Dr Japie Greeff, deputy director of the School of Computer Science and Information Systems at the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Vanderbijlpark Campus, will be leading four NWU students to take part in a BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) initiative in China.

The students will take part in two skills competitions and Dr Greeff will be one of the judges.

The first competition will focus on data analysis and visualisation, and the second on machine learning and big data.

“The competition will be intense, with students representing BRICS and other countries being judged over four days on their technical abilities in these fields. This is the first time a team from NWU will participate in this competition,” he adds.

The team representing the NWU consists of Richard Preston from the Vanderbijlpark Campus who is doing a BScHons in IT, Herman Le Roux, a Potchefstroom Campus student who is studying towards his MSc in computer science, Jacqui Muller, from the Vanderbijlpark Campus who is doing a PhD in computer science, and Reorapetse Molose, a staff member and PhD computer science student from the Mahikeng Campus.

Prof Greeff, who serves on the South African chapter of the BRICS Business Council's skills development working group, have also been invited as a South African expert to visit the BRICS headquarters in Shanghai, China, after the competitions. There he will attend an intensive five-day workshop on curriculum and standards development.