News and Events – archive 2008

Building local partnerships to promote wireless mesh network technologies

A new partnership has been established between the national Department of Communications (DoC), the Meraka Institute of the CSIR and the University of Zululand (UZ), in an attempt to develop technology solutions for rural populations on the African continent.

Touching base on wireless matters with WWRF

As the first African member of the Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF), the Meraka Institute of the CSIR recently hosted a visit by Vino Vinodrai from the WWRF. Vinodrai is one of Canada's leading experts in the mobile radio industry.

South African entities recognised as European Living Lab members

An announcement on 25 November 2008 at a gala event in Lyon, France, during Europe's leading ICT research event, ICT 2008, has seen South African Living Labs acknowledged as affiliated members of the European Network of Living Labs (EnoLL) as part of its 'Third Wave'.

International recognition for innovative mobile learning research

A paper written by Meraka Institute PhD student, Adele Botha, and co-authored by her colleague Merryl Ford and John Traxler of the University of Wolverhampton, was voted 'most rigorous academic paper' at the mLearn 2008 conference.

Digital Doorway makes its début at the African Union

The growing relationship between the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Meraka Institute of the CSIR has started to bear fruit. Ethiopia has joined the list of other African countries that are set to benefit from this collaboration.

Meraka Institute signs memorandum of cooperation with Uganda's largest university

The signing of a memorandum of cooperation between the Meraka Institute of the CSIR and Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, holds the potential for productive collaboration between these two institutions.

Young researcher contributes to Open Mobile Consortium

Bryan McAlister, a researcher from the human language technologies research group at the Meraka Institute of the CSIR, has been invited to become part of the soon-to-be-renamed Open Mobile Consortium (OMC).

CHPC hosts third national meeting in KwaZulu-Natal

Local and international high performance computing experts, users and students travelled in their numbers to attend the third national meeting of the Centre for High Performance Computing – CHPC2008 – on 9-10 December 2008, held on the Westville campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in Durban.

Syngenta-sponsored Digital Doorway installed on the Western Highveld

A Digital Doorway sponsored by Syngenta South Africa (Pty) Limited and hosted by John and Jenny Mathews at Mooifontein Central Primary Agricultural Co-op in Mpumalanga, was installed on 29 October 2008.

Human language technologies find international communality

Over the past few years the South African government and the Committee of Ministers of the Dutch Language Union have often expressed their interest in cooperation and exchanging of expertise in the field of human language technologies (HLT) in a multilingual context.

Automatic speech recognition in all languages to become a reality

The Meraka Institute's automatic speech recognition (ASR) team is making headway in its efforts to develop acoustic models for speech recognition in all South African official languages.

It's all systems go for the South Africa-Finland Knowledge Partnership on ICT programme

The South Africa-Finland Knowledge Partnership on ICT Progamme (SAFIPA) has hit the ground running since it started operating in July 2008, thanks to the single-minded focus and passion of its team.

Blue Gene for Africa initiative to catalyse research activities

The launch of the Blue Gene for Africa (BG4A) initiative at the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) in Cape Town on 7 October 2008 marks a significant milestone in South Africa's expanding cyberinfrastructure.

Digital Doorway expands its operations

The Digital Doorway - a joint initiative between the South African Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Meraka Institute of the CSIR - is making good progress in realising its vision of making a fundamental difference to computer literacy and associated skills.

Young researcher elected to atmospheric science society

Mary-Jane Kgatuke, a research scientist at the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), was recently elected to the executive council of the South African Society for Atmospheric Sciences as a secretary.

Enhanced ICT portal for disabled persons boasts improved usability and accessibility

The release in October 2008 of the latest version of the National Accessibility Portal (NAP) presents a significant step forward in the drive to integrate persons with disabilities into the mainstream economy and society through the use of information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Deputy Minister Hanekom's visit puts the spotlight on progress at Meraka Institute

A visit to the Meraka Institute of the CSIR during August 2008 by Derek Hanekom, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, gave the institute the opportunity to showcase significant milestones in a number of projects and initiatives.

Researcher wins prestigious WMO award

Mary-Jane Kgatuke, a PhD student at the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), scored a first for South Africa when she was recently named recipient of a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Research Award for Young Scientists.

Artificial intelligence and pattern recognition expert named chief researcher

Professor Etienne Barnard is a man of many talents, with expertise in artificial intelligence and pattern recognition, which find application in his field of research, which is human language technologies (HLTs).

Open education resources award shared by Meraka Institute researcher

Kim Tucker, a researcher from the Meraka Institute at the CSIR, was called upon to join fellow participants in the learning4content project to receive the MERLOT Africa Network and eLearning Africa 'Free Software for OER Content Authoring' award at the third eLearning Africa conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training.

Researcher heads out to California for doctoral studies

An exceptional offer to work on a PhD by the University of Santa Barbara has seen a talented young researcher of the Meraka Institute at the CSIR leave for a five-year stint. David Johnson was accepted as one of the few "top-notch applications with excellent potential for doctoral work" among a total of over 300 highly-qualified applicants.

