"Doing my PhD was an almost indescribable journey with many ups and downs that all contributed to making it an overall enriching experience. There is no denying all the (many) times giving up was the only thought in my mind, just as there’s no denying the affirming moments I felt like I am exactly the right person for this study. I feel motivated to build my future one present moment at a time."
Dr Muzi Matfunjwa, a digital humanities researcher for Siswati at the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) at the North-West University (NWU), describes himself as a language activist. He believes in the promotion of African languages, especially Siswati, as an official language and an academic discipline.
The North-West University’s (NWU’s) School of Industrial Psychology and Human Resource Management (IPS & HRM) recently hosted an academic networking brunch with academics from the University of Johannesburg (UJ), WITS University and the University of Pretoria.
The purpose of the event was to build research collaborations, get more moderators and examiners, and to ensure that the school benchmarked well against other universities.
by Birgit Ottermann
Two researchers from the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) at the North-West University (NWU) share their findings on the existence, use and importance of language repositories in the latest issue of the Journal of the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA), a peer-reviewed open-access journal of DHASA.
North-West University academic and researcher Prof Lebo Gafane-Matemane recently attended the 14th HOPE Meeting with Nobel Laureates from 27 February to 3 March 2023 in Tsukuba City, Japan.
She was nominated by the National Research Foundation (NRF), together with Dr Ncediwe Ndube-Tsolekile from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.
The HOPE meetings have been organised by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) since 2008, aiming to advance science and technology in the Asia-Pacific and Africa region.
North-West University (NWU) academic at the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Centre, Prof Adeyemi Oladapo Aremu, has been inaugurated as the president of the South African Association of Botanists (SAAB) during the annual SAAB conference that took place at the University of Limpopo earlier this year.
He will serve as president from January 2023 to January 2025.
Prof Aremu says he is honoured to lead the SAAB. “Given the rich history of the SAAB and its impact on society, I am sincerely grateful to SAAB members and the council for trusting me with this important job.
The North-West University’s (NWU’s) Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) Centre has once again teamed up with the Department of Science and Innovation and Prof Mziwoxolo Mzo Sirayi, an adjunct professor from Nelson Mandela University, to develop a one-of-its-kind indigenous knowledge-led smart village in Nyandeni in the Eastern Cape.
South Africa is dipping its toes into a recession, and the continued decline of parastatals such as Eskom and Transnet is escalating the country’s economic woes. One of the many sectors that are facing suffocating constraints is also one of the most important ones: agriculture.
The punishment does not fit the crime. South Africa has an endemic, growing and unique disease that is not only affecting the health of our country’s democratic structures, but is also an ill-conceived form of retribution for the lack of service delivery. Voter turnout continues to decline, but abstention is not the cure for consternation. It is a matter the North-West University (NWU) is hoping to address through its unique blend of teaching-learning initiatives.
North-West University statistics lecturer Dr Piet Ntema recently presented a paper at the 17th annual International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED2023) in Spain.
He presented the paper from his PhD thesis titled “Feature selection of student(s) at risk of dropout using administrative data at a university in South Africa”. He was among six other participants from South Africa who presented at the conference.