Podcasts about vukosi

The potential of AI in an African context with Prof Vukosi Marivate Associate Professor of Computer science at University of Pretoria

University of Pretoria's Vukosi Marivate, the holder of the ABSA Chair of Data Science, has been chosen for the 2023 World Economic Forum's Young Global Leaders Programme. Prof Maravati wears many hats, including heading a Data Science for Social Impact research group focusing on Artificial Intelligence and languages, especially African languages. He is the Chief Technology Officer at Lelapa.ai, a start-up with Big Tech investors. Prof Marivate also helped launch the Deep Learning Indaba that brings the African AI community together. He has received recognition for his Covid-19 ZA Dashboard, which is still the only source of aggregated data on Covid-19 in South Africa. He told BizNews why he moved back to South Africa from the US and how he wants to solve some of the African continent's significant challenges with machine learning.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vukosi Marivate, Associate Professor of Computer Science and ABSA UP Chair of Data Science at the University of Pretoria (

Laszlo Mucsi // Vukosi Sambo https://www.linkedin.com/in/laszlo-mucsi/

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.Join in on our Cocktail Conversation on the Alteryx Community or on social media with #DataScienceMixer!Want more from Alteryx? Follow @Alteryx on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can also register for the Alteryx Community, and try out Alteryx  to break through your analytic and business challenges.

