Prof. Mishack T. Gumbo was invited as a keynote speaker at the Management and Social Justice Conference, which took place from 6-8 March 2025. The conference, themed The Role of Technology in Management for Justice, was held at New York's New School University’s Parsons School of Design in Marshalltown, USA.

Prof. Mishack T. Gumbo and Prof. Latha Poonamallee

The conference attracted a diverse group of delegates, including presenters from various institutions. The significance of the event lay in its focus on social justice from a technological perspective, with presentations that intersected with Decolonisation and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS). It was this alignment that led Prof. Latha Poonamallee (the founder of the conference) to invite Prof. Gumbo. While academic profiles are easily accessible online, Prof. Gumbo was curious to know how Prof. Poonamallee had found his work, given the vast number of scholars available on these platforms. She explained that she discovered his work on ResearchGate and highlighted this in her invitation letter, stating: "Your work on indigenous technology will be most appreciated by our audience and the New School community in general".

At the conference, Prof. Gumbo presented on Indigenous Tech Management and Education: A Social Justice Question. His address sparked significant interest in IKS and led to promising collaboration opportunities. The New School has also taken steps to embrace IKS, by advertising two academic vacancies specifically targeting Indigenous scholars.

For Prof. Gumbo, the invitation and participation in the conference not only served as personal recognition but also as an opportunity to showcase the Department of Science and Technology Education (DeSTE) visible on the international stage. Delegates learned about Prof. Gumbo’s academic profile and, by extension, about DeSTE as his home department.

**By Mahlako Chuene