Strong CSIR presence at international geoscience and remote sensing symposium

A delegation of researchers from the CSIR presented four presentations and two posters at the recent 2008 IEEE International Geoscience & Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS). This included a prestigious invited opening presentation by Terence van Zyl of the CSIR's ICT for earth observation research group.

Communicating benefits of e-infrastructure

The Meraka Institute of the CSIR is working with European, Indian and Brazilian partners on BELIEF-II, a two-year project to support e-infrastructure (also known as cyberinfrastructure) projects.

Research collaboration on wireless technology takes shape

The Meraka Institute of the CSIR recently had a visit by a team of Hungarian researchers from the Institute of Informatics at the University of Szeged. The visit has given strong impetus to collaboration between Hungary and South Africa on a research project in the domain of wireless mesh networks (WMN) for rural areas.

Innovation Fund investment boosts collaborative research on real-time video broadcasting project

A consortium comprising the CSIR, the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Durban-based internet service provider East Coast Access (ECA) has received a three-year R14,5 m investment by the Innovation Fund.

Digital Doorway commissioned by Syngenta at Almac Community Centre

A commissioning ceremony held on 26 June 2008 at Almac Community Centre in Nigel marked the handing over of a Digital Doorway sponsored by Syngenta South Africa (Pty) Limited to the Alrapark community. The Digital Doorway aims to provide access to people who would not have the opportunity to use computer facilities.

Wireless Africa identifies three African references sites

Wireless Africa, a unique pan-African initiative led by the Meraka Institute of the CSIR, has named three reference sites (in Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda) to lead the first phase of the project in setting up and studying community-owned information networks to benefit poor and rural African people.

Focus on human language technologies

This edition of eNews covers recent research highlights and developments within the human language technologies research group of the Meraka Institute at the CSIR. These include the release of OpenSpell, a spelling game in all 11 official languages, a report on the successful OpenPhone pilot in Botswana and the IBM internship opportunity that researcher Christiaan van der Walt has taken up in the US.

South Africa's first computer spelling game in all 11 languages

Researchers at the Meraka Institute of the CSIR have released a spelling game in all 11 official South African languages. The game, OpenSpell, can be adapted for additional languages.

OpenPhone project piloted in Botswana

The OpenPhone team of the CSIR celebrated a project milestone (and a first for the human language technologies - HLT - research group) when its automated health helpline was piloted at the Botswana-Baylor Children's Clinical Centre of Excellence in April 2008.

Talented young HLT researcher accepted for IBM internship programme

Christiaan van der Walt, a researcher in human language technologies (HLT) at the Meraka Institute of the CSIR, was recently accepted for an IBM internship and has since joined researchers at the TJ Watson Research Center in New York. He will be in the US from June to August 2008.

Digital Kids: grabbing the attention of the Digital Generation through ICT

As part of the initiation and development of a science, engineering and technology (SET) pipeline, the Young Engineers and Scientists of Africa is exploring a broad range of interventions to tap into the latent potential of the youth. A new intervention is the Digital Kids project.

African and European ICT delegates converge in Tshwane

Mutual benefits can be derived through collaboration in the information and communications technology (ICT) domains between European countries and countries in Africa and the Caribbean. This was one of the messages shared during the EuroAfrica-ICT Awareness Workshop, which was held in Tshwane from 17 to 18 June 2008.

Sensor Web workshop in Geneva a resounding success

Research done by the Meraka Institute at the CSIR in the field of ICT for earth observation has been well received at a GEOSS (Group on Earth Observations System of Systems) Sensor Web Workshop held on 15 and 16 May 2008. The workshop was organised jointly by GEO Task DA07-04 and the European Commission (EC).

Finding innovation outcomes through Living Labs

Utilising sociological methodology to encourage technological innovation is a fruitful process that takes place in the Living Lab (LL) context. This was the backdrop for an April 2008 workshop organised by the LL research team of the CSIR. The Department of Science and Technology is funding this research.

Scifests feature cross-continental rope pulling contest between Finland and South Africa

Rope pulling (also known as tug-of-war) is, as one may assume, a very physical activity involving teams together in one place. Yet with the aid of ICT and a dose of physics, a rope pulling contest was held between two teams - one in Finland and the other in South Africa.

Meraka Institute staff travel to Namibia for IST-Africa conference

A strong contingent of researchers from the Meraka Institute of the CSIR participated in the IST-Africa conference held in Windhoek, Namibia during May 2008.

This IST-Africa event was the third in an annual conference series, bringing together delegates from leading commercial, government and research organisations. The collective aim was to bridge the digital divide by sharing knowledge, experience, lessons learnt and good practice. The current IST-Africa initiative, in which the Meraka Institute previously participated as a consortium partner, is supported by the European Commission under the information communications technologies (ICT) theme of Framework Programme 7.

Laurens Cloete, manager of the applications innovation programme at the Meraka Institute, serves on the the international programme committee and was tasked with chairing sessions on open source software – applications and eInfrastructure 2: leveraging telecommunicatons. He also presented on ‘Requirements and potential for information security as a key capability for technological innovation’.

