The Data Science Law Lab (DSLL) recently hosted a dynamic panel discussion focused on the intersection of copyright, law, and data science in Africa. DSFSI was proud to participate through lab members Prof. Vukosi Marivate and Dr. Tsosheletso Chidi, who joined moderator Prof. Chijioke Okorie for a wide-ranging conversation. Held as part of our ongoing collaboration with DSLL, the event explored real-world legal, ethical, and community challenges faced by researchers working with African language data—and why these issues matter for innovation and inclusion in AI.
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Help Shape the Future of African Language Technologies: Participate in Our Survey
We are thrilled to announce the upcoming visit of Prof Judy Wawira Gichoya, who will be joining us at the University of Pretoria from 8 to 25 July 2025 as a Carnegie African Diaspora Fellow. Prof Gichoya will be hosted jointly by the Data Science for Social Impact Research Group (DSFSI), AfriDSAI (African Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence), and the Faculty of Health Sciences. This visit represents another significant step in AfriDSAI’s commitment to advancing transdisciplinary, Africa-centric AI and Data Science research while building bridges across disciplines and strengthening African leadership in AI innovation.
Celebrating Our DSFSI Autumn 2025 Graduates — A Community of Growth and Collaboration
On 30 May 2025, the University of Pretoria brought together staff, researchers, students, and partners for a dynamic internal workshop focused on advancing teaching, research, and collaboration around Data Science and AI across the university.
We’re excited to announce that the **2025 edition of the MIT 808 Big Data Science Capstone Exhibition**—a highlight of the University of Pretoria’s Masters in IT (MIT) programme—is officially online! 🚀
We're proud to share that DSFSI researchers Prof. Vukosi Marivate and Dr. Idris Abdulmumin are co-authors on two papers accepted at the Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (NAACL 2025)
The Data Science for Social Impact (DSFSI) team at the University of Pretoria proudly participated in the Global AI Summit on Africa 2025 (GAISAfrica2025), held in Kigali, Rwanda, and hosted by the Rwanda Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The summit gathered researchers, policymakers, funders, and innovators to shape the continent’s AI future—with a focus on sovereignty, inclusion, and shared infrastructure.
March Recap + DSFSI@GAISAfrica2025
Interdisciplinary Retreat on African NLP and Linguistics
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Join Us for an Exciting Seminar on Code-Switched Translation for African Languages! - Dr Kayode Olaleye
🌍 Topic: Bridging the Language Gap: Exploring Code-Switched Translation for African Languages
🎤 Speaker: Dr. Kayode Olaleye
📅 Date: 12 March 2025
⏰ Time: 12:00 PM - 1:15 PM SAST
UP Academic Awards 2024
UP Academic Awards 2024
UP<>Sweden AI Workshop Panel: AI, Industry and R&D
UP<>Sweden AI Workshop Panel: Low Resource Languages and LLMs
Titled: “Gondzo - Charting a Path for African Low-Resource Languages: A Multifaceted Approach to Research and Development”
Masters dissertation by Shaun Johnson, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Rozina Myoya, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Ndamulelo Nemakhavhani, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Derwin Ngomane, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
AI Workshop Schedule
Prof. Vukosi Marivate will deliver the 2024 Bernard Price Memorial Lecture on Thursday, 26 September 2024. His talk, titled “Charting a Path for African Low-Resource Languages – A Multifaceted Approach to Research and Development,” will explore the challenges and opportunities of advancing Artificial Intelligence in Africa, specifically in language development. Prof. Marivate will emphasise the need for multidisciplinary approaches beyond technical solutions to address the cultural and human aspects essential to language innovation.
DSFSI at the 2024 Deep Learning Indaba: A Journey of Learning, Innovation, and Community
Last week, the Data Science for Social Impact (DSFSI) team had the incredible opportunity to attend the 2024 Deep Learning Indaba (DLI) in Dakar, Senegal. Bringing together over 600 passionate attendees from across the continent and beyond, the Indaba once again proved to be a cornerstone event for Africa’s thriving AI community. In this post, some of our team members—Fiskani Banda, Seani Rananga, and Matimba Shingange—shared their unique experiences, highlighting the event’s profound impact on their academic and professional journeys.
We are pleased to announce that Fiskani Banda, a graduate from the Data Science for Social Impact research group at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, has won the Deep Learning Indaba 2024 Alele-Williams Masters Award. This award recognizes outstanding research and writing by masters candidates at African universities in the field of computational and statistical sciences.
