Witsie named in TIME100 AI list for 2025
- Wits Alumni Relations
Professor Benjamin Rosman acknowledged for his ambition “to crazy-idea our way out of problems”.
Professor Benjamin Rosman (BSc 2007, BSc Hons 2008, BSc Hons 2009), the founding director of Wits’ Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute, has been named among TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence (AI)” for 2025.
Rosman, who is also a professor of computer science and applied mathematics, is celebrated for his work in building Africa’s AI community and his ambition that the continent can be a global leader in AI development. He is also an alumnus of the Institute of Perception, Action and Behaviour at the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh.
The list was launched in 2023 with the aim to ensure “the direction AI travels will be determined not by machines but by people: innovators, advocates, artists, and everyone with a stake in the future of this technology”.
Rosman is listed among the “thinkers” category. He co-founded both the Deep Learning Indaba, an annual gathering for Africa’s AI community, and Lelapa AI, a company developing AI for African language, because he rejects the assumption that Africa can only contribute to the field by building applications or contributing data. Fellow Witsies Pelonomi Moiloa (BSc Eng BM 2014, BSc Eng Elec 2015) and Shakir Mohamed (BSc Eng 2005, MSc Eng 2007) were included in the 2023 inaugural list.
The MIND Institute is an interdisciplinary research hub that gathers 34 fellows from across the university to address fundamental questions in both artificial and natural intelligence. The institute brings together a diverse group of experts, including computer scientists, neuroscientists, philosophers, and artists, to explore the many facets of intelligence. This unique, multidisciplinary approach is designed to foster “radically new ideas” and solve problems in innovative ways.
MIND runs workshops and sometimes facilitates funding for those fellows in pursuit of moonshot projects ranging from elephant communication to studies on how culture mediates robot-human interaction. “We need to crazy-idea our way out of problems,” he tells the magazine.
The Institute recently received a $1 million grant from Google to expand its research capabilities and add more academics and projects. Rosman believes this funding will help the institute reach a critical mass, enabling it to produce groundbreaking work. It aims to expand its ambit to encompass scholars from other universities in Africa and abroad.
Rosman says the goal is make MIND – and by extension Africa – “an intellectual hub in its own right and hopes similar institutes will be birthed across the continent. “It’s not that there’s anything wrong with stuff developed elsewhere,” he says. “But if Africa’s not involved in the conversation, we’ve got problems.”
One of the institute’s key priorities is to create AI technologies better suited to the African context. The Mind Institute is also working to increase its engagement with industry and the public through initiatives such as an upcoming seminar series on AI and an AI literacy program. According to Rosman, fostering entrepreneurship around this technology is crucial to addressing the unique challenges facing the country.
Sources: TIME and Wits archive