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When imagination becomes real and the real, imaginary
THE 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, artifi cial 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 off ered by UWC’s Department of Computer Science in collaboration with immersive technology company, EON Reality. Using high-end infrastructure, students learn the fundamental
concepts of an immersive technology ecosystem before using computer science, information systems and project management skills to design and deploy functional AR/VR software solutions to a selected problem.
The Postgraduate Diploma in Computer and Media Applications (e-Logistics) equips graduates to apply the statistics, business intelligence, computational techniques and data management capabilities of large data sets (big data) to complex real-world problems in supply chain and logistics businesses.
The new MCom Information Management degree addresses the shortage of research in big data analytics in South Africa by exploring innovative ways to transform raw data to better inform business processes and strategies.
The postgraduate diploma in immersive technologies and the MCom degree launched in September 2018. The e-logistics diploma launched in August 2018 and the fi rst cohort graduated in 2019.
At the time of the launch, Professor Antoine Bagula, the head of the Department of Computer Science and an expert in the development of cyber systems frameworks, said: “UWC researchers are already well engaged and published in some of the fi elds related to the fourth industrial revolution, including the Internet of Things, artifi cial intelligence, machine learning, 5G and big data technologies. This diploma is therefore a natural evolution that complements the ongoing work at UWC.”
Many industries already benefi t from AR/ VR tech, including retail, mining, manufacturing, construction, engineering, logistics, fi nance, ITC and real estate. Simulation allows dangerous, real-world working scenarios to be recreated, allowing workers to practice in a safe, error-tolerable environment, and technology applications are often easily transferable between sectors.
Steel company ArcelorMittal, for example, commissioned a VR training simulation that assesses new recruits’ comfort with working at extreme heights. Similar tech could be used to test claustrophobia in trainee miners and divers, fear in fi refi ghters and police restraint in confrontations, and simulations can be developed to improve responses.
The technology is also rapidly developing in health care training applications, mostly to simulate operating theatres and surgical procedures, but also in cutting-edge physical therapy and psychotherapy.
VR psychophysiological evaluation tools are being developed in several countries, as well as AR technology to aid dental and maxillofacial surgery, virtual dental patients (including virtual teeth drilling) and VR anatomy simulations for training medical students. A programme in Malaysia is even developing AR software to teach pre-schoolers empathy.
Prof Mmaki Jantjies, a specialist in the teaching of STEM subjects and the use of technology in education at the Department of Information Systems, says there’s a huge digital divide to be considered in designing AR/VR courses.
“Most of South Africa’s school learners come from disadvantaged backgrounds and do not speak English as a mother tongue. Schools need properly maintained technical infrastructure to support online and offl ine access to digital resources, which is diffi cult for schools when they have many other fi nancial needs. Data costs are a major concern as is the need for continuous teacher training and technical support, including technology-infused learning experiences while they were studying,” she says.