Please welcome Dr. Hope Mogale to the Computer Science department at University of Pretoria. He has joined our team as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pretoria. This role is supported by Microsoft Research Africa, UP & DSFSI.
Introduction
As we conclude the Design Justice AI Institute, we want to extend our heartfelt thanks to each of you for your active participation and contributions over the past two weeks. Your insights, discussions, and engagement have made this event a remarkable success.
Congratulations to all DSFSI members & alumni graduating at University of Pretoria! Enjoy this special day with family, friends, & celebrate your achievements. We are immensely proud and honoured to have been part of your journey. Here’s to soaring even higher in your future endeavours!
Recorded at the AI+Policy Symposium: A Global Stocktaking on 16 April 2024
Recorded on Monday 4 Dec 2023
Vukosi Marivate and Seani Rananga touch on the challenges of monitoring social media acticity for election misinformation in 2024
DSFSI@Hundzula 2024 - Dr Idris Abdulmumin
The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting is an experience like no other.
26 January 2024, Akananyan Building, University of Pretoria <> The #BattlingMisinformationZA workshop, hosted by the Data Science for Social Impact group focused on strategies to combat misinformation ahead of South Africa's 2024 elections.
Work advised by Vukosi Marivate and Seani Rananga
We thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in and contribute to SACAIR 2023 in South Africa
We thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in and contribute to AfriCHI 2023
Welcome Dr Idris Abdulmumin to the Computer Science department at University of Pretoria. He is joining Data Science for Social Impact Research Group as a Postdoctoral Fellow through the ABSA UP Chair of Data Science.
A session at the 2023 World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders Sumit in Dubai hosted by Dr. Abdigani Diriye and Prof. Vukosi Marivate
Work by Vukosi Marivate, Valencia K. Wagner, Moseli Motsoehli, Richard Lastrucci, Isheanesu Dzingirai
Thipe Modipa
Paper by Abiodun Modupe and Vukosi Marivate
Aliya Bhatia and Gabriel Nicholas
Chijioke Okorie
Paper by Temitope Kekere and Vukosi Marivate
Maxamed Axmed/Mohamed Ahmed
We thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in and contribute to Deep Learning IndabaX 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa
Primer/Tutorial by Prof. Vukosi Marivate
Welcome Dr Kayode Olaleye to the Computer Science department at University of Pretoria. He is joining DSFSI as a Postdoctoral Fellow sponsored through the JP Morgan Research Faculty award received by Prof Vukosi Marivate.
Paper by Marc Gagiano and Vukosi Marivate
Paper by Derwin Ngomane and Vukosi Marivate
Paper by Thapelo Sindane and Vukosi Marivate
Paper by Trishanta Srikissoon and Vukosi Marivate
We are pleased to announce that the Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Data Repository for South Africa project led by the Data Science for Social Impact (DSFSI) Research Group at University of Pretoria is a finalist for the NSTF-South32 Awards 2022/2023
We thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in and contribute to ICLR 2023 in Kigali
Richard Lastrucci and Isheanesu Dzingirai - The main focus was collection, processing and creation of parallel corpora in the 11 official languages of South Africa. We collected multilingual data by building web scrapers, we processed and cleaned this and other extracted data before performing sentence alignment to produce the parallel corpora. We also improved and documented Masakhane Web.
Masters dissertation by Yolanda Nkalashe, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Jesse Parvess, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Andani Madodonga, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Rozina Myoya and Fiskani Banda - The aim of the research was to explore the application of Pre-trained Language Models(PLMs) on a multilingual classification task. The study concluded that PLMs perform best on downstream tasks on the languages they were pre-trained on, thus emphasising the importance of including low resource languages in the pre-training process of LMs.
