| | | | AIMS South Africa a partner in Oxford's new Centre for Doctoral Training |
| | | | The University of Oxford is establishing a new Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) that will combine the university’s strengths in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, Big Data, and environmental sciences. The Intelligent Earth Centre will bridge the gap between environmental science and AI to address global environmental challenges. Professor Philip Stier, Director for The Intelligent Earth Centre, explains that "AI is rapidly transforming environ-mental sciences allowing to scale existing research to unseen levels | |
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| and to enter entirely new areas of research. Innovation in this area will be increasingly limited by the access to highly skilled graduates - the graduates of The Intelligent Earth Centre will contribute to fill this gap." Building on our research in Machine Learning and Biodiversity, AIMS South Africa is honoured to be a partner to the CDT, and we look forward to research and teaching exchanges with Oxford University. |
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| | | Leeds-Africa Conference on Data Science and Artificial Intelligence |
| | January intake students and an AIMS Tutor, attended this conference from 2 to 6 October. The conference was organised by the University of Leeds and the University of Pretoria. The conference sessions were interesting and discussed topics like utilising artificial intelligence in various disciplines. |
| | Notably, AIMS students made contributions through discussions, especially for those doing research related to the conference's theme. |
| | | | AI stream students completed: Applied Machine Learning at Scale (Ulrich Paquet, AIMS South Africa) and Formal Methods & Functional Programming (Jeff Sanders, AIMS South Africa). |
| | Students also had the opportunity to visit the three partner universities at which they are registered. |
| | | | The UWC visit took place on 26 October. | |
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| | The SU visit took place on 3 November. | | | | The UCT visit took place on 24 October. | |
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| | AIMS-Carnegie Junior Research Chair |
| | | Dr Emmanuel Dufourq has been appointed to AIMS-Carnegie Junior Research Chair for three years. In this role, the junior chair will continue to strengthen machine learning for ecology in Africa and internationally through the Machine Learning for Ecology Research group at AIMS South Africa. Various critical projects related to wildlife monitoring will be pursued. The world has witnessed a distressing decline in biodiversity, brought about by various factors such as resource over-exploitation, deforestation, and climate change. Various organisations have called for immediate action to be taken to restore and protect the natural world. The application of deep learning techniques has emerged as a promising solution to significantly reduce the amount of time and effort required to analyse large and complex wildlife datasets. |
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| | | The junior chair aims to further develop and enhance the application of deep learning techniques to facilitate automated analysis of wildlife datasets, thereby enabling more efficient and effective conservation strategies. |
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| | | | On 3 October, Prof. Ian Durbach an AIMS Associate Research Fellow from the University of St. Andrews gave a talk titled: ‘How to know what isn't there: statistical methods for estimating animal abundance’ | |
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| | | | | On 3 October, Prof. Ian Durbach an AIMS Associate Research Fellow from the University of St. Andrews gave a talk titled: ‘How to know what isn't there: statistical methods for estimating animal abundance’ | |
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| 2023 Inclusive SciComm Symposium |
| | | | | | The Inclusive SciCom Symposium (ISCS) conference is an ever-evolving and expansive conference that advocates for science communication that prioritizes equity, inclusion, and intersectionality. It (ISCS) aims to build a community that actively challenges the dominant, marginalizing norms of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). | |
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| The 2023 ISCS, hosted in hybrid format by the University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute in Kingston, USA, included a virtual session on “Blurring global North/South boundaries in science communication: mainstreaming epistemic diversity, decolonization, and multilingualism”. The session took place on 13 October and was organised by Rejoyce Gavhi-Molefe, AIMS House of Science Manager, and three other early-career scientists. |
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| | | | We are transforming the way AIMS looks and feels. In the coming months, we will be incorporating visual elements from across our beautiful continent. Our hallway is already adorned with bowls that were handmade in KwaZulu Natal and Kuba textiles that are unique to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kuba textiles are a type of raffia cloth, handwoven in strict cultural tradition. They contain geometrically repetitive variations of border patterns. There are seventeen ways that a design can be repetitively varied on a surface, and the Kuba have exploited twelve of these! Yes, we choose our African Art based on mathematical principles! In January 2024, Steve Bradlow will be teaching "Maths and Art in Africa", and we look forward to how our art can integrate with what students learn. | |
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| | Upgrading of AIMS facilities |
| | | Phase 2, the refurbishing of the exterior of the main AIMS building has commenced. This work is scheduled to be completed at the end of February 2024. | |
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| | | | | | Join us for an enlightening Public Lecture by Dr Michael Winckler, Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR), Heidelberg University: |
| | | | ⏰ 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM (doors open at 6:40 PM). |
| | | 📍 6 Melrose Road, Muizenberg, Cape Town 7950. |
| Attendance is free, but registration is mandatory. |
| | | | | | | | AIMS is turning 20, the German Research Chairs in Africa are turning 10, and the (DST-NRF) Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (CoE-MaSS) is turning 10! For more information and updates visit www.siyakhula.aims.ac.za |
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| | Applications for the January 2024 intake of the AIMS Structured Master’s in Mathematical Sciences is now open to students following the South African academic calendar (January to December). Preference will be given to South African nationals. Applicants should hold, or anticipate completing by the start date of the AIMS course, a 4-year university degree in mathematics, or any science or engineering subject with a significant mathematics component. |
| | | | | | AIMS invites applications for the African Master’s in Machine Intelligence (AMMI) Programme 2023/2024. AMMI, a groundbreaking one-year, fully funded graduate programme, is designed to equip exceptional young Africans with cutting-edge training in machine learning and its applications. With the mission of harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve lives in Africa and beyond, AMMI strives to empower its students to shape a future characterised by fairness and prosperity. Click below for more information and to apply. |
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