Our School is driven by an overwhelming desire to be the very best we can be. This is made possible in part because of the support we continue to receive from industry; but largely, it is because of the role that the staff play.
As I write this comment, I am one week away from the last Open Day over which I will officiate as Head of School. In many respects this leaves me sighing in relief. Ten years of heading up a School – balancing leadership and administration – can seem like twenty years! But it also leaves me sad. I sat through last Thursday knowing that, in another part of the building, the candidates to be my successor were being interviewed.
Now I have no doubt that my successor, whoever it may be, will take this School to greater heights yet – but the real sadness is that, over the past ten years, I have grown to respect and admire the people I have had the privilege of working with. I have felt their unwavering support during some remarkably challenging times. Although we will remain colleagues and I will be very much part of the team, I will genuinely miss the responsibility I felt for the School as Head.
I also look back and am alarmed that I was ever chosen as Head of School. For goodness sakes, I was 37 years old; and think about Bozzoli, Hanrahan, Reynders and Landy (to name a few) – I mean, seriously, how can one fill those shoes? But I am advised that I did not break too much over the past while!
I will bid you farewell and introduce my successor in the next edition of The Node.
What has become very clear to me, in a variety of interactions, is to ensure that the perception that our degree programmes are anything less than world class, must be continuously addressed. Our degree programmes are world class. We have 5 years unconditional accreditation from the Engineering Council of South Africa; and our staff regularly participate as assessors for the Washington Accord in other countries – such is our credibility.
Currently, more than 75% of our staff at the rank of lecturer and above have PhDs; we have an additional six associate lecturers (one of whom already has a PhD); and we continue to be able to attract industrial companies exploring the possibility of research partnerships with us.
I am also confident that, during the course of next year, some of our younger lecturing staff will make the grade for promotion to Senior Lecturer. These are exciting times indeed.
Scanning through the applications for next year we once again find ourselves overwhelmed with youngsters keen to study in the School. We do not have enough room for them all, and we are developing methods for coping with the under preparedness of many school leavers. But we believe that our tactics are sound.
Do enjoy this edition of The Node.
Ian R Jandrell - PrEng, PhD
HoS and CBI-electric Professor of Lightning
In this issue
South African Institute of Electrical Engineers Awards
Dr Mercy Violet Shuma-Iwisi
Wits PhD Graduate Designs Indigenous Mobile Phone Game
Wits IEEE Student Branch 2011 Highlights
School’s Centre of Excellence in Telecommunications Access and Services (CeTAS) 2011 conference participation
The EIE School does well at the ‘world cup’ of high voltage engineering
Wits Team are Android Developer Challenge Finalists
Mickey Milner visits his alma mater and delivers a public lecture.
Order of the Rising Sun for Witsie with the Way of the Sword
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Gill van der Heever
Administrative Manager
School of Electrical and Information Engineering University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
At the annual banquet of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) held on October 14, 2011, Prof Hanrahan, Prof Jandrell and Dr Grant all received notable awards. Prof Hanrahan was recognised for being a member of the institute for 50 years, Prof Jandrell received the prestigious Presidents award and Dr Grant received the Keith Plowden Young Achievers award.
Please accept our heartiest congratulations!
Dr Grant receives Keith Plowden Young Achievers award..
Dr Mercy Violet Shuma-Iwisi
The School of Electrical and Information Engineering congratulates Dr Mercy Violet Shuma-Iwisi on her promotion to Senior Lecturer, and wishes her continued success.
Wits PhD Graduate Designs Indigenous Mobile Phone Game
By David Vannucci
David Vannucci is an Electrical Engineer with a passion for telecoms. He graduated with his PhD in July 2011. His PhD thesis was on asynchronous stateful web services for telecommunications call control. David is the founder of Appceptional.co.za
Mobiraba was conceived in 2007, and now has recently been launched to the public. There has been a steep learning curve, both in technical and business acumen that goes along with meeting the demands of industry and marketing, to create a product suitable for public use.
