ABOUT GRAEME

Graeme Addison is a journalist, author of several books on popular science, and trainer of communication professionals. He is former Professor of Communication at the University of North West (1994-6) and former Head of the Department of Journalism and Public Relations at Technikon Natal (1993). As a specialist science writer he contributes a regular weekly column to Business Day on medical science and pharmaceuticals. He is also well known for assisting community newspapers to start up and run sustainably. Graeme ran the Sunday Times training and recruitment scheme (1996-8) and was a lecturer in journalism at Rhodes University during earlier in his career (1976-81). He is currently head of the Vaal Cybercentre in North West Province, managing research projects and writing for print and Internet.

Graeme is best known for several books on South Africa’s history of innovations, including the Edge Series: Innovation Nation, comprising The Hidden Edge (1900-2000), The Leading Edge (1994-2000), and The Competitive Edge: Creating Innovations. The latter is a textbook for business schools explaining how to plan a firm’s innovation strategy. He runs workshops on entrepreneurship and innovation for corporate managements.

He holds a BA in Economics from Wits University (1968) and honours in Eng.Lit from Unisa (1972),  started his career in 1968 as a newspaper reporter on the Cape Times, and worked for the Rand Daily Mail, The World, The Star, London Evening Standard, Sunday Tribune and Sunday Times. In the 1970s he lectured in journalism at Rhodes University, launching the first science writing course there. He gained an MA in Journalism  (Cum Laude) for a thesis on wartime censorship under apartheid which was immediately suppressed under the Official Secrets Act. In 1982 he was appointed Senior Fellow on contract to design and set up the first issue of The Social Indicator magazine at the Centre for Applied Social Sciences at the University of Natal.

He quit media to become marketing director and owner of an outdoor adventure company, Rivermen/Trailblazers (1981-88). On the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 he returned to journalism and media training. Since then, Graeme has won numerous Mondi and Pica awards for freelance feature journalism, and has twice been runner-up in the national science writing awards sponsored by the National Research Foundation. He is a commentator on media and marketing communications, writing for The Media and Marketing Journal.

Today he runs the Vaal Cybercentre, a research and publishing enterprise at the Vaal River. He is the author of White Water:The World's Wildest Rivers (Struik: 2000) and Whitewater Rafting (Struik: 2000). His consultancy, Editorial Assignments, provides publishing services, designs websites, and convenes and runs media courses for corporate editors and journalists in South Africa and further afield in Africa.