Head of Data Solutions at Medscheme Vukosi Sambo, joins us on this episode of the podcast series. The South African healthcare space has ever-increasing costs and high unaffordability where it outplays inflation and wages year-on-year. Only 8-million out of 59-million people are on medical aid, putting an immense burden on the state in terms of providing for the rest of the population. It is critical to contain this unsustainable situation of rising costs that is leading to unattainable private healthcare in Southern Africa. Please enjoy the conversation and subscribe for more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AAI for Good, a global summit hosted by XPRIZE and ITU, about machine translation and cognitive code switching. Today’s episode explores the concept of Cosmo-uBuntu, an approach to technological innovation that addresses issues of global justice and helps us better understand personhood in AI praxis. Hosted by S. Ama Wray, an associate professor at UC Irvine and co-founder of AI for Africa, with guests Vukosi Marivate, Jose Cossa and Jackie Berry, highlight the cultural and individual differences in direct interaction with different technology interfaces based on the cultural reading practices of non-Western and African peoples, with thoughts on how these works can reverse the trend toward exclusively Anglophone digital futures in Africana worlds while conducting proactive restoration of African epistemologies.Dr. S. Ama Wray, is a self-described Performance Architect and is an Associate Professor of Dance at the University of California, Irvine. Through dance methods she innovates across disciplinary lines, collaborating widely with practitioners from music, new media, health, visual art and theater. She is one of the co-Founders of AI 4 Afrika, inspired by AI for Good, and also the Africana Institute for Creativity Recognition and Elevation. In 2018 she received the 2018 Emerging Scholar Award from the African Diaspora SIG of the Comparative International Education Society. Her research into improvisation through the lens of West African performance, specifically Ewe, is burgeoning into a new interdisciplinary field, an integrative study of the optimization of human performance. The outcomes include Embodiology® an inclusive movement and mind method, optimizing creativity, empathy and wellbeing. As a consequence of COVID-19 she has created online wellness practice - Embodying Resilience - to maintain vitality and create community. Her creative praxis as relates to digital domains began in the U.K as recipient of the 2003 National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts Fellowship, producing the prize-winning Texterritory. Integrating a cellphone performance platform it transforms audiences into co-creators in live performance settings. As founding Artistic Director of JazzXchange Wray continues to elevate jazz music in the concert dance setting, collaborating with artists including: Wynton Marsalis, Bobby McFerrin, Nicole Mitchell, Gary Crosby, OBE, Zoe Rahman and Julian Joseph, OBE. Her academic writing on Embodiology® and also Jazz Dance have been published by Oxford Books, Routledge and Florida University Press.Dr. Vukosi Marivate is the ABSA UP Chair of Data Science at the University of Pretoria. Vukosi works on developing Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence methods to extract insights from data. A large part of his work over the last few years has been in the intersection of Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. Vukosi is interested in Data Science for Social Impact, using local challenges as a springboard for research. In this area, Vukosi has worked on projects in science, energy, public safety and utilities. Vukosi is a founder of the Deep Learning Indaba, the largest Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence workshop on the African continent, aiming to strengthen African Machine Learning.José Cossa, Ph.D., is a Mozambican scholar, writer/author, researcher, poet, blogger, “Twitterer”, podcaster, entrepreneur, and an Associate Professor in the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University. Most recently, Cossa served as a Visiting Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the American University in Cairo and a Senior Lecturer at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College. Cossa holds a Ph.D. in Cultural and Educational Policy Studies with a depth area in Comparative and International Education from Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of the book Power, Politics, and Higher Education: International Regimes, Local Governments, and Educational Autonomy, the recipient of the 2012 Joyce Cain Award for Distinguished Research on People of African Descent, awarded by the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), and a member of the MacArthur Foundation 100&Change Panel of Judges for two consecutive competitions (Inaugural Challenge and 2019/2020). Cossa’s research focus is on power dynamics in negotiation over educational policy; unveiling issues inherent in the promise of modernity and working towards decolonizing, de-bordering, de-peripheralizing, and de-centering the world; higher education policy and administration; system transfer; international development; and, global and social justice. In addition, Cossa is currently engaging in a new (exterior to modernity) theorizing, i.e., Cosmo-uBuntu, to offer alternative theoretical grounding to research, analysis, and practice.Dr. Jackie Berry is a Cognitive Scientist studying visual perception, human-computer interaction, and expertise. Dr. Berry was a Fulbright U.S. Scholar at the American University in Cairo for the 2019-2020 academic year where she served as a teacher and researcher. Her work focused on TetLag which is the brief performance dip caused by switching to a different, but familiar, computer interface. Jackie holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, a Master of Science in Human Factors Psychology, a Master of Business Administration, and a Doctorate in Cognitive Psychology. She was the first person at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to collect online research data and the first African-American to graduate with a Doctorate in Cognitive Psychology from the State University of New York at the University in Albany. Her major research projects include developing a new model of geometric feature detection for English letter recognition, studying task switching in older adults, and investigating attentional capture during visual search. During her Fulbright U.S. Scholar award year Dr. Berry investigated whether Arabic-English biliterates might be better able to switch between different interfaces and configurations for the same task because they must regularly alternate between different orientations of text in reading, writing, and technology use in their daily lives. She wishes to continue this research with other “bidirectional biliterates” such as biliterate speakers of Hebrew and Chinese.Links:xprize.org/blog See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In my 7th episode I speak to Vukosi Sambo about data monetisation, treating data as an asset, becoming a chief data officer, and his top three tips for becoming a Chief Data Officer. Vukosi is an experienced executive with over 10 years' experience in insurance, banking, FMCG and Market Research. He is an expert specialist in data science, digital strategies, infonomics, data monetisation, risk management and actuarial, business architecture, consumer research and insights, remuneration design, process analysis, change and operations management. He currently serves as the Chief Data Officer of Kaelo, a South African health insurer with over 1 million lives under cover, specialising in primary healthcare, wellness program, gap cover and onsite clinics. He also serves as the chairperson of the remuneration committee (REMCO), member of the people committee, member of the IT and Data committee, and company's group executive committee. Prior to Joining Kaelo, Vukosi held senior roles in Discovery Bank, SAB, Nielsen and Discovery Health. He has won several awards including Global Top 100 Data Visionaries 2020, Discovery CEO outstanding leader star award & Top Region Matriculant (Limpopo). Major previous projects include leading migration of Discovery Card from FNB platform to Discovery Bank. His background includes studies in Economic Science (Wits), Post Graduate Advanced Program in Risk Management (Unisa), Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (Unisa), Executive education in Digital Strategies for Business (Columbia Business School, USA), Certificate in Lean Six Sigma (BMGI University, USA), Certificate in Advanced Forecasting for Data Analysts (Adcorp Analytics), Certificates in Cloud Computing and Machine Learning (GreatLearning). He is currently completing MBA with Unisa SBL and Post Graduate Program in Artificial Intelligence with University of Texas, USA. He is the member of the operation research society of South Africa and Institute of Risk Managers. He is a comrade marathon, two oceans marathon and Soweto marathon finisher. About Samir: Samir is a data strategy and analytics leader, CEO and Founder of datazuum. He has a history of helping data executives and leaders craft and execute their data strategies. His passion for data strategy led him to launch, the Data Accelerator Workshop, and host the popular Data Strategy Show. After a career in both private and public sectors Samir launched the datazuum brand in 2012, with a view to working with executives to deliver data strategy at a time when data was not seen as a business asset. Today datazuum delivers projects across both private and public sectors including: Charities, Financial Services (Banking & Insurance), Government, Housing & Construction, Law Enforcement, Logistics, Media & Publishing, Outsourcing, Postal, Retail, Telecoms, Transport and Utilities. Samir has 20 years of international experience across Europe, North America, and Africa. Is a regular speaker at international conferences, coach / mentor, a charity fundraiser, and youth champion for Working Knowledge - supporting young people to achieve their personal and career goals in life. Samir lives in London with his wife and daughter. Contact details for Samir LinkedIn: Samir Sharma Email: samir@datazuum.com website: www.datazuum.com

Over the past 5 years or so, we have witnessed an exponential growth of what is commonly known as fake news to influence not only political discussions online but every aspect of our lives. Some might say that fake news is a victimless offense but as we have come to experience over the years, there are real-life consequences to the rise in misinformation and disinformation that is circulated on the Internet. There have been several suggestions on how we can stop fake news. Some have pushed for the use of fact-checking services while others have stated that emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence should be used to identify and stop fake news. In this episode, I spoke to Dr. Vukosi Marivate who is a Data Scientist to understand some of the methods being used to identify and attempt to stop the distribution of misinformation and disinformation. Vukosi also takes some time to explain the difference between Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and what they are usually confused with - Automation.