Mobiraba was first created in 2007, for the Worldwide Mobile Communication & Java Card™ Developer Contest (http://www.gemalto.com/simagine/2007/), using the javacard for the authentication of player details. Rolan Christian, Teddy Mwakabaga and myself (David Vannucci) formed the Mobiraba team. There was a huge amount of interest due to the fact that we came second overall and went to the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona (February 12-15, 2007). to present Mobiraba at the Gemalto stand as one of 8 finalists. In South Africa, Mobiraba was in the spotlight, appearing both on TV and radio, such as on Yo TV (4 June 2007), 3 Talk with Noeleen (topic SA Amazing Inventions 13 April 2007), Science for Life (SABC1 16April 2007). SAfm (24 March 2007), SABC 2 Morning Live (27 Feb 2007), as well as in hundreds of online news articles.
The challenge faced by us was that we (Rolan, David, Teddy) were studying towards our Doctorates, and had very limited time to devote to the further development of Mobiraba. We attended a number of meetings with industry and attempted to finance Mobiraba, but as the SIMagine Mobiraba was a proof of concept only, industry was unwilling to risk funding an unknown group of students. Of course whoever we approached for help gave us quotes for development starting at R1 Million for creating Mobiraba.
Mobiraba remained in its infancy, and continued to do so for a number of years, having been put on ice in favor of our studies. Finally we decided to dissolve the team we formed for SIMagine, redistribute what was left of prize monies, and focus on real life demands. Mobiraba was so exciting it tended to consume large amounts of time, going to interviews, fielding news requests, going to venture capitalist meetings, and hundreds of sleepless nights. Thankfully we did not sign away rights to Mobiraba, and copyright reverted back to myself (David).
Once my Doctorate was complete, I decided to take a step back and re-evaluate what had been done on Mobiraba. I decided that a complete redesign from the ground up was required in terms of architecture, client and server. Luckily my Doctorate topic was in stateful asynchronous web services, so using the knowledge I had gained in that topic the server was redesigned as a webservice, with asynchronous state, and server side game logic. The client was designed as a consumer of the webservices, with almost no game logic. This was a paradigm shift from what had been done before where client side logic was total, and the server was merely relaying messages between clients. My friend Warren Hodgkinson, a guru programmer, and I worked on Mobiraba after work hours, focusing on the server as a platform.
We also started with Android applications, with our first application CafeWall Live Wallpaper (http://appceptional.co.za/wallpapers/cafewall) receiving unexpected success (over 100 thousand downloads, 2.5 Million ad impressions), which we presented at the first Mobile Mondays Tech: New Venture Fund Launch (28 March 2011) and Mobile Tech Startup. During the presentation I mentioned Mobiraba, and Mobimedia approached us about Mobiraba.
From Easter 2011 we started working on Mobiraba furiously and it has been growing and improving by leaps and bounds, with our launch on the 15th September 2011, and we have now introduced tournaments (15 October). We are working on placing Mobiraba in a number of app stores. Currently we have approximately 300 players, and invite everyone to join the Mobiraba community by downloading Mobiraba from http://bit.ly/Mobiraba
Mobiraba offers a number of unique value propositions, being an African game designed for Africa: It allows players to play Mobiraba, a traditional African board game, anywhere at any time, against friends and family. Currently Mobiraba is available for J2ME phones like BlackBerry, Nokia, and soon for Android and iPhone. The free to play business model encourages players to improve and hone their skills in strategy and lateral thinking. Players can develop a sense of community through in game chatting, and weekly tournaments with great prizes, and online rankings. In game advertising allows advertisers to reach a focused demographic of young South Africans. We dream of an all Africa tournament, with players from Cape to Cairo, playing against each other on their phones. Join the Mobiraba revolution!
Marlize Naudé is the 2011 IEEE Wits Student Branch chairperson, MSc student and sessional lecturer in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering
The Wits IEEE Student Branch achieved a new membership record in 2011 with 163 student and graduate student members. This is an increase from the 2010 membership figure of 112 members. In 2011, due to the membership drive during Orientation week, other branches of Engineering were also reached. This was initiated in 2010 by the past chair, Andrew Paverd. Andrew also initiated the process whereby students were able to sign up for IEEE membership using their Wits fees account.