By Vukosi Marivate
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By Eleni Coundouriotis. The event was organized and co-sponsored by Critical AI @ Rutgers, DIMACS, the Rutgers Department of Computer Science, and the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice
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Data Science for Social Impact (DSFSI) Research group calls for interested parties
Our contributions to the Colloquium on 11 Nov 2022
Paper by Nicolle Garber, Vukosi Marivate
Paper by Herkulaas MvE Combrink, Vukosi Marivate, Benjamin Rosman
Febe de Wet
Paper by Herkulaas MvE Combrink, Vukosi Marivate, Benjamin Rosman
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Our contributions at AIJC 2022
Skyler Wang
Paper by Herkulaas Combrink, Vukosi Marivate, Benjami Rosman
Paper by Herkulaas MvE Combrink, Vukosi Marivate, Benjamin Rosman
Reflecting on the 2022 Deep Learning Indaba held in Tunis, Tunisia - Prof Vukosi Marivate
DSFSI Paid Positions
Mukondleteri Dumela
Dr. Sekou L. Remy
Our contributions as DLIndaba 2022
William Bird and Nomshado Lubisi
presented by Professor Vukosi Marivate
Rediet Abebe
Paper by Rockefeller Rockefeller, Bubacarr Bah, Vukosi Marivate, and Hans-Georg Zimmermann , *African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cape Town, South Africa; *Department of Mathematical Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa; Department of Computer Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa; Fraunhofer Society, 200703 Munich, Germany, Germany
Paper by Salomon Kabongo Kabenamualu, Vukosi Marivate, and Herman Kamper, African Masters of Machine Intelligence, University of Pretoria, Stellenbosch University
Paper by Mpho Mokoatle, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Paper by Mashadi Ledwaba and Vukosi Marivate, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Herkulaas MvE Combrink, Prof Vukosi Marivate & Prof Benjamin Rosman
Masters dissertation by Palesa Rachael Lepamo, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Khutso Kgabo Sepuru, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Carel Kagiso Nchachi, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Paper by Mack Makgatho, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
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Prof Vukosi Marivate,
Yolanda Nkalashe
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Vukosi Marivate , David Adelani
Vukosi Marivate
Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed
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Vukosi Marivate
Vukosi Marivate, Uzodinma Iweala, Mutale Nkonde, & Jackie Mwaniki
Timnit Gebru
Vukosi Marivate & Barry Dwolatzky
Albert Luthuli Leadership Institute (ALLI), South African SDG Hub, Data Science for Social Impact (DSFSI) Research group
Emily Muller
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Dr Vukosi Marivate talking about NLP on Business Day TV
Ernest Mwebaze
Felipe Melo
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A new milestone for Masakhane NLP and DSFSI
Vukosi Marivate
Masters dissertation by Andreas Bayer, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology(Big Data Science) University of Pretoria, Pretoria
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Mack Makgatho, Vukosi Marivate, Tshephisho Sefara, Valencia Wagner
Publication by Moses, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Publication by Liketso, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Henry Wandera, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Jacques Lamont Theron, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Michelle Terblanche, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters thesis by Krishnan Naidoo, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Nicolle Garber, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Shané, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences
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Lacuna Fund - NLP RFP
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Marcel Atemkeng - The sky that a radio telescope such as the SKA observes (the feature map) is the true sky involved with a convolutional filter (the weighted sampling function). This convolution filter varies across the feature map and is different at each pixel.
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Jesujoba Alabi
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Dr. Elaine Nsoesie - Participants will get a high-level introduction to writing and publishing scientific papers
Vedantha Singh, HSRC, UP
Amelia Taylor
Raesetje Sefala
N Mtsweni, H Combrink, A Van der Walt, V Marivate
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Dr Vukosi Marivate, ABSA UP Chair of Data Science, Data Science for Social Impact Research Group.
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Dr. Vukosi Marivate
Masters dissertation by Collin, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
Masters dissertation by Monamo, Faculty of Engineering and Electronics, University of Johannesburg
Masters dissertation by Mokoena, Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Masters dissertation by Mokoatle, North West University
Masters dissertation by Avashlin Moodley, Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology University of Pretoria, Pretoria
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An Effort to Collate COVID-19 Case Data Across Africa - Elaine Nsoesie, Vukosi Marivate
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How and why we built the dashboard. Dr. Vukosi Marivate - Dept. Computer Science
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Dr. OS Madumo - School of Public Management and Administration, University of Pretoria
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Through an NRF Knowledge Interchange and Collaboration grant, I was able to visit some collaborators in Sierra Leone
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Go Tsamaya Ke Go Bona: Deep Learning Indaba #3 - A journey just beginning. By Vukosi Marivate
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We should all be Data Scientists: Why SOCIAL and SOCIETY are the missing links. By Vukosi Marivate
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I suppose should have met President Bio...🤦 By Henry Wandera
Masters dissertation by Phillemon, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences
Masters dissertation by Nkosinathi, African Institute for Mathematical Sciences