Nile Media — Tim Modise's podcasts are an idea-sharing, news and information platform. With a flagship in both broadcast and digital media, the platform provides reliable local and international news content, business, economics, politics and interactive stories.

In this, the final show of our Deep Learning Indaba Series, we speak with Vukosi Marivate, Chair of Data Science at the University of Pretoria and a co-organizer of the Indaba. My conversation with Vukosi fell into two distinct parts. The first part focused on his PhD research in the area of reinforcement learning, discussing several advanced RL scenarios including inverse RL, multiple agent RL, and using RL when we have incomplete knowledge of the environment. We then moved on to discuss his current research, which broadly falls under the banner of data science with social impact. Specifically, we review several of the applications he and his students are currently exploring in areas such as public safety and energy. The complete show notes for this episode can be found at https://twimlai.com/talk/193. For more information on our Deep Learning Indaba Series, visit https://twimlai.com/indaba2018. 

This week we are bringing you a couple of interviews from last week’s Deep Learning Indaba conference. Dr. Vukosi Marivate, Andrea Bohmert and Yasin(i) Musa Ayami talk about the burgeoning machine learning community, research, companies and AI investment landscape in Africa. While Mark is at Google Cloud Next in Tokyo, Melanie is joined by special guest co-hosts Nyalleng Moorosi and Willie Brink. Vukosi and Yasin(i) share how Deep Learning Indaba is playing an important role to recognize and grow machine learning research and companies on the African continent. We also discuss Yasin(i)’s prototyped app, Tukuka, and how it won the Maathai Award which is given to individuals who are a positive force for change. Tukuka is being built to aid economically disadvantaged women in Zambia get access to financial resources that are currently unavailable. Andrea rounds up the interviews by giving us a VC perspective on the AI start-up landscape in Africa and how that compares to other parts of the world. As Nyalleng says at the end, AI is happening in Africa and has great potential for impact. Willie Brink Willie Brink is a senior lecturer of Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He teaches various courses in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, at all levels, and his research interests fall mainly in the broad fields of computer vision and machine learning. He has worked on multi-view geometry, visual odometry, recognition and tracking, probabilistic graphical models, as well as deep learning. Recent research directions include visual knowledge representation and reasoning. Willie is also one of the founders and organisers of the Deep Learning Indaba, an exciting initiative working to celebrate and strengthen machine learning and artificial intelligence research in Africa, and to promote diversity and transformation in these fields. Nyalleng Moorosi Nyalleng is a Software Engineer and Researcher with the Google AI team in Ghana. Before joining Google, Nyalleng was a senior Data Science researcher at South Africa’s national science lab, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), with the Modeling and Digital Sciences Unit. In her capacity at CSIR, she works on projects ranging from: rhino poaching prevention with park rangers, working with news outlets to understand social media sentiments, and searching for Biomarkers in African cancer proteomes. Before getting into ML research at CSIR, she was a computer science lecturer at Fort Hare University and a software engineer at Thomson Reuters. Moorosi is an active member of Women in Machine Learning, Black in Artificial Intelligence, and an organising member of the Deep Learning Indaba - a yearly workshop that gathers African researchers in one space to share ideas and grow machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities. Dr. Vukosi Marivate Dr. Vukosi Marivate holds a PhD in Computer Science (Rutgers University) and MSc & BSc in Electrical Engineering (Wits University). He has recently started at the University of Pretoria as the ABSA Chair of Data Science. Vukosi works on developing Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence methods to extract insights from data. A large part of his 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 need to extract insights). As part of his vision for the ABSA Data Science chair, Vukosi is interested in Data Science for Social Impact, using local challenges as a springboard for research. In this area Vukosi has worked on projects in science, energy, public safety and utilities. Vukosi is an organizer 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. Yasin(i) Musa Ayami Yasin(i) Musa Ayami is Team Lead at TsogoloTech and a certified Oracle Associate. Mr. Ayami recently graduated with a Master’s Degree in Information Technology at the prestigious Durban University of Technology (DUT) were his study mainly focused on Computer Vision and Machine Learning. Prior to him enrolling for his Master’s Degree, Mr Ayami served as an Intern Software Engineer at DUT’s App Factory where he also served as Team Lead before deciding to further his studies. He also worked as a Part-Time Student Instructor at the DUT. In 2017, he co-founded TsogoloTech. His vision has always been to leverage technology for social good. Andrea Bohmert Andrea Bohmert is a Co-Managing Partner at Knife Capital. Before joining Knife Capital, she was the Founder and Co-Managing Partner of Hasso Plattner Ventures Africa. Passionate about strategizing how to scale businesses and meeting the entrepreneurs responsible for creating them, she has been actively involved in numerous initiatives aiming to accelerate the African entrepreneurial ecosystem. What are you looking forward to this week? AlphaGo Movie site WiML: Women in Machine Learning site Deep Learning Indaba Poster Sessions site Neural Information Processing Systems site Interview Deep Learning Indaba site Deep Learning Indaba GitHub site Deep Learning Indaba Tutorials site Deep Learning Indaba 2018 Slides site Deep Learning Indaba 2017 Presentations videos Deep Learning Indaba X site Yasin(i) Musa Ayami on GitHub site and LinkedIn site Deep Learning Indaba Award Winners site and tweet Maathai Award site Xamarin site SuperPosition at The Deep Learning Indaba with Dr. Vukosi Marivate podcast Knife Capital site Investing in AI by Andrea Bohmert article 10 Defining Moments that shaped the 2016 SA startup ecosystem article Data Science Africa site International Data Week site Google Cloud Platform Credits award winners tweet Question of the week The co-hosts weigh in on our question of the week: What have you taken away from this week and will take forward? Where can you find us next? Mark and Melanie will be at Strangeloop. Willie will be teaching Machine Learning at Stellenbosch University this summer. Nyalleng will be at the Women in Machine Learning Workshop and the Neural Information Processing Systems Conference in Montreal in December.