This was so successful that the Wits Student Branch was the number one recruiter in Region 8 (Europe, Middle East and Africa Region) for 2011.
The hard work of the 2011 committee resulted in various other achievements during the year. The “senior” committee is as follows: Chair: Marlize Naudé, Vice-Chair: Tyrone Naidoo, Treasurer: Craig Carlson, Secretary: Natasha Zlobinsky, Webmaster: Brett Terespolsky, Membership Development: Yin-Han Chung, Public Relations: Yu-Chieh (Jessie) Liu. A “junior” committee was also established, with the purpose of getting younger students involved in the IEEE committee activities. Catherine Paverd is the chair of the new Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Chapter of the IEEE at Wits. This is not an officially recognised chapter yet, 2011 serves as a “test-run”.
Many members of the committee put a lot of time, effort and energy into making the IEEE a success this year. One student that stands out is John George Moutzouris, who designed and implemented a website for the non-profit organisation Zizanani. Have a look at www.zizanani.co.za! This project was done in collaboration with Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Wits. We hope to continue working with them on projects in the years to come.
Another highlight was the STEP event held in April. Jessie Liu already reported on the success of this event in another edition of The Node. Numerous talks by local and international speakers were organised and were attended by both students and staff. One of which was the talk by Prof. Tariq Durrani (IEEE VP for Educational Activities).
As is Wits IEEE tradition, a tour was undertaken. This year the IEEE took students to Bluhm Burton Engineering to see their concentrated solar energy collector plant. This gave students a slightly different perspective on Electrical Engineering.
There is the hope of forming a joint SAIEE/IEEE student branch at Wits in the near future. Students could certainly benefit from both international and local society membership. Tyrone is actively pursuing this possibility.
Andrew Paverd and Daniel Mankowitz received the second place in the 2011 Region 8 Student Paper Contest, as was reported in the previous edition of The Node. This year, the Wits IEEE Student Branch will have two entries into the competition which will be held in 2012; hopefully we will have such excellent results to brag about next year again!
The AGM will be held towards the end of the year to wrap things up and elect a new chair. As always, thanks goes to many people for their support: Prof Willie Cronje (Student Branch Councillor), Prof Ian Jandrell (Head of School), all the administrative staff of the School, other staff members of the School, and the entire committee as well as student members.
Zizanani website.
Committee members hard at work signing up members.
Left to right: Prof Tariq Durrani, Marlize Naudé, Prof Willie Cronje, Prof Anton van Wyk, Tyrone Naidoo.
School’s Centre of Excellence in Telecommunications Access and Services (CeTAS) 2011 conference participation
By Rex van Olst
Prof. Rex van Olst is the head of Telecommunications Research Group under the School of Electrical and Information Engineering. He is a Fellow of the SA Institute of Electrical Engineers and a Fellow and Professional Member of the Computer Society of South Africa.
Since the last issue of The Node, the CeTAS Group has presented papers at two important conferences; the South African Telecommunications Network and Applications Conference held in East London from 4th to 7th September 2011, and within the telecommunication research tracks at the IEEE Africon conference held in the Victoria Falls Convention Centre, Zambia from 13th to 15th September 2011.
Papers were accepted for presentation at SATNAC 2011 by the following:
Jide Julius Popoola
Nikesh Nageshar
Sade Dahunsi
Joyce Namakoye
Vitesh Jinabhai – Work in Progress
Anita Cherian – Work in Progress
Papers were also accepted for presentation at IEEE Africon by the following:
Jide Julius Popoola (two papers)
Nikesh Nageshar
Sade Dahunsi
Joyce Namakoye
Rex van Olst
Prathaban Moodley
Kennedy Ifeh
Note that in most cases Prof van Olst was the co-author for the authors listed above; in Sade’s case Prof Dwolatzky was the co-author, whilst in Kennedy’s case Dr Cheng was the co-author.
