Prof Bruton is a distinguished gentleman, who has the ability to captivate with his wit, humour and general knowledge. He is a world-history buff and a highly accomplished academic who could not be more proud to be South African.

So who is Mike Bruton? Hailing from East London in the Eastern Cape, Mike was educated at Rhodes University, where he obtained MSc and PhD degrees in ichthyology (the zoological study of fish). After completing a postdoc year at the Natural History Museum in London and carrying out research in museums in Europe, he returned to Grahamstown – where he established the Department of Ichthyology & Fisheries Science at Rhodes University and became director of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity.

Grabbing the opportunity to come to Cape Town, Mike joined the team that established the Two Oceans Aquarium at the V&A Waterfront and then launched what today is known as the Cape Town Science Centre. After spending several years establishing science centres and museums in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the Middle East, he retired to Cape Town in 2015, where he set up consultancy company Mike Bruton Imagineering. At heart, the Prof will probably always be a science educator, though not in the conventional sense.

His father was an artist and his mother a dressmaker and craftswoman. There was always a a space for creativity, even in science. It is something he has always encouraged in his students. That is what brings a scientific conversation with Mike to life in a way that not even National Geographic could.
What brought on this book? When the Prof founded the MTN ScienCentre in Cape Town in 2000, he recognised that a key element of any successful science centre was raising awareness of innovations, particularly local ones. In 2004, he created an exhibition called Great South African Inventions, which travelled throughout the country. The exhibition even went as far as Japan and travelled for an incredible 14 years. Ultimately, the carefully curated contents of the exhibition paved the way for him to write What a Great Idea.

Any discussion with such a passionate scientist and educator soon turns to South Africa’s children and the future of education in our country. It is refreshing to find a positive voice, particularly at a time when we are bombarded with statistics and international reports that rank South Africa among the lowest when it comes to the quality of maths and science education. “Children all over the world have the same curiosity about science. The difference is that some children are exposed to an environment that stimulates that curiosity and develops it further, while scores of children, particularly in Africa, simply don’t have access to that environment,” says Bruton. A sterling example of such an environment is the Centre of Science and Technology (Cosat) in Khayelitsha, where many children are thriving in a space that stimulates their curiosity about science and technology.

SANRAL has for years been supporting this school with scholarships for budding scientists whose results, amid huge social and economic obstacles, are nothing short of astounding. Imagine the possibilities if more children had access to similar environments.

We are fortunate to have citizens like Prof Mike Bruton, who roll up their sleeves and use their knowledge to make life better for others – including telling the stories of our greatest successes. What a Great Idea is most certainly not the end of the road for Mike. There are rumours of a sequel on African inventions (but these could neither be confirmed, nor denied). Watch this space.