Exceptional SA academic goes global
Marwala appointed rector of the United Nations University
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. The sprawling village sits smack in the middle of the queendom of Her Majesty Khosi Ndwamato Ligege.
There, in the Lutavha section of the village, Tshilidzi Marwala, the University of Cambridgetrained artificial intelligence expert and vice-chancellor of University of Johannesburg was born – half a century ago.
As a first grader, young Marwala’s classroom at the Tshivhambe Primary School of Duthuni was under a large mango tree, where he and his fellow pupils were taught by the inimitable Mrs Netshilema.
Marwala’s permanently damaged toenails testify to the wear and tear that comes with walking barefoot for years, to and from the school at the other end of the village.
Earlier this week, that skinny kid from Duthuni was named the seventh rector of the United Nations University (UNU). This is a global think tank and postgraduate teaching university with 13 diverse and highly specialised campuses, spread across 12 countries, including China, Finland, Ghana, Venezuela, Guatemala and the US.
UNU is a multinational university which acts “as a bridge between the international academic community and the United Nations system”.
No wonder that as rector of this massive global university Marwala will hold the high and hard-to-get rank of a UN under-secretary-general.
Marwala has literally become the vice-chancellor of the world.
A quick reading of Marwala’s CV gives one a glimpse of how accomplished a scholar, how consummate an intellectual and how astute a higher education leader he is.
During my term as executive director for research at Unisa,
Marwala, then a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, used to conduct research methodology training for starry-eyed young Unisa academics from diverse disciplines, at my invitation.
Already then he was passionate about artificial intelligence, algorithms, the internet of things, block chain, machine learning and related fields – long before these terms became fashionable.
With more than 500 peer-reviewed articles, nearly 40 PHD students supervised to completion, 24 books and several dozen opinion pieces, Marwala is the quintessential academic leader.
His peers have hailed the ground-breaking nature of his research. Marwala leads academically and he leads by academic example.
When the digital history of his native land is finally crafted, Marwala’s name will appear in it, written in gold, thanks to the sterling role he played as deputy chair of the Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
He has become the embodiment of the fourth industrial revolution.
Marwala is a modern academic. He has refused to be confined and limited to the cloistered corridors of the ivory tower.
Clearly, he intends not merely to observe and interpret the world, but to use his knowledge to change it for the better.
Recently, I spent quality time with Marwala in Paris, visiting all the favourite spaces and places that used to be frequented by the hero we both admire – philosopher Jean-paul Satre.
As Marwala takes charge of UNU in Tokyo, he will be sustained by memories of his childhood amid the rolling hills of Vendaland.
When he walks the streets of Tokyo, a city that combines the ancient and the modern, the cultural, the spiritual and the scientific, Marwala will reminisce about the walks he used to take in the dusty streets and through thick forests of Duthuni, with his grandfather Tshikeleme Marwala.
He will remember the early “engineering” lessons in pottery and farming, which his grandmother, Vho Tshianeo, imparted on him.
When the Japanese tell him about their invention of a new nation after World War 2, Marwala will give them an eyewitness account of how South Africa transitioned from apartheid to democracy, as well as his humble role in it.
What a pity that his dad, Vho Alpheus Shavhani Marwala, Tshilidzi’s first maths teacher, who was laid to rest earlier this year, is not able to watch his son go global!
However, I am pleased that his dear mother, Vho Khathutshelo Regina Marwala, his siblings, his partner Dr Jabulile Manana and his three kids, can bask in his well- deserved glory.
South Africa is immensely proud to export to the world one of the most beautiful minds to come out of this country.