The list of paper titles is available on request. The topics presented ranged from the use of Cognitive Radio technology for spectrum management and more efficient utilisation; the quality of service improvement in 4G IP networks; using the Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP) methodology for the design of a OSA/Parlay network interface; the performance evaluation of voice call handover schemes between LTE and UMTS; factors affecting the accuracy of network positioning methodologies in LBS applications – with an African emphasis; and the software testing of telecommunications billing systems. A wide coverage perhaps, but it remains directed within the research groups strong focus on telecommunications technologies for convergence.
The EIE School does well at the ‘world cup’ of high voltage engineering
By Cuthbert Nyamupangedengu
Dr Cuthbert Nyamupangedengu is Lecturer in School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand.
In football it is the FIFA world cup final that everyone would want to participate in; let alone host. In rugby it is the Rugby World Cup … and the Springboks are still licking their wounds! In high voltage (HV) engineering, it is the International Symposium on High Voltage Engineering (ISH). This article is a review of the 2011 ISH held in Hannover, Germany. The prominence of Wits University’s EIE School at the conference is highlighted.
The ISH is a prestigious international conference where experts from power utilities, power equipment manufacturers, consultants and indeed universities from all over the world meet and share knowledge. In 2009 South Africa was honoured to host this biannual conference. It was a great success and the Wits School of Electrical and Information Engineering played a critical role with Professor Jan Reynders as the chairperson of the local organising committee. Professor Ian Jandrell delighted the delegates with his plenary session presentation on lightning.
In manifestation of the high tempo of research work and expertise in high voltage engineering, the School sent 15 delegates presenting a total of 15 papers at the 2011 ISH in Hannover Germany. The Wits group was the largest among the total South African delegates of 21.
Although not based on actual statistics, a cursory scan of the delegates could easily place the Wits group as one of the biggest from a single university. The group always strives to deliver world class performance under the able stewardship of Professor Ian Jandrell. Ian also functioned as the ISH 2011 International Steering Committee chairperson representing Professor Jan Reynders who had not been able to travel to the conference; thank God he is all well again.
The papers from the School were well received and were more or less evenly spread over the knowledge areas of the symposium: electromagnetic fields; transient voltages; high voltage and high current testing techniques; high voltage measuring techniques; advanced insulation materials; monitoring & diagnostics and high voltage systems.
Judging by the number of papers in each knowledge area of the conference, most research activity in HV engineering worldwide is now currently aligned towards development of advanced insulation materials. Monitoring and diagnostics also attracts significant attention. There is notable interest in the development of nano-composites as more reliable high voltage insulation. This technology however, in high voltage engineering, is still in infancy but has remarkable potential in improving the quality and voltage handling capabilities of high voltage equipment. In order to keep pace with HV insulation technology evolution, participation in nano-composite research is becoming more and more imperative.
The School of Electrical & Information Engineering’s success at the ISH 2011 is a product of vibrant research environment in the School. The generous support from the School’s sponsors, stakeholders and well-wishers is a critical ingredient in this success story and is greatly appreciated.
Wits Team are Android Developer Challenge Finalists
In July 2011, a team of four Wits EIE graduates received an email from Google informing them that Dribble, the mobile application they developed has been selected as a finalist in the Google Android Developer Challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa.
Dribble is a geo-social networking application designed for mobile devices. It allows users to post location-based messages at their current position which can be viewed by others nearby.
This application began as a project for the Software Development 3 course at Wits. This final year EIE elective course, taught by Mr Aveer Ramnath, extends the previous undergraduate software development courses and provides richer insight into the rapidly changing technical area of software development. For the major course project, students are required to work in teams to develop a software system which solves a problem of their choosing. In this context, the concept behind Dribble was originally created by the group consisting of Ashleigh Campbell, Chad Epstein, Greg Favish, Daniel Mankowitz and Andrew Paverd.
The many hours spent debating design decisions and overcoming technical challenges culminated in a fully functional system and the project was a success. After the completion of the project, some of the project members felt that the technology still had more potential and so formed the Dribble Team and continued developing the system.
