​​​​South Africa and the continent of Africa have a lot to teach the rest of the world. With its youthful and inquisitive population, Africa presents an ideal backdrop for using data science to create opportunities for the continent and beyond that will help improve lives.

This was the message from Prof Kanshukan Rajaratnam, director of the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking at Stellenbosch University (SU), in delivering the keynote presentation at a recent online talk hosted by SU International. Over 200 SU stakeholders tuned in for the event.

In his presentation, Rajaratnam shared what SU was doing to build data science capability in Africa, and highlighted opportunities in this area for institutions globally.

He believes data science can be used in the fields of health, water, agriculture, education, climate and energy across the African continent. “We need to collect and store our own data in Africa so that we can use it to solve our own problems on the continent. In fact, data can be analysed and used to improve the quality of life of all citizens around the world," said Rajaratnam.

SU launched its School for Data Science and Computational Thinking in July 2019 with the vision to be a world-class institution for data science and computational thinking in and for Africa. The School has since been hard at work to facilitate non-conventional, transfaculty and interdisciplinary approaches to teaching and research in data science and computational thinking at the University.

The School's African Data Science Academy was established earlier this year to carry out the mission of facilitating human capacity-building in data science and computational thinking at the University, in South Africa, across Africa and globally. Its offering includes open, general courses, as well as bespoke courses developed for SU's industry and academic partners.

To date, the School has collaborated with many higher education and international institutions, including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, as well as the United Nations. According to Rajaratnam, they hope to expand their collaborations in the near future.

With disease detection and prevention top of mind as the world continues to battle COVID-19, Rajaratnam illustrated how data science and artificial intelligence had become instrumental in keeping the global population safe. He shared how artificial intelligence was being used to detect a flu-like virus in Wuhan and lower fatalities among vulnerable populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Without data science, the pandemic would have been worse. Data science was used in diagnostics, discovery, pharmaceutical discovery and various other aspects in developing a solution to the pandemic."

Data science is also proving increasingly useful in business applications, he said, citing Matie students' innovative entries for the online 2020 Hackathon as an example. Students were challenged to develop solutions that could help small businesses function effectively in a post-COVID-19 environment. This, Rajaratnam said, was a good example of the importance of data science education to train young people in Africa to help find solutions for the continent's problems.

“There is a high demand for data scientists in Africa and across the globe. With Africa's young and tenacious population, there are multiple opportunities to build partnerships and solve Africa's problems."

For more information on SU's School for Data Science and Computational Thinking, contact [email protected] or click here.