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360º PERSPECTIVES | ISSUE 7 | 2020/2021
When imagination becomes real and the real, imaginary
T
HE UNIVERSITY OF THE WESTERN CAPE
(UWC) strives to enhance students’ capacities to participate in and lead local and global work environments after graduating. To do so, our students must be enabled to use the latest technology to innovate and conceive new directions for technology, particularly in the digital sphere dubbed the fourth industrial revolution. Immersive technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are the leading edge of this revolution (AR superimposes computer-generated imaging over the real world while VR simulates real-world experiences). Although VR has been used in simulators since the 1960s to train military gunners, commercial pilots and astronauts, a new ecosystem for rapid AR/VR development has followed advances in
computer processing power, wide availability of smart mobile devices, faster internet, the advent of big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and robotics. UWC’s Department of Information Systems in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences and the Department of Computer Science in the Faculty of Natural Sciences have collaborated to develop three new courses to capacitate students to participate in this ecosystem. The programmes accommodate full-time and part-time students. The immersive technologies stream of the Postgraduate Diploma in e-skills is a one-year software development skills programme offered by UWC’s Department of Computer Science in collaboration with immersive technology company, EON Reality. Using high-end infrastructure, students learn the fundamental >>