Later in the year, this team was invited to present some of the technology behind Dribble at the inaugural Android Developer Day in Johannesburg. The team also entered the “60 Second Challenge” at the Global Entrepreneurship Week hosted by Wits Business School in which entrepreneurs are given exactly 60 seconds to present an “elevator pitch” of their idea to a panel of experts. Out of the 25 entrants, the team of engineering students impressed the judges and were awarded fourth place overall.
All four members of the team graduated from Wits in December 2010.In June this year, the team decided to enter the Google Android Developer Challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa. This international competition is open to all developers from the 42 countries on the sub-continent. Google invites new Android applications to be entered in the categories of entertainment, social networking or productivity.
After a concerted effort by the team to implement certain new features, Dribble was entered into the social networking category of the competition and two weeks later, Google announced that Dribble had been selected as one of the 9 finalists. As a result, the team members were provided with Android development resources and given the opportunity to discuss their application with an engineer from Google via a video conference to California.
Although Dribble wasn’t selected as the overall winner, this competition provided the team with valuable insight which will be used to continue the development of this technology. From what started out as a basic idea on a sunny Friday afternoon in the EIE D-Lab, Dribble has grown into an exciting project which has now been featured on the international stage.
For more information about Dribble, please visit the new website at dribl.co.za or email admin@dribl.co.za.
The Dribble Team presenting at the inaugural Android Developer Day in Johannesburg sponsored by Samsung. From left to right: Andrew Paverd, Ashleigh Campbell, Chad Epstein and Daniel Mankowitz.
Mickey Milner visits his alma mater and delivers a public lecture.
Morris (Mickey) Milner, BSc(Eng) (Wits), Ph.D. (Wits), D.Sc. (Hon) (Queen’s), P.Eng., C.C.E. visited his alma mater, Wits University, on 4 October 2011 and delivered a public lecture hosted by the School of Electrical and Information Engineering entitled “Assistive Technologies for People with Disabilities”.
Mickey Milner was born and educated in Johannesburg, South Africa. He received B.Sc.(Eng) degree in 1957 and a Ph.D in 1968, both in the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He served as a faculty member in Electrical Engineering at Wits for over a decade during which time he initiated a program of biomedical engineering research.
He subsequently held appointments at the National Research Council, Ottawa, the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital as the first Director of Bioengineering and Medical Physics, Emory University, Georgia Tech., and McMaster University. Dr. Milner then joined the Ontario Crippled Children’s Centre (now Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab Hospital) in 1978 as Director of Rehabilitation Engineering, and then as Vice President of Research, with academic appointments at the University of Toronto in the Departments of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Rehabilitation Science, Surgery, and the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME). He served as Deputy Director IBBME and Chairman, Rehabilitation Medicine. He is now Professor Emeritus in IBBME.
Dr. Milner is the Founding Director of the Ontario Rehabilitation Technology Consortium (ORTC) which linked Ontario-based rehabilitation facilities, academic centres, consumers, and manufacturers in the development and commercialisation of assistive technologies. Over a period of 12 years, ORTC marketed 33 assistive devices and some 10 startups were initiated. He served as President and CEO of The Health Technology Exchange (HTX), and then as Consultant to the organization and is currently a member of the Board of Directors. Dr. Milner was instrumental in attracting $21.4-million of investment for the medical and assistive technology sector in Ontario.
Dr. Milner has contributed vastly to training and mentoring in biomedical / rehabilitation engineering and various other disciplines. He has received many prestigious awards, including the Engineering Medal of Professional Engineers Ontario, induction into the Terry Fox Hall of Fame, the Circle of Honour Award for Research, Bloorview Kids Rehab, an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Queen's University, Kingston, the 2007 John Jenkins Award of the Canadian Standards Association, and two eponymous awards.
Order of the Rising Sun for Witsie with the Way of the Sword
A Wits alumnus and former lecturer in the Wits electrical engineering and business schools is the first South African practicing a Japanese martial art to be awarded one of Japan's highest honours, the Order of the Rising Sun Gold and Silver Rays, for his contribution to kendo - the Way of the Sword - the modern embodiment of the sword-fighting arts of the Samurai warriors.
