Fiskani Banda

I am a PhD researcher specialising in natural language processing, with a particular focus on information retrieval and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems. I have an engineering background in biomedical engineering and information engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand, which shaped my long-standing interest in building technologies that are not only technically robust but genuinely useful within the contexts in which they are deployed. My research trajectory has been driven by a commitment to making existing technologies work for underrepresented populations and real-world settings. An early project focused on adapting generative adversarial networks to perform more effectively for people of colour, with an emphasis on African patients. This work examined the anonymisation of patient images to enable ethical data sharing among medical professionals, raising questions around bias, representation, and responsible data use which are concerns that continue to inform how I approach research. I later pivoted toward data science, completing a Master's degree in Big Data Science at the University of Pretoria, where I became deeply engaged in NLP and information retrieval. My Master's research explored information retrieval for low-resource languages using domain-specific agricultural data, contributing to farmer-centred information systems, and was recognised with the Deep Learning Indaba GRACE ALELE-WILLIAMS MASTERS DISSERTATION AWARD. I currently continue working in the information retrieval space, focusing on RAG systems and their potential to improve access to information in resource-constrained and context-specific environments.