AfricaLive: Thank you for joining us, Professor. To begin, please introduce yourself to our readers and explain your goals working as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Engagement.
Prof. Alfred Ngowi: Thank you, it’s my pleasure. My name is Alfred Ngowi, and I am the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Engagement at the Central University of Technology in the Free State province of South Africa.
In terms of research at our university, we place a major emphasis on applied research rather than solely fundamental research. Around 70% of our research efforts are focused on applying findings to practical real-world solutions.
We also prioritize multidisciplinary research approaches. Over time, we’ve realized that problems are rarely confined to a single discipline. So we have established multidisciplinary research centers where issues can be tackled from diverse perspectives and expertise.
A third key aspect is aligning our research agenda with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This allows us to not only identify local challenges, but also collaborate with others globally who are working towards the same sustainable development targets and draw upon that collective knowledge.
Regarding innovation, we broadly define it as finding new and different ways of doing things to achieve better results. In addition to the traditional focus on developing new commercial products and processes from research, we look at how we can innovate and improve all of our activities and operations to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
This mindset has driven us to integrate digital solutions across many of our functions and platforms. We constantly ask whether there are new approaches we can take to established processes and systems to generate improvements.
AfricaLive: Could you elaborate further on some of the major research projects and focus areas at your university, particularly those involving multidisciplinary approaches? We’re very interested to learn about the innovative work being done.
Prof. Ngowi: Certainly. As I mentioned, we’ve directed a significant portion of our research teams into multidisciplinary centers tackling issues that cross disciplines. One area where we are investing major efforts is additive manufacturing, which we are utilizing to create life-changing medical products and devices.
For instance, our researchers are 3D printing customized titanium implants for patients who have suffered from cancers or traumatic injuries and require bone replacements. My colleagues specializing in additive manufacturing can provide more details on how this technology is allowing us to produce spinal implants and other prosthetics tailored to individual patients’ needs.
Another multidisciplinary research center concentrates on developing smart cities solutions leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) as the key enabling technology. In fact, we’ve established the AI Institute of South Africa here with a primary focus on agricultural applications.
The Free State is a major agricultural region for South Africa, so we are developing AI systems to optimize crop planning, weather prediction modeling, and irrigation scheduling to increase farming productivity and efficiency. My colleagues can expand on some of the specific AI projects underway for smart agriculture planning and prevention of crop failures.
A third area of emphasis explores the interplay between technology and human elements. As a university of technology, we clearly have deep capabilities in developing and applying new technologies to solve problems. However, we are very cognizant that technologies have profound impacts on humans – both positive and negative. So our research delves into understanding and addressing those human dimensions.
AfricaLive: Please elaborate regarding the research exploring the relationship between technology and human elements.
Prof. Ngowi: An important question we are investigating is how to optimally combine artificial intelligence, automation, and other advanced technologies with human capabilities and insights.
The goal is to develop systems where the tasks that machines can do more effectively are allocated to the technologies, while retaining meaningful human involvement for the aspects where human cognition and judgment provide critical value.
We’re also closely examining the broader societal impacts of technological change. There are concerns around technologies displacing human labor and leading to job losses that need to be responsibly addressed. Matters of ethics and governance around powerful new technologies like AI are another key area of research.
We have established a dedicated center exploring the profound relationship between technology and humanity across all these dimensions. The aim is to ensure technological progress generates positive impacts while mitigating potential downsides through appropriate human-centered design principles.
Another major research theme for us is food and water security, both critical challenges our region faces. We have specialty centers focused on sustainable agriculture, improving crop yields, ensuring clean water access, and other projects aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals around eliminating hunger and achieving sustainability.
We believe our diversity of expertise positions us to develop comprehensive solutions.
AfricaLive: Those are fascinating examples of applying cutting-edge technologies like AI, IoT and renewable energy to drive smart village initiatives and improve rural quality of life. Can you expand on the specific types of data you aim to collect and analyze in these smart village projects through AI and connected devices?
Prof. Ngowi: In the rural village setting, there are many areas of community life that currently lack data visibility due to limited connectivity. One of our first priorities after installing renewable energy sources is to deploy IoT sensors and devices that can start collecting vital data streams across different sectors.
For example, on the demographic side, we want to gather data on population, household statistics, economic activities, and the schooling situation. In healthcare, tracking the rates and types of illnesses and diseases affecting the community is important data to analyze.
By reliably capturing all this raw data from the smart village, we can then apply AI and machine learning techniques to identify patterns, model scenarios, and ultimately develop intervention strategies and solutions tailored for that community’s needs.
If we can prove the model in one village, we can then replicate the smart village architecture using renewable energy and IoT connectivity as a blueprint across other rural areas facing similar challenges. The AI analytics piece becomes very powerful when you have data at scale spanning multiple villages to train the algorithms.
Ultimately, the vision is to use this smart village approach to elevate standards of living, economic opportunities, education access, and healthcare provisioning in underserved rural regions across South Africa and beyond. The combinationof sustainable energy, connectivity, data and AI-driven decision intelligence can potentially revolutionize rural development.
AfricaLive: And you touched there on working with industry partners. The next question we wanted to ask is – what does partnership mean to you, and how can other stakeholders in South African society engage with and partner successfully with your university?
Prof. Ngowi: For us, successful partnerships must be mutually beneficial relationships. We cannot expect to approach an industry partner unless there is clear value that we can provide them in return. Before entering any partnership, we first define and articulate what the respective benefits will be for each side. We do not want any one-way arrangements, as those tend to be unsustainable over time.
Applying this principle has allowed us to cultivate fruitful long-term partnerships with industries, government entities, and other institutions. For every joint project, each partner understands upfront what value they will derive from the collaboration.
In terms of outreach, we hold regular summits where we share our capabilities across key future technologies like IoT, AI, robotics, and extended reality with potential partners in the provincial government and industry. Once they see the strengths we possess in areas of interest to them, they approach us to collaborate in leveraging those capabilities for their needs.
For example, schools have engaged us around robotics education for students, leveraging our expertise. Agriculture companies have partnered with us to utilize our weather prediction and crop modeling research to optimize their operations. The key is clearly articulating the mutual benefits partnership can provide.
With community partnerships, we take the same philosophy – it must be a two-way exchange. Yes, we aim to have an positive impact by applying our knowledge and resources. But we also make clear that we equally expect to learn from the deep community insights and experience they can provide us. It’s a collaborative mindset of equals coming together, not us imposing solutions.
This approach of being transparent about mutual benefits has served us very well across industry, academia, government, and community partnerships. Productive collaboration requires showing legitimate value for all stakeholders involved.
