The South African Chapter of System Dynamics successfully hosted its Stream 1 competition from the 15th to the 29th of April. This engaging event was designed to promote a sustainable fishing industry, with participants taking part in various activities to enhance their understanding of the subject matter. iSee Systems graciously provided workshop licenses for the course duration, enabling exciting and exponential learning through iSee Stella, as well as the stream prize. During the first session, attendees worked on constructing the Fish Banks simulation, which served as the foundation for the competition. In the following sessions, participants explored policies and changes to the system and shared their learning lessons with each other.
The second session of the competition focused on providing individual support to each participant, addressing their specific struggles and questions. This personalized approach fostered an inclusive and collaborative environment, enabling attendees to gain a deeper understanding of the concepts and apply their learnings effectively.
The final presentation allowed all participants to share their work and their learning experiences during the competition. Alaize Dall’Orsoletta emerged as the competition’s winner, impressing the judges with her exceptional skills and understanding of system dynamics. Alaize’s accomplishments included identifying an operational threshold for ship selling, demonstrating mastery of equations and models, and effectively using sensitivity analysis. Her ability to ask, hypothesize, test, and iterate mental and simulation models further shows her excellence. Alaize also showcased her awareness of limitations within models, embodying the famous quote by George Box: “All models are wrong, some are more wrong than others, some are useful.”. We also had terrific insights from Denver Moodley, Tesfaye Gashaw and Ahmed Amin – each of you will receive personal feedback for your work. Let us all take a moment to congratulate Alaize! You will receive your prize from iSee Systems, who will contact you shortly. Well deserved!
