Naledi Portia Thothela describes herself as an ambitious and performance-driven woman with a passion for technology and strong technical expertise.

Her journey at CUT started as a temp SAA in the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences. She later joined BCX company on a contract project, implementing the Justice accounts deposit system, where her real passion for IT developed. When the BCX project ended, she rejoined CUT again as SAA in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering. Whilst there, she realised that she wanted to be in IT, and in 2015, she traded her heels for sneakers and enrolled as a full-time IT student.

“I worked hard to fulfil my dream. I got Best Student Awards from my first year through to my honours. I was the 2018 Britehouse hackathon winner and the DHL Gradstar top 100, and when I completed, I left CUT with two job offers at Britehouse and Accenture, respectively. I worked for Accenture for almost 2 years and left the company to go on a CUT student exchange program in Germany in 2021 while studying towards my masters. On my return, CUT welcomed me as a part-time lecturer in the Department of Information Technology. A year later, I was employed as a full lecturer in the same department.”

Naledi confessed that she has a passion for teaching and empowering others. “Lecturing is my calling. It gives me a platform to empower, influence and shape future leaders. Nothing is more fulfilling than seeing change in life that you impacted positively. What I love most is the challenge to learn new things constantly. Continuous learning appeals to me. You have to love it to do it, you have to give it your full commitment otherwise you will be miserable.

Asked why she chose academia over Industry, she said “I have found myself a home at CUT, I will be gone for a short while only to find myself back on campus again and again. Apart from feeling like CUT is my home, I can identify with its vision and am honoured to be a part of making sure that it is realised! CUT empowers its employees and affords them the opportunity to grow and develop to the better. I’m studying towards my PGDip in higher education so that I can become a better lecturer and CUT is paying for my studies,” she said proudly.

Naledi’s area of research specialisation is in smart agriculture. Her reason for choosing the field of study is that she believes that life can come to a halt without agriculture and as IT specialists, they must come up with smart innovations to support its sustainability “Agriculture is the most important aspect of any economy, and it contributes significantly to the element of food security. Smart agriculture is future will likely be characterised by increased automation, advanced data analytics, connectivity, sustainability, and improved decision-making capabilities. These advancements have the potential to revolutionise the agricultural industry, enabling farmers to produce higher yields, reduce costs, minimise environmental impact, and ensure global food security.”

On her growth path and plans, she said her career has grown from good to best and the cherry on top is that her daughter is studying at CUT on the beneficiary bursary. “I am grateful in many ways. This is an opportunity one should embrace because many youth are out there without these kinds of opportunities. I am looking forward to starting my PhD in next year (2024) and hope to be a professor in five years afterwards. I always strive to be the better version of myself and be my best competition.”

When asked about the challenges she came across in achieving her career success, she said, “I am yet to see my career success, but one of the challenges I have experienced was the adjustment from industry to academe, but I would not say it was major challenge,” she smiled.

Uploaded: 30 June 2023