Twenty years of moving from good to great: The Tshwane University of Technology
TUT embraces AI and has made it central to all of its teaching, research and innovation
On 1 January 2004, a new kid on the higher education block was born when Technikon Northern Gauteng, Technikon Northwest and Technikon Pretoria merged to form Tshwane University of Technology.
Taking after its noisy erstwhile institutions, the new kid stood out from the crowd, loud and proud.
There are many ways in which Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) could have marked its 20th anniversary. We could have cordoned off a street in Soshanguve and danced the night away. We could have marched across the streets of Ga-rankuwa in our academic regalia. We could have retreated into our blue, gold and red cocoon to reminisce about the good old days and to wallow in our unique history — both real and imagined.
Instead, we chose to stay true to our mandate as an Artificial Intelligence Hub, that is at once the heartbeat of the future of work and a fountain of entrepreneurship in higher education.
To this end, we decided to celebrate our anniversary by doing something different and special, with someone different and someone very special — Professor Tshilidzi Marwala.
Off the beaten track that connects the towns of Makhado and Thohoyandou, beneath a hill so steep it looks like it could tip over, lies the village of Duthuni, where Marwala was born. Today he is the Rector of the United Nations University.
In front of a crowd of learning AI machines, dancing robots and curious human beings, Marwala delivered the TUT 20th Anniversary Lecture, rhetorically titled, “Universities and AI: Friends or Foes?”, on 10 April 2024. Suggesting that “AI is ushering in the best of times and also ushering in the worst of times”, he called for the development of policies, standards and laws to govern AI. However, Marwala was unequivocal in his conviction that “those who ignore AI shall fall and those who embrace it shall succeed”.
Tshwane University of Technology embraces AI and has made it central to all of its teaching, research and innovation. In 2023, the Department of Communication and Digital Technologies designated TUT as an AI Hub in recognition of contribution to the 4IR in Higher Education. As an AI Hub of the Artificial Intelligence Institute of South Africa, TUT specialises in:
· Motor Industry AI
· Farming and Food Production AI · 4ir Manufacturing · AI in Tourism
· AI in Transport
· AI in Health, and
· AI in Telecommunications.
With a curriculum and a research agenda anchored on AI and in partnership with industry, TUT is determined to produce problem-solving graduates who are future-ready, entrepreneurial, committed to environmental sustainability and to the elimination of gender-based violence.
Happy 20th Anniversary to the People’s University, a University that is moving from good to great, in every way, at every level.