 | Dr. Dane Brown is a senior lecturer at Rhodes University, where he obtained a PhD in Computer Science. His PhD research on multimodal biometrics involved comprehensive theory and application of various image processing and machine learning techniques. He also holds a Masters degree in Science from the University of the Western Cape. This involved efficient parallel processing techniques on both the CPU & GPU within the scope of South African Sign Language recognition. He is a South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS) and an IEEE member. His recent research interests include the application of machine learning to computer vision problems related to biodiversity, such as plant stress/disease detection in agriculture and aquatic life tracking. Furthermore, he has been active in other areas, including region-agnostic license plate recognition, automated sign language translation, and information security. Title of Speech: Deep learning techniques in aquatic life. |
 | Prof. Pius Adewale Owolawi is a dynamic young man who received a B. Tech. Degree (Hons) in Applied Physics/Electronics from the Federal University of Technology (FUTA), Nigeria. He started his career with the Central Bank of Nigeria as a Resident Network Engineer under Safole Nigeria Limited. Afterwards, he proceeded to postgraduate studies in engineering. He obtained Master’s and PhD degrees in Electronic Engineering from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2006 and 2010, respectively. In 2016, he received an advanced diploma in Remote Engineering, Mechatronics and Robotics from the Engineering Institute of Technology, Australia (EIT). In June 2020 and February 2021, he completed a Postgraduate Program in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and Data Science and Business Analytics, respectively, both from the University of Texas, Austin, United States of America. Prof Owolawi further strengthened himself in emerging technologies when receiving an additional postgraduate diploma in Cloud Computing from the Great Lakes Institute of Management, India. He obtained a certificate in Management Development Programme (MDP) within the management space through the University of Stellenbosch Business School. In his quest for knowledge, he further registered with the University of South Africa to study Bachelor of Law (LLB) and Great Lakes Institute of Management, India, to study Postgraduate Program in Digital Marketing. Besides conventional qualifications, Prof Owolawi has several industry certifications in information technologies, such as Cisco Certified Network Administrator (CCNA) and Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP). Others are Certified Wireless Administrator (CWNA) and Professional (CWSP) and Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE) from well-established proprietaries. In terms of Radio engineering and Optic link design, he obtained Certifications in Radio Planning and Optimization of 2G to 4G from Tele-Resources engineering Ltd in Australia and Certified Fiber-Optic Technician (CFOA) and Fiber-Optic Systems Design (CFOS/D) through Triple Play Fiber Solution, South Africa. He is a member of several professional bodies, both in South Africa and internationally, such as the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA), the Institute of Electrical Electronics (IEEE), South African Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer (SAIEE), South African Radio Amateur League (SARL), South African Amateur Radio Satellite Association (SA AMSAT) etc. He has worked with several organizations/companies on engineering projects such as Eskom (Energy, Demand Side Management (DSM), Transnet (Embedded Remote Wireless Weight Gauge), GIZ (German development cooperation), and several research-based products. Prof Owolawi has worked with institutions such as the University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of South Africa, Durban University of Technology, and the Mangosuthu University of Technology, where he was a former Head of Department in the Electrical Engineering Department. He has developed accredited programmes in Engineering at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in two universities in South Africa. He has been a reviewer for CHE (Council of Higher Education) academic programmes (Undergraduate and postgraduate programmes) in South Africa for the past few years, 4IR research Chair and Trade and Occupation programme developer with MICTA SETA. His research interest and the focus of postgraduate students under his supervision are Energy hybridization (combined solar, wind and other energy sources, Energy computation and modelling, higher frequency radio spectrum (millimetre and microwave bands), free-space optical wireless communication, fibre-optic communication, Green Energy for mobile Telecommunication, satellite and wireless communication and Image Processing (Activity recognition, facial biometric, medical image, event detection and Robotic vision), Artificial intelligence and machine learning, Computer Vision and Computational electromagnetic. He is currently involved in several projects, such as Agriculture 5.0 and LMS system development, National AI Institute, AI in financial and medical applications and Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT). Prof Owolawi ranks among the top 500 researchers in Africa, based on his contribution to the body of knowledge and scholarly output between 2015 and 2020. He has published several scientific papers (over 180 scientific articles) with over 900 citations, served as a technical member and reviewer of several journals and conferences, external examiner for many universities locally and internationally, and reviewer of professorship portfolios for an international university and member of interview panels for the appointment of professors and authored of a book titled “Rain at SHF and EHF for Radio Links in South Africa” Published by a German publisher LAP LAMBERT academic publisher. Title of Speech: AI in Agriculture |
 | Dr. Avashna Govender is a senior research & development Engineer and the Research Group Leader of the Voice Computing Research Group within the NextGen Enterprises & Institutions cluster in the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa. She obtained a PhD in Informatics (Speech technology) at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom under the ENRICH training network under the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Association Fellowship. Her PhD combined aspects from Computer Science and Cognitive Science to evaluate the cognitive load of text-to-speech synthesis. Her recent research interests include the application of deep learning techniques that are being applied in current state-of-the-art text-to-speech systems. Furthermore, as a South African who aims to contribute to breaking down language barriers in South Africa, her focus currently lies in developing state-of-the-art text-to-speech systems for under-resourced South African languages. Title of Speech: Unleashing the Power of Deep Learning in Text-to-Speech Synthesis |
