| | Siyakhula Festival a Beacon of Mathematical Excellence and Collaboration |
| | | From 17 to 22 March 2024, AIMS South Africa hosted the Siyakhula Festival, a dynamic week-long celebration in Muizenberg, Cape Town. Coinciding with AIMS’s 20th anniversary, this event also commemorated the 12th anniversary of the German Research Chairs Programme and the 10th anniversary of the Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (CoE-MaSS). “Siyakhula,” translating as “we are growing” in Zulu, underscored the significant growth and influence of AIMS and its associates on the mathematical sciences sphere in Africa and beyond. | | | | | | The opening ceremony was held at Kenilworth Racecourse on 17 March 2024. | | | | | Day 1 opened with an inspiring keynote address from Prof. Neil Turok. | | | |
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| | Day 2 began with “AIMS Stakeholders Engagement: The Future of AIMS,” panel discussions. | | |
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| | Day 3 was a landmark celebration for CoE-MaSS as it commemorated its 10th anniversary. | | |
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| | | | | The celebration of the German Research Chairs Programme at AIMS started on Day 4. | | |
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| | The Topology for Tomorrow workshop was held as part of the festival from 18-19 March 2024, | | |
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| | The Functional Analysis and Operator Theory Workshop was held from 17-19 March 2024. | | |
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| | | The closing session of the Siyakhula Festival became the platform for unveiling the new slogan that would lead AIMS into its next chapter. | | | |
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| Weaving Together Mathematics, Programming, and African Heritage |
| | | A standout feature in the lead-up to the Siyakhula Festival was the “TurtleStitch: Bringing Programming and Maths to the Real World” workshop on 16 March. This pre-festival initiative offered pupils from Masibambane High School a rare opportunity to delve into computer science by crafting African designs with code. | | |
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| | Women in Mathematics Panel Discussion & Reception |
| | | On 19 March, the Siyakhula Festival dedicated a special evening to celebrating the achievements and potential of women in mathematics, marked by an engaging panel discussion and reception. The event, sponsored by the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS), was a testament to the vibrant community of women mathematicians at the Siyakhula Festival and beyond. It was a magical evening that not only celebrated the contributions of women to mathematics but also sparked conversations on further empowering this vital segment of the scientific community. | |
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| | | | | | | The Siyakhula Festival’s closing celebrations were highlighted by the launch of an innovative academic journal, the Journal of Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Development (JAISD). This pioneering journal, envisioned by the collaborative efforts within NAiXUS, aims to foster interdisciplinary work across a broad range of disciplines, underscoring the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) in addressing the Sustainable Development Goals. |
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| | Public Lecture: ‘The illusion of control Wisdom and regulation of AI’ |
| | | | As new AI technology permeates our education system and thought processes, it is imperative that we lean on our wisdom and common sense – skills that distinguish humans from AI systems. This was a central theme discussed during a public lecture by Prof. Dr. Helga Nowotny, a founding member of the European Research Council (ERC) and Professor Emerita of Science and Technology Studies at ETH Zurich. Prof. Nowotny, who has published several influential books, recently authored “In AI We Trust: Power, Illusion, and Control of Predictive Algorithms.” The lecture titled: ‘The illusion of control Wisdom and regulation of AI’ took place at AIMS South Africa on 13 February 2024, aiming to engage both the AIMS community and the wider public. | | |
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| | | | The Structured Master's streams completed the following courses in February and March: Transformation Groups (Claudiu Remsing, Rhodes University); Applying Logic (Jeff Sanders, AIMS South Africa); Applied Machine Learning at Scale (Ulrich Paquet, AIMS South Africa); Python Programming (Mohau Mateyisi, CSIR and Makhamisa Senekane, University of Johanesburg); Transformation Groups (Phil Knight, Strathclyde); Mathematical Problem-Solving (Nancy Neudauer, Pacific); Analytical Techniques in Mathematical Biology (Lyndsay Kerr, Strathclyde); and Information Theory (Stéphane Ouvry, Paris Saclay). | |
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In the same period the AI Stream completed: AI in Climate Science (Neil Hart, University of Oxford; Principles of Imaging for Radio Astronomy (Marta Spinelli, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur); Principles of Imaging for Radio Astronomy (Landman Bester, SARAO and Rhodes University; and Jakob Roth and Philipp Frank, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics); Deep Learning for Ecology (Emmanuel Dufourq and Lorène Jeantet, AIMS South Africa and Matthew Van den Berg, Stellenbosch University); Theoretical Foundations of AI and Machine Learning (Luigi del Debbio, Edinburgh); and Reinforcement Learning (Arnu Pretorius, InstaDeep). This group also took part in the HeiAIMS Summer School on Mathematical Optimization (Roland Herzog, Ekaterina Kostina, and Evelyn Herberg, Heidelberg). | |
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| | Machine Learning for Ecology Group Updates |
| | | The Machine Learning for Ecology Research group was involved in preparing and delivering a new course as part of the AI for Science AIMS South Africa's Master's degree. The course aimed at equipping the students with machine learning skills for bioacoustics, animal pose estimation, and bio-logging. | | | | Dr Sarab Sethi, who leads the Ecosystem Sensing Group at Imperial College London, presented a seminar titled "Fully autonomous eco-acoustic monitoring". Dr Sethi visited the Machine Learning for Ecology Research group as part of an Imperial-AIMS Connect Partnership Fund where they jointly collaborated on various on-going and new research projects. | |
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| Dr Dufourq was appointed as an Associate Editor for the Ecological Informatics journal. Two students within the group, Mr Dean Blackburn and Mr Donovan Broughton have successfully completed their M.Eng research projects, both with distinctions. | | | Dr Jeantet is a co-author on a new article in Biological Conservation titled "Demography of endangered juvenile green turtles in face of environmental changes: 10 years of capture-mark-recapture efforts in Martinique'' | | | | |
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| | | | The Mathematical Sciences Strategic Alliance (MSSA) was established last year to elevate the status and quality of the mathematical sciences in South Africa through strategic planning and collaborative engagement. Its main objective is to shine a spotlight on the need to build robust mathematical sciences infrastructure to best address the challenges of underperformance of the educational system in a unified manner; and to foster coordination and collaboration amongst various players concerned with ensuring that South Africa best unleashes the power of the mathematical sciences in response to contemporary challenges. |
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| | The SA Maths Foundation (SAMF) hosted a workshop in March 2024 to works towards a National Strategy for the Mathematical Sciences. The workshop was attended by representatives of the thirteen entities of MSSA. Prof. Karin-Therese Howell, AIMS Structured Master’s Academic Director attend the workshop. |
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| | 2024 Africa Scientifique Programme Kick Off |
| | | | Science communication skill sets are vital for many young and emerging researchers to engage effectively with the broader audience. Yet, few higher education institutions in Africa provide training opportunities for their STEM graduates. To bridge this skills gap, AIMS South Africa, in partnership with African Gong delivers an annual 3-phased African-focused capacity-building programme (i.e., Africa Scientifique (AS) programme) to the cohort of AIMS South Africa Master’s students. This year, AIMS expanded the programme to benefit the Honors students in mathematical sciences at historically disadvantaged universities in South Africa. |
| | | | | | | | | We have open positions for: |
| | | Chief Operating Officer, deadline for applications 31 May 2024 |
| | | A Machine Learning Researcher: Earth Observation & Ecology (open until filled.) |
| | | Please see our applications page for more details! |
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