Wits could spawn the next tech giant. New VC explains how

WITS COULD SPAWN THE NEXT IBM, GOOGLE, NEW VICE CHANCELLOR EXPLAINS HOW

On 1 January 2021, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi assumed the office of Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg (Wits). Prior to his new role Vilakazi , who’s an expert in physics and nuclear research, was the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Postgraduate Studies at Wits.

He is credited for leading South Africa’s entry into the CERN research programme in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, the academic played a key role in establishing the $50-million IBM Research Laboratory at Wits incubator Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct, as well as securing the university’s place as the first academic partner in the development of practical applications through access to the IBM Quantum Computing network.

Vilakazi who describes startups as a subject he loves, told Synapse in a recent interview that he wants to make tech innovation and entrepreneurship a key focus of his tenure. “I really put that at the frontier of what will be the mission drivers of the university as I take the vice chancellorship. We need our graduates not to become employees, but to become employers. To have the ability to start their own companies,” he says.

He points out that last year, Wits spawned three profit-making startups. “They are small, largely focused around energy and health. And these companies are running at a profit because they’ve gone through the whole chain of researchers coming with an idea and then taking the idea to the next level cannot be done by a scientist or an academic. It needs someone who really has an understanding of managing the space,” he adds.

Silicon Valley in Braamfontein

He explains that the university wants not only its students, but other young entrepreneurs, to use infrastructure like the Tshimologong Digital Precinct in Braamfontein. “We have a space that is open to all youngsters and a few weeks just being in that kind of a creative space where they can come and experiment with ideas and take that idea to the next level,” he says.

The university also supports its entrepreneurs through the Wits Innovation Hub, a commercial enterprise through which it manages intellectual property of startups.

Vilakazi says Wits is looking to use Tshimologong to push digital and tech innovation in a “much more focused and dedicated way”. He envisions Braamfontein becoming the next biggest tech hub. “We want to convert that effectively into a sort of Silicon Valley. Start with an idea in a lab, tinker in a lab and then just go down the road, play with other entrepreneurs and test the idea out and let there idea go through. And I think we are moving at speed now.

In the next five years I want to see this scaled-up. Young people must learn, we must be a great attractor of venture capitalist, angel capital, risk-takers and change that culture of taking risk and inventing.

“Who knows maybe we could produce our own little IBM or little Google, who knows? But you’ve got to give it a try and I think that is how Africa can actually be a producer of tech not just a consumer of tech,” he says.

Vilakazi believes Wits’ location in the heart of Africa’s commercial centre and close to neighbouring University of Johannesburg means that the talent is there. He adds that the university’s proximity to the headquarters of major financial services makes for an ecosystem that is “ripe for that explosive potential to come out”. “You just need the right conditions in place, get the right spark to ignite the engine. I wish I was young, I’m excited about this,” he adds.

Spearheading AI innovation

Wits, he points out, has been a leader in Particle Physics research in South Africa. He explains that a group from The Institute for Collider Particle Physics at the University of the Witwatersrand has been working on modelling the spread of COVID-19 in Gauteng using AI techniques that they borrowed from the analysis of large datasets at CERN.

Vilakazi says the Wits Institute of Data Science (WIDS) -- which sits in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment is “one of the largest groups” of data scientists that have been put together under one umbrella.

The university also lays claim to the first African recipient of the Google Faculty Research Award in Machine Learning. In 2018, Dr Benjamin Rosman, an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics was granted the award for his research in decision making in autonomous systems.

Vilakazi says he wants to consolidate this expertise in AI, Machine Learning and data science to spearhead the university’s 21st century thrust in digital learning, digital innovation and the establishment of tech startups.

Collaboration is key

The key to Vilakazi’s vision are partnerships. An example of this is the one Wits has with Cirrus AI, a South African private sector-led initiative bringing together academia and industry to establish a worldclass AI research and application capability in Africa and beyond.

Vilakazi has also overseen Wits’ partnerships with companies like IBM and Amazon Web Services. Wits, he points out, hosts an IBM Researches Laboratory facility which is part of a network located in some of the leading universities in the US, Israel, Australia and Brazil. IBM only has one other research facility on the continent which is located in Nairobi, Kenya.

He explains that university has been working closely with IBM on AI and that it recently signed a partnership on developing quantum computing capabilities including and getting young people to code. This, while the institution is working on a “high-level” agreement on cloud services with AWS.

Besides it’s partnership with CERN, Wits is also the Africa strategic partner for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Vilakazi says Wits’ Faculty of Health Science also has a very good relationship with Vanderbuilt University around bioinformatics and precision medicine.

Closer to home, Wits is hosting a national data science platform for data engineers and scientists.

Addressing the talent gap

Wits, he says, aims to address South Africa’s skills shortage around AI, Machine Learning, data science and other 4IR skills through its undergraduate and postgraduate courses in subjects like data science, bio-medical engineering. He proudly points out that the university has also pioneered a degree in the digital arts and gaming, which he says is a merger of graphics design, digital arts and engineering.

“It’s actually a joined arts and engineering degree for the creatives because gaming is about doing creative work. Some of the students have actually been snapped up by some of the leading gaming industry companies in the world. As you know, gaming is becoming a huge industry. And I think that’s one thing that we want to push our innovation on. Gaming is going to be central, both for teaching and learning through AR and VR, but just basically for us to tell our own stories because I think gaming is not about just games, it’s about people telling their stories. Telling African stories based on an African narrative. Not just always importing Japanese or European games, but kind of developing our own games, and hopefully spawning companies that will grow and bring profit to the shareholders and to the university,” says Vilakazi.ai