LEADING CHANGE FOR
HUMANITY
Driven by the allure of the unknown and the wonder of the
night sky, Adriana has spent over a decade in academia and
ultimately did her PhD in quantum biology. Through this, she
realised that humans are a long way off from understanding
what life is. She believes that an important step to figuring
this out would be to find examples of life beyond Earth. So,
she decided to focus on exploration beyond Earth. In 2019,
she founded Proudly Human, to take up the challenge of
developing solutions to live off-world, while applying the
knowledge to improving humanity.
"Our population is skyrocketing, our society is
consuming more resources, and yet we live on
a finite planet that is buckling under the strain.
Climate change, extinctions, pandemics, inequality
and conflict are some of the results."
But despite these earthly challenges, she also believes that there
is a lot to be excited about, things like connectivity and data that
allow us to share ideas with people anywhere on the planet, the
space industry which had three successful missions to Mars this
year and the possibility of humans travelling to Mars this decade.
She wants to apply the strategies for living in extreme off-world
conditions to improve standards of living for people living in
harsh conditions on Earth. See you on Mars Adriana!
DR ADRIANA MARAIS
THEORETICAL PHYSICIST, TECHNOLOGIST
AND FOUNDER OF PROUDLY HUMAN
FROM KING WILLIAMS TOWN
CHANGING THE STATUS QUO
Tumi didn't grow up wanting to become one of South Africa's first female Commercial
Pilots, but an opportunity to job shadow at SAA inspired her at the age of 16 to dream
big despite zero female representation.
Tumi has been relentless in her pursuit of change, even when her High School Principal
told her "You will never become a pilot" she kept going. She applied for an internship and
beat out 40 other candidates to get in. Her mom joined a stokvel to pay for her studies.
Flight school runs on a pay-as-you-go basis totally at over R300 000, so every time
money ran out, Tumi's training was grounded. She was also the only female. But that
didn't set Tumi back, she took to writing over 100 motivational letters to every
brand she could thínk of to get a sponsorship. Only one brand replied, and still,
she kept going. She raised money with a raffle, which got shut down by the
National Lottery and still she kept on. While she worked a full-time job as a
receptionist to help pay for flying school, a friend and colleague phoned
94.7 and put Tumi's story forward for the Christmas Wish. This led to a
large sponsorship and allowed her to complete her qualification and
get to graduation where she was also awarded Commercial Pilot
Student of the Year. She is one in less than 5% of female pilots
Autzavla
in our country today.
Tumi is leading change by showing girls that they can do
whatever they want, even when all the odds are against
them. She also gives back through her NPO, by bringing
Aviation to Previously disadvantaged kids.
BOITUMELO (TUMI) KATISI
COMMERCIAL PILOT FROM SOWETO
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