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AI & “Information” in Pandemic Times

To disseminate this information, the Data Science for Social Impact research group at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, has worked on curating and applying publicly available data in a way that is computer readable so that information can be shared to the public – using both a data repository and a dashboard. Through collaborative practices, a variety of challenges related to publicly available data in South Africa came to the fore. These include shortcomings in the accessibility, integrity, and data management practices between governmental departments and the South African public. In this paper, solutions to these problems will be shared by using a publicly available data repository and dashboard as a case study.  And also  Constraints inspire creativity in data science. Vukosi Marivate of the University of Pretoria talks about doing NLP with low-resource languages, and shares how a growing multinational collaboration is shaping the future of data science in Africa through innovation.

Additional Resources

  • Marivate, V. (2020). A repo and dashboard for COVID-19 in South Africa. [online] Vukosi Marivate’s Website. Available at: https://www.vima.co.za/2020/03/18/covid19za-dashboard-how-why/ 
  • Vukosi Marivate's Website – Tomorrow has never been brighter…. (vima.co.za)
  • In 2020 Dwolatzky launched his own podcast series entitled “Optimizing: Leading Africa’s Digital Future”. This podcast and other thought leadership content is available on the website Dwolatzky launched at http://thegrandgeeks.africa/ 

  • Francis, J.M., Myers, B., Nkosi, S., Petersen Williams, P., Carney, T., Lombard, C., Nel, E. and Morojele, N. (2019). The prevalence of religiosity and association between religiosity and alcohol use, other drug use, and risky sexual behaviours among grade 8-10 learners in Western Cape, South Africa. PLOS ONE, 14(2), p.e0211322.

  • Senderowicz, L., Pearson, E., Hackett, K., Huber-Krum, S., Francis, J.M., Ulenga, N. and B?rnighausen, T. (2021). “I haven’t heard much about other methods”: quality of care and person-centredness in a programme to promote the postpartum intrauterine device in Tanzania. BMJ Global Health, [online] 6(6), p.e005775. Available at: https://gh.bmj.com/content/6/6/e005775 

 

Vukosi Marivate

UP ABSA Chair of Data Science - University of Pretoria, Co-Founder Deep Learning Indaba. Principal Investigator, Masakhane NLP. Data Science and Natural Language Processing Researcher. Vukosi Marivate holds a PhD in Computer Science (Rutgers University) and MSc; BSc in Electrical Engineering (Wits University). He is currently based at the University of Pretoria as the ABSA Chair of Data Science. He works on developing Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence methods to extract insights from data. A large part of my work over the last few years has been in the intersection of Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (due to the abundance of text data and the need to extract insights). As part of my vision for the ABSA Data Science chair, he is interested in Data Science for Social Impact, using local challenges as a springboard for research. In this area, he has worked on projects in science, energy, public safety and utilities. He is an organiser of the Deep Learning Indaba, the largest Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence workshop on the African continent, aiming to strengthen African Machine Learning. He is passionate about developing young talent, supervising MSc and PhD students and mentoring budding Data Scientists.





Prof. Barry Dwolatzky

Barry Dwolatzky is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering at Wits University. He is the founder and Director of the University’s Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE). He is also the founder of the Wits Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. In July 2021 he joined the Office of the Wits Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research and Innovation as the Director of Innovation Strategy.Dwolatzky’s undergraduate (BSc(Eng)) and postgraduate (PhD) degrees in Electrical Engineering are both from Wits. In 1979, he left South Africa and worked in the UK as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), Imperial College London, and at the GEC-Marconi Research Centre. Over this period, he worked on a number of large software research and development projects. Dwolatzky returned to Wits from the UK as a Senior Lecturer in 1989, and became a Full Professor in 2000.



 

Dr Joel Francis

Doctor Joel Francis MSc, PhD, MD Epidemiology, Implementation Science, HIV, Alcohol use, Mental Health, NCD. Dr Francis is a medical doctor, epidemiologist, and researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand, School of Clinical Medicine, Department of Family Medicine, and Primary Care. Prior to joining WITS, he worked as a research scientist with the National Institute for Medical Research in Tanzania and a research fellow with the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University. He holds a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree (equivalent to MBBCh) from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and an MSc in Epidemiology from Harvard University, USA, and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of London (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), UK.

He engages in 1) Research supervision and mentorship of undergraduate, Master, and Ph.D. candidates in Epidemiology, Family Medicine, and Public Health. 2) Public health research - areas of interest HIV, Alcohol and Other Drug Use, Mental Health, Implementation Science and Epidemiology (Surveys, Case-Control Studies, Cohort studies, Systematic review and meta-analysis, Cluster Randomized Trials, Randomized Control Trials).



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