Hello Super Positioners, Today we bring to your ears Dr Vukosi Marivate, one of the co-organisers of the Deep Learning Indaba. Listen to his fascinating perspective from the intersection of data science, public policy and Mama Africa. Resources: Dr Vukosi Marivate's Website: www.vima.co.za Computational Social Science Workshop, UCT: https://compsocialscience.github.io/summer-institute/2018/capetown/ The Deep Learning Indaba: http://www.deeplearningindaba.com/ Data Science Africa: http://www.datascienceafrica.org/ This podcast was made in collaboration with The African Perspective (TAP) Magazine. Take a look at their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdLXfy1kpSNTg2xAKycTUtA. Music by Faresa Mpephu: https://soundcloud.com/faresa-mphephu. Thank you for the support.

This is a lively chat Andile Masuku had with Dr Vukosi Marivate, a Data Scientist and Senior Researcher at South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). They speak about the trend towards countries around the world passing laws that require the personal information of their citizens to be hosted on servers within their borders. We reached out to Vukosi after having some insightful engagement with him on Twitter last week; following our coverage of Russia blocking LinkedIn for flouting data security regulations.

Senegal is now the second African country after Tunisia to adopt an electronic currency. eCFA is equivalent in value to the country’s physical tender and will be available on all mobile money and e-wallet platforms. This development has led to e-money proponents speculating which African country might be next to adopt electronic money. Zimbabwe, perhaps? It’s popularly been argued that given the persistent economic troubles that have dogged the country, Zimbabwe might very well be the continent’s best use case for the adoption of virtual currency. But for the time being, Zimbabweans will have to be content with the country’s newest currency-- bond notes, which the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe started rolling out on Monday, December 28th, 2016. This week’s African Tech Round-up features a lively chat Andile Masuku had with Dr Vukosi Marivate, a Data Scientist and Senior Researcher at South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). They speak about the trend towards countries around the world passing laws that require the personal information of their citizens to be hosted on servers within their borders. We reached out to Vukosi after having some insightful engagement with him on Twitter last week; following our coverage of Russia blocking LinkedIn for flouting data security regulations. Music Credits: Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution

It's May, and we're beginning the month by talking with Dr. Vukosi Marivate. Dr. Marivate is a data scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa. His work primarily deals with machine learning, so I had to ask one question -- how do machines learn? From there, Dr. Marivate walked me through a typical day, answered some great questions from our Slack community, and shared what people who are interested in data science should learn. We also talked about his early days growing up in South Africa and going to college there, as well as his time here in the United States at Rutgers studying for his Ph.D. Dr. Marivate shared a lot of really great advice that he's used to help him succeed, and I'm glad to get the opportunity to have him share it with you all! Dr. Vukosi Marivate's Website Dr. Vukosi Marivate on Twitter ====== Join our Slack AMA with WordPress consultant and developer Kronda Adair on Wednesday, May 4! Sign up for our Slack community here: http://revisionpath.herokuapp.com