Other researchers who presented were:

• Dr Louis Coetzee: ‘Accessibility observations of visually impaired users using the South African National Accessibility Portal’
• Dr Quentin Williams: ‘Designing future technologies for disabled people in a developing country
• Andrew Smith: ‘Towards an affordable alternative educational video game input device’
• Chris Morris: ‘Outcomes as a measure of social change in the use of ICTs’
• Segopotso Moshapo: ‘Digital World Forum: opportunities and challenges of low-cost technologies for Africa and South America’
• Merryl Ford: ‘Mobile instant messaging – the ‘killer application’ for e(m)government in Africa?’
• Johan Eksteen: ‘South Africa’s investments in eInfrastructure to support African participation in global R&D’
• Tshepang Mosiea: ‘The START/EuroAfrica-ICT initiative’.

Commenting on the event, Cloete noted, “This was a great opportunity for networking with peers from all over the world. The synergies were remarkable and I am confident that events such as these are vital in catalysing ICT developments.”

The Meraka Institute joined high-ranking officials from the South African Department of Science and Technology (including the Minister, Dr Mosibudi Mangena) at the event. Several officials from the European Commission and Namibian government also took part.

Focus on high performance computing

This edition covers recent events and developments at the Centre for High Performance Computing. These include the establishment of the ACELab, the MoA signed between CHPC and its Taiwanese counterpart, the National Center for High Performance, and news about the use of high performance computing for space weather research.

Current computing 'byte-ing' the dust; ACELab to the rescue

Computing has come at a crossroad where technology is running out of speed. This according to Mike Inggs, a professor in electrical engineering at the University of Cape Town (UCT), seconded to the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC).

CHPC signs MoA with counterpart in Taiwan

Taiwanese and South African high performance computing counterparts recently agreed to share expertise. The CHPC of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Center for High Performance Computing in Taiwan, signed a memorandum of agreement in February 2008 in Taipei.

High performance computing supports space weather studies

High performance computing will be a key tool in research on understanding the influence of space weather on our technological systems. Dr Daniel Moeketsi of the CHPC completed his PhD in physics on the topic of solar cycle effects on ionospheric total electron content observed over southern Africa.

Enabling digital inclusion for schools through Ulwazi

Outreach to schools in Mpumalanga has been boosted through wireless connectivity. Through its association with the Meraka Institute of the CSIR, the innovative Ulwazi project has been extended to included 10 Dinaledi schools in Bronkhorstspruit, Witbank and the Middelburg area, forming a radio corridor over a distance of 100 km.

Finding ways to connect South Africans with disabilities

Talking about particular information needs in the health domain and ways in which technology can address these was the topic of the first Lwazi workshop held in Pietermaritzburg by researchers from the Meraka Institute of the CSIR, KwaZulu-Natal recently.

National research cyberinfrastructure goes live in Gauteng

The South African National Research Network (SANReN) reached a significant milestone when the first four research infrastructure sites went live in Johannesburg on Monday 31 March 2008. This is a major step forward in the creation of an information and communications technology (ICT) platform for South African research.

Exploring social aspects of technology

Finding out what happens in a social environment when technology is introduced, was one of the aims of a recent week-long workshop at the Meraka Institute of the CSIR. Led by Australian academic, Dr Larry Stillman of Monash University's Centre for Community Networking Research, researchers from the Digital Doorway project put their heads together to explore this challenging topic.

First corridor sensor web proves viability of advanced spatial data infrastructure

The corridor sensor web, a simplified technology demonstrator of a sensor web, has been demonstrated by the CSIR's Meraka Institute for the first time. A sensor web is an advanced spatial data infrastructure that combines data from multiple sensors and sensor networks to provide feedback to users and sensors.

Southern Africa to benefit by CSIR participation in FP7 remote sensing projects

A researcher at the Meraka Institute of the CSIR, Philip Frost, will participate in two European Union Framework Programme 7 (EU FP7) projects over the next few years. The Flemish Institute for Technology (VITO) is the lead partner, along with numerous European and African partners.

Honours course on description logics concludes

Professor Enrico Franconi of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, a visiting researcher at the CSIR's Meraka Institute, successfully concluded a three-week course in description logics for Honours students from the University of Pretoria and the University of South Africa during March 2008.

Researcher takes up international CEOS and GEO responsibilities

Terence van Zyl at the Meraka Institute of the CSIR has taken on the responsibilities as leader of task teams in the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) and in the Group on Earth Observations (GEO).

ICT innovations showcased to UNICEF delegation

A visit to the CSIR's Meraka Institute by Dr Sharad Sapra, director of the UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) division of communication, may see more of the institute's ICT innovations deployed in developing countries. UNICEF works for children's rights, their survival, development and protection, and is active in 91 countries.

NSTF acknowledges value of YESA youth initiative

The National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF) has acknowledged the role of the Meraka Institute's Young Engineers of South Africa (YESA) initiative by adding it to the NSTF brochure listing all national science competitions and olympiads. The NSTF manages these events as part of the Youth into Science Strategy.