Meet Dawid Potgieter: Researching consciousness to treat pain and mental health

When South Africans go out into the world, we like to hang on to them and remind ourselves that we come from the same soil. Elon Musk is probably the best example of this, but there are many others. In the sports world; typical South African surnames pop up in many other countries like the Labuschagne brother; Marnus plays cricket for Australia and who can miss the name Lappies Labuschagne who was in Japan’s very successful Rugby World Cup campaign, a team the Springbok's had to beat on the way to lifting the trophy. There is also CJ Stander who is a loose forward for Ireland. There are many South Africans who were capped in other countries including Kepler Wessels, Alan Lamb and Andrew Strauss to add to a long list. In the Bahamas, Saffer Dawid Potgieter is leading a new multi-million dollar funding initiative by the Templeton World Charity Foundation to try to find out one of the fundamental aspects of existence, our consciousness; a concept that science has not been able to explain. The aim of the research project is, as Dr Potgieter explained, is not only to find an explanation or a theory, but it is to determine whether machines could be conscious and to try find better answers to treating pain or mental health problems. – Linda van Tilburg