07 Apr BHA educator invited to judge at the Lux Futurum Awards – April 2025 Newsletter

We are very proud to announce that Daniel Hammond, lighting designer at BHA Lighting Design & Consulting, and educator at BHA School of Lighting, has been invited to adjudicate at this year’s Lux Futurum awards. LuFu is an opportunity for ‘East meets West’ with visibility going both ways and is produced by Virtual Lighting Design Community (VLDC) in conjunction with the Zhu Rong Team.

Lux Futurum is a global recognition program that actively looks to identify, explore and promote future-oriented concepts, products and projects that are pushing the boundaries of design, thinking, technology and innovation in lighting design. ‘LuFu’ honours ingenuity, originality, forward-thinking, and impactful contributions towards the future of lighting design while addressing important global issues.

Daniel joins the esteemed jury panel, comprising renowned experts in lighting design, technology, and sustainability, and they will carefully evaluate each entry based on its originality, creativity, technical merit, and potential impact on the future of lighting design. He is joined by international experts Claudia Paz, Faraz Izhar, Jinkie de Jesus, Ju Li, Lauren Dandridge & Karen Owens. You can meet the entire panel of judges and get to know them by following the link here.

As the 2nd edition of LuFu begins, the programme is looking forward to a heightened level of excitement from all our entrants who would like to enter their future-oriented concepts, products and projects. This year, it is expected to see even more innovative and visionary submissions that showcase the latest trends and advancements in lighting design. Whether you’re an established professional or an emerging talent, LuFu provides a unique platform to showcase your work, network with industry peers, gain international recognition and we encourage all our students and followers to find out more about the entry requirements at https://luxfuturum.com/en/page/submit.

The winners of LuFu will receive a prestigious award, global visibility, and access to exclusive networking opportunities. But more than that, they will be part of a community that is shaping the future of lighting design and contributing to a brighter, more sustainable world.

So, if you have a revolutionary lighting concept, product, or project that deserves global recognition, don’t hesitate to submit your entry to LuFu 2025. Join the ranks of the world’s most innovative and forward-thinking lighting professional, and be part of this journey that is illuminating the future of lighting!

The Principal’s Pen

Greetings to our readers. We hope that 2025 is a great year for you so far.

It is more important than ever, not to be distracted by events within our own beautiful country, South Africa, and around the world. If you become fixated on world events, you will be confused and lose sight of your own business objectives. My message to you is – keep focused and keep abreast of the technological developments in the lighting environment.

I hope that those of you who attended our most recent webinar found the information interesting and useful. It is wonderful that as humans we are privileged to have been blessed with photoreceptors that enable us to perceive colour. Remember that nothing in the world around us has any colour whatsoever, we only perceive (see) colour because of the amazing eyes that we have. During the webinar, we only touched on a small part of the wonders of colour. Perhaps I could consider expanding on the fascination and importance of colour to lighting designers and for the clients alike. Let me know what you think, but for now you can watch the webinar presentation here.

In other news, I am thrilled to be mentoring Lally Widelska from Bristol in the United Kingdom every week.  Lally is a Silhouette Awards Winner. We are both enjoying and benefitting from the journey already. It is a real thrill to mentor such a happy smiling lady and contribute to her lighting education, elevate her skills and processes to a much higher level of professionalism to be able to approach clients rather than be beholden to a single lighting company. From experience, the priority lighting manufacturer or distributor companies dictate what products to use to replace on one for one for old technology lighting products with scant or no regard for standards and compliance.

Now for some info about how AI is making an impact in our business as it continues to make inroads into all aspects of business. Can you afford to “wait and see” how it develops? My honest answer to you is you need to start getting hands on.

Last month I told you that I was going to attend a webinar on XMind. Well, it is amazing and incredible to learn and study. I use Mind-Mapping for so many purposes including preparing the structure for content when writing course manuals, for planning and preparing to write articles for publication, for business planning, planning and preparation of webinars, project management and the preparation of the content of important letters or contracts. Another great feature of XMind is that you and anyone that you have shared it with, can collaborate with each other in real time.

In our business we use a modern accounting package which has incredibly good reporting and user-friendly processes. The system is called Xero Accounting. A new feature was released just this week as I was preparing this newsletter. It is absolutely brilliant! Xero has introduced their version of AI named JAX.  JAX can help you automate tasks related to invoicing and quotes within Xero. You can create draft invoices and quotes, add line items, approve and send invoices (with due dates), and learn about your invoices, such as outstanding payments. You can use JAX to send communication via SMS, WhatsApp, and email to outstanding debtors to follow-up on their payments, although some features may be limited outside of Xero. It’s currently in beta and is continuously evolving to add more functionalities.

