News

Professor Tommie Meyer, Director of the Artificial Intelligence Research Unit (AIRU) at the University of Cape Town (UCT), has been awarded a prestigious South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Chair in Symbolic Artificial Intelligence. The Department of Science and Innovation (DSI)/National Research Foundation (NRF), recognizes Professor Meyer’s contributions to the field of AI and supports …

Read more “Professor Tommie Meyer Awarded SARChI Chair in Symbolic AI”

For Artificial Intelligence (AI) to become more reliable and adaptable, it must develop a form of “understanding” of the world that allows it to make sound decisions. Dr Jesse Heyninck, an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Cape Town (UCT), has his sights on developing a framework that integrates symbolic and …

Read more “Dr Jesse Heyninck earns NRF P-rating”

Congratulations to AIRU researchers, Dr Irene Nandutu and Mbithe Nzomo, who are among the 30 laureates of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Sub-Saharan Africa Young Talents Award. They were awarded at a colourful ceremony in Cotonou, Benin, on 10th December 2024, attended by 250 distinguished guests including eminent scientists and prominent figures from across …

Read more “Dr Irene Nandutu and Mbithe Nzomo awarded the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award”

Dr Irene Nandutu, a postdoctoral research fellow working with the Neuroscience Institute and the AI Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, won the 2024 Kambule Doctoral Award at the Deep Learning Indaba, which was held from 1 to 7 September at the University Amadou Makhtar Mbow, Dakar, Senegal. The award recognises the legacy …

Read more “Dr Irene Nandutu wins the 2024 Kambule Doctoral Award”

June 2024 — Tommie Meyer, co-director of AIRU, has been elected as a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) in recognition of his excellence in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The AAS is a pan-African organisation dedicated to pursuing excellence by funding and recognising transformative research across the continent. Fellowship recognition is …

Read more “Tommie Meyer elected as an AAS Fellow”

March 2024 — Mbithe Nzomo, PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of Cape Town and member of the Artificial Intelligence Research Unit (AIRU), recently attended the 38th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-24) which was held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from 20th to 27thFebruary 2024. She presented her PhD research on a hybrid AI framework …

Read more “Mbithe Nzomo awarded Best Student Paper at 8th International Workshop on Health Intelligence (W3PHIAI-24)”

Ameerah Allie a Masters at the University of Cape Town and member of AIRU has been awarded the Science Faculty Master’s Equity Scholarship for 2024-2025. Ameerah became interested in logics and their application after a lecture from her eventual supervisor, Professor Tommie Meyer. “I’ve decided to pursue this into my Master’s, looking at defeasible reasoning. In the …

Read more “Ameerah Allie awarded the Science Faculty Master’s Equity Scholarship”

October 2023 — Several members of the AIRU team attended the 32nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2023) from 19th August to 25th August 2023 in Macao, SAR. IJCAI is the premier international gathering of researchers in AI. The conference is a venue for researchers to present their latest findings and developments in …

Read more “AIRU team attends IJCAI 2023”

June 2023 — Deshen Moodley, co-director of AIRU, was recently awarded the DSI/NRF-UCT SARChI Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence (AI) Systems.  This is the first SARChI Chair at UCT under the DSI/NRF’s new SARChI co-funding framework. Established in 2006 by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the National Research Foundation (NRF), the South African …

Read more “Deshen Moodley awarded the DSI/NRF-UCT SARChI Research Chair in AI Systems”

June 2023 — Mbithe Nzomo, a PhD candidate at the University of Cape Town and member of AIRU, was recently selected as one of 40 Mawazo Fellows from an applicant pool of 2,200. The Mawazo Fellowship Programme is a 15-month, non-residential fellowship for African female PhD researchers from across the continent working on emerging development …

Read more “Mbithe Nzomo selected as a Mawazo Fellow”