Civil Engineering January-February 2022 | Vol 30 No 1

Civil Engineering January/February 2022 45 Innocentia has been recognised both locally and internation- ally, receiving multiple accolades for her contributions. She was recognised by the Mail & Guardian as one of the Top 200 Young South Africans in 2018, won the 2019 Young Engineer of the Year award in the SAICE Regional Awards and was announced as a winner in Accenture’s 2020 Rising Star Awards in the highly contested Construction and Industrial category. In the same year, Innocentia was named as one of fifty inspiring South African women in STEM careers. She was recently recognised globally by the Project Management Institute as one of the 50 Global Young Leaders of the Future. In 2021 she was a runner-up in the Standard Bank Top Women Awards in the Women in Science category for her work in advancing women. Innocentia is inspired by the phrase, “with the little suc- cess you have, build a longer table and not a taller fence.” She feels fortunate to have gained recognition in the industry at a relatively young age and believes in using her success to not only inspire others, but to empower them to achieve similar goals and more. HONORARY FELLOWSHIP An Honorary Fellow is a person of distinction whom SAICE wishes to honour because of their services to the Institution and the profession. A SAICE member for the past 52 years, Jan Holmes Viljoen Viljoen (Pr Eng) was honoured as the 2021 Honorary Fellow. Jan was born in Pretoria on 23 July 1945. He always wanted to be an engineer but lacked funding for his studies and began his working career as a clerk for the South African Railways, based at the Pretoria Railway Station. He saw an advertisement for bursaries to study civil engineering in 1963 and, after successfully applying to the University of Pretoria, was placed on study leave for four years. During his student years, he joined The South African Federation of University Students, which was assembled from the Engineering Student Associations of Engineering Faculties, and became Secretary of the Pretoria Chapter in 1967. He was also elected as Director of International Affairs for the National Federation for 1968. His duties included the identification and placing of overseas students with major companies in South Africa for practical technical skills training and representing South Africa at international conferences. After completing his studies, Jan was deployed at the South African Railways and Harbours (SAR&H) Soils Laboratory in Johannesburg where he was fortunate to work with the manager, Heinrich (Heinie) Rauch. He had the privilege of being involved in a number of projects including determining the rock line of Richard Bay’s Harbour (still to be developed), designing a pro- posed new railway line (electric traction) between Bethlehem and Kroonstad, and rerouting some sections of the existing railway line near Bank, due to the presence of recently discovered dolo- mitic areas. He went on to specialise in the construction of single and multi-level buildings on heaving clays. Jan joined consulting engineering firm Raymond Theron & Bouwer in 1969 and in July 1970 was requested to open a new office for the company in Kimberley. In 1976 the name of the firm was changed to Bouwer Viljoen Incorporated (BVI), a well-known entity in South Africa today. In 1973 Jan became a charter member of SAICE’s Northern Cape branch in Kimberley. He has been instrumental in reviving what is now the Kimberley branch, also chairing the branch committee. Jan was elected to the Kimberley City Council in 1978 where he served on the Financial Committee. He was later elected mayor for the period 1982 to 1983 and resigned from the Council in 1985. He was nominated by the Council to serve on the Committee of Helen Bishop Home, an orthopaedic after-care facility for children with disabilities, and still serves as member of the executive committee. He was a councillor on the Northern Cape Development Board between 1984 and 1986. Viljoen went on to represent the Association for Persons with Physical Disabilities at the Conference of the United Nations to determine the 22 standard rules on the equalisation of opportunities for persons with disabilities in Genève in June 1993. The Department of Water Affairs (DWA) appointed the Diamantveld District Council as the agent for the eradication of prosopis trees, which in turn appointed Jan to manage the project in the Northern Cape. TEBA appointed him as a rural development consultant to design and implement locally-based school building projects in the very rural areas of Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho and South Africa between 2003 and 2008. He supervised the DWA’s developmental projects in the Northern Cape under the deployment of the Development Bank of South Africa from October 2007 to September 2010. Supervision of the Municipal Infrastructure Grants and DWA funding to the 27 municipalities in the Northern Cape formed a major part of his duties and he served on various DWA com- mittees and has been a member of the Northern Cape’s Rapid Response Unit since 2010. As a mentor appointed by SAICE and the Municipality of Kimberley, Jan has mentored six candidates on behalf of ECSA. He was also employed by other agencies to mentor candidates for professional status. During the centenary of the Anglo Boer War (1999 to 2002) he was responsible for making the battlefields in and around Kimberley, the Free State, the North West and KwaZulu-Natal accessible to tourists and to facilitate signage directing and il- lustrating the battlefields. In addition, Jan was involved in the structural design of the National Archive buildings in Cape Town. He assisted with the resettlement of the Namibian Bushmen from Schmidtsdrift to Platfontein, a farm just outside Kimberley, and facilitated the purchase of that land and the establishment of the !Xu & Khwe community. His knowledge and extensive filing system often make him the go-to person if documentation is lacking when projects need to be extended or updated. He has been a member of the Kimberley Lions Club since 1976 and acted as the project manager for the development of the Re Tlameleng School, which was undertaken by the Lions. The school celebrated its 25 th year of existence in 2020. Jan also received the Melvin Jones award from Lions Clubs International in 2014 for his dedication to humanitarian service.  SAICE's newest Honorary Fellow, Jan Holmes Viljoen Viljoen