Those of us who regularly make use of AI are discovering more and more reasons to make greater use of AI in our businesses. I urge readers not to be left behind. Start your discovery of AI as soon as possible. Give your chosen AI a name and similarly let your AI know your name. See your AI as an extra employee!

I have been preparing not only to discover how AI can be supportive to our business, but mainly to be prepared for some exciting developments that are already happening in the lighting industry and for what is to come with the inclusion of AI in lighting design software.

Finally for some student and course news. It is a challenge to mark the assignments of Second-Year students promptly so that they can continue their exciting lighting journey without delay. Marking Second-Year content is very time consuming because there is a lot of detail and complexity in every assignment, however it gives us great pleasure to see our students harness their potential and create amazing lighting designs and system infrastucture.

We congratulate those students who have passed their First-Year examinations and have progressed to Second Year.  You will be astounded at what you will learn during Second Year lifting your knowledge and ability to new high levels. Excitement is also building as some of students working through Module 28 are now at the stage where they start preparing for the Second-Year Final Examinations.

Good luck to both First Year, and Second Year students, as they prepare for the final examinations for their respective years. It is an exciting time for the students and equally exciting for us to watch them progress, especially when they graduate.

With best regards

Philip Hammond

Upcoming Events

This April we will not be hosting a webinar due to the number of public holidays in South Africa, however watch this space for some exciting news about webinars and a lineup of international expert guest speakers, which we will be annoucing in the near future.

April Student Birthdays

Happy Birthday to the following past & present students celebrating their birthdays this month of April 2025! We hope you all have an amazing day!

Stuart Spooner, Johannesburg, South Africa (Graduate) – 12 April
Melvin Chetty, Johannesburg, South Africa – 16 April
Robbie Cohen, Cape Town, South Africa (Graduate) – 16 April
Mark Storm, London, United Kingdom (Graduate) – 21 April
Mohamed Ameur Hizem, London, United Kingdom – 25 April
Leshmook Maharaj, Durban, South Africa (Graduate) – 27 April
Madura Kotkar, Pune, Mahashtra, India – 29 April

Welcome to our new BHA School of Lighting Students

Thandeka Mdunge, Durban, South Africa – BHASL003C19: Advanced Diploma in Illumination Engineering Course
Ibrahim Ayar, Kannur, Kerala, India – BHASL003C19: Advanced Diploma in Illumination Engineering Course
Gregory Michael Owen, Cape Town, South Africa – BHASL003C19: Advanced Diploma in Illumination Engineering Course
Charlton Opperman, Magaliesig, South Africa – BHASL003C19: Advanced Diploma in Illumination Engineering Course
Neha Doshi, Baramati, India – BHASL003C19: Advanced Diploma in Illumination Engineering Course
Thandeka Mdunge, Durban, South Africa – BHASL003C19: Advanced Diploma in Illumination Engineering Course
Benjamin Hafeni Kornelius, Ongwediva, Namibia – BHASL003C19: Advanced Diploma in Illumination Engineering Course
Jacobus Loubser, Pioled Lighting Durban South Africa – BHASL018: Relux Desktop Lighting Design Software Course

BHA School of Lighting Student Examinations

We wish the following students well, as they prepare for their First Year Examinations:

Lilitha Tuswa, Johannesburg South Africa
Priyanka Praful, Bangalore, India
Petrus Cilliers, Centurion, South Africa
Pablo Albarello, Cape Town, South Africa

We wish the following student well, as they prepare for their Second Year Examinations:

Nicole Farman, Chicago, United States of America

Congratulations to BHA School of Lighting Students

Shane Language, Johannesburg, South Africa on the successfully passing the first year examinations of the Advanced Diploma in Illumination Engineering course.

Sirshti Anand, Dubai, United Arab Emirates on the  successful completion of the Foundation Lighting Course.

Join a Professional Lighting Institution or Community

We encourage all of our Advanced Diploma in Illumination Engineering students to apply for student membership for little or no fees at local and international professional lighting institutions and lighting network communities. By becoming a member you will gain access to further study material, courses, workshops, webinars & stipends.

BHA School of Lighting is proud to be affiliated with the the International Association of Lighting Designers, the Institute of Lighting Professionals, the Virtual Lighting Design Community, The Lighting Police, Women in Lighting and the Illumination Engineering Society of South Africa.

Find more info about each organisation and community here.

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