Annual Women in Innovation and Leadership dialogue tackles workplace power and purpose

Women in Innovation and Leadership hosted the annual dialogue at the CSIR International Convention Centre on 28 August 2026 under the theme “Leadership Beyond the Unknown: Women Redefining Work, Power and Purpose”. The dialogue, a collaboration between the Tshwane University of Technology and the City of Tshwane, featured speakers from academia and the public and private sectors.

Dr Vathiswa Papu-Zamxaka, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Engagement. In her welcome address, Tshwane Executive Mayor, Dr Nasiphi Moya, highlighted the role of technology in society, adding that data has become one of the most valuable resources in the world today.

“Behind every algorithm and every data set, there are people. If women are missing from data, laboratories, boardrooms, policy rooms, and other rooms where decisions are made, then the future we build will carry the blind spots of the past. We cannot afford that,” she said, imploring women to shape the future through active participation.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Engagement, Dr Vathiswa Papu-Zamxaka, expanded on the keynote address, saying that the question of who owns data, who controls it and who is represented in it is no longer a technical footnote.

“It is a question of power. For far too long, the rooms where the decisions were made were male-dominated,” adding that a quiet revolution is taking place as women claim their spaces in academia and the private and public sectors.

Dr Ntombifikile Mtshali, keynote speaker and CEO of Shout-It-Now, a non-profit organisation that provides youth-friendly reproductive health services in Gauteng and the North West, put the spotlight on menstrual justice. Dr Mtshali emphasised that it was an injustice that some girls missed school each month because they are menstruating and unable to afford sanitary products.

“If we can have free condoms in all the health facilities, what stops us from having free sanitary pads for girls who need them?” she asked.

The dialogue included panel discussions as well as musical and poetry performances by TUT’s Dr Rostislava Pashkevitch-Ngobeni.