It was also great to have the EAC affirm us as outstanding office executives”, she said.

Anusha Karamchand, Secretary in the Department of Community Health Studies at DUT won one award out of three categories at the event, including a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) valued at R8 500 for being the first to submit her application. The award was EAC Brand Ambassador 2014 Runner Up which she was awarded. The other two Awards MUT had were the Ubuntu Award and Customer Centricity Award.

“All administrators should run for this competition. It’s a self confidence and motivation builder”, she said. Karamchand said she owes her success to two of her colleagues and friends, these being Joy Kistnasamy who lectures in the Department of Community Health Studies and Moeti Kgware, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Environmental Health at MUT.

Kershni Dhavraj, runner-up for the Customer Centricity Award, was also ecstatic about her award. Dhavraj is the Secretary in the Department of Industrial Engineering at DUT. “It felt good to be recognised for all the hard work that we do at DUT and for going the extra mile to assist all our internal and external customers. It felt fantastic knowing that I was good enough to be selected through this strict process”, she said.

All three winners stated that they will participate in next year’s (2015) EAC event and hope more of their colleagues will also participate.

-Talent Buthelezi

Pictured: from left to right: DUT staff members Philisiwe Maphumulo, Anusha Karamchand and Kershni Dhavraj at the 2014 EAC event.