Here, too, Wits has been able to play a vital role in the research, teaching and learning, clinical, social and advocacy spheres. Innovative healthcare is sorely needed across the African continent. It can run new algorithms to solve previously “unsolvable” problems in optimisation, chemistry and machine learning, and its applications are far-reaching – from physics to healthcare. This radically new way of performing computer calculations is exponentially faster than any classical computer. To continue the pace of progress, we need to augment the classical approach with a completely new paradigm, one that follows its own set of rules – quantum computing. It sent humans to the moon, put robots on Mars and smartphones in our pockets.īut many of the world’s biggest mysteries and potentially greatest opportunities remain beyond the grasp of classical computers. It gave us the Internet and cashless commerce. Classical computing has served society incredibly well.
Today, in partnership with IBM, we’re the first African university to access a quantum computer.Īs the Chair of the National Quantum Computing Working Group in South Africa, this is an area where I see immense potential for Africa. In 1960 it was the first university in South Africa to own an IBM mainframe computer. The university has also come a long way on its computing journey. He has just secured R54 million for the Wits Quantum Initiative which explores theoretical and experimental quantum science and engineering, secure communications, enhanced quantum-inspired imaging, novel nano and quantum-based sensors and devices. Professor Andrew Forbes and his team at Wits are encrypting, transmitting, and decoding data quickly and securely through light beams. Source: Wits UniversityĪlmost a century on, the science of sensors has taken several quantum leaps.
A group of scientists – among them Sir Basil Schonland, Director of the Bernard Price Institute of Geophysical Research and another Wits engineer, Professor Guerino Bozzoli – came together to harness the power of radio waves.Īn aerial view of the university’s Milner Park campus, 1930. Britain and its allies were looking for a way to detect enemy aircraft and ships. Barely three months later, the first radar set was tested on Wits University’s campus. On 1 September 1939, Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. These rich seams of knowledge continue to inform policy and daily decisions and are the foundation of cutting edge research the institution continues to produce. Great innovations have emerged from the work done by Wits researchers that have shifted the dial in sectors ranging from health to computing to quantum and nuclear physics. Innovation will be key to any positive changes – and research-intensive universities have a central to play in that innovation.Īs the University of the Witwatersrand (or Wits, as it’s commonly known) turns 100, my colleagues and I have been thinking a great deal about the inventions and breakthroughs that have emerged from the university in the past 100 years – and what is coming next. It is a far cry from what the country could be if we brought its best talent and resources to bear for the benefit of humanity.
In my own country, South Africa, residents have to navigate socioeconomic and political instability, power and water cuts, homelessness, unethical governance and mediocre or no service delivery.
We live in a world characterised by inequality, poverty, economic volatility, globalisation, climate change and ambiguity.
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