On Thursday 10 February, Prof Alfredo Terzoli and Dr Hannah Thinyane of Rhodes attended the Inauguration of the Telecom Namibia Centre of Excellence (CoE) at University of Namibia (UNAM) with the aim of further building on this mutually beneficial collaboration.
The Telkom Centre of Excellence in Distributed Multimedia, hosted by the Computer Science Department at Rhodes University, has had an ongoing relationship with the Computer Science Department at University of Namibia for a number of years. This relationship was solidified in 2007 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding at the annual Southern African Telecommunication, Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC 2007).
In 2008 the two universities received R2.3 million funding from the South Africa-Norway Tertiary Education Development (SANTED, www.santed.org.za) Programme for a three-year, staff and research capacity building project between the two institutions. This collaboration encompassed a number of different phases: curriculum development and staff mentoring for UNAM’s new fourth year computer Science courses; curriculum development and staff mentoring for a new Masters degree by coursework at UNAM; and postgraduate degree supervision.
To date the collaboration has resulted in four PhDs in three departments and two Masters degrees in Computer Science being commenced at Rhodes University, and a further PhD and four Masters degrees in Computer Science by coursework and minithesis being undertaken at UNAM.
Although the funding for the project has now finished, the two departments were looking forward to building on the existing relationship and collaborating further in the future.
The Telkom CoE acted as a mentor to the Computer Science Department at UNAM, facilitating their interaction with Telecom Namibia. This facilitation took place both virtually and in person, with Prof Terzoli attending the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between UNAM and Telecom Namibia in July 2009, after talking earlier to Telecom Namibia about the opportunity to support the Computer Science department at UNAM.
In September of the same year, a delegation from Telecom Namibia and the Computer Science Department at UNAM visited the Telkom CoE at Rhodes University for a demonstration of a realised centre that could be used as a model for the new relationship between the two organisations. With the conclusion of the SANTED project, Prof Terzoli sees the respective CoEs as providing an excellent vehicle to continue this collaboration.
The inauguration was held in Windhoek at the presence of the Vice-Chancellor of UNAM, Prof L Hangula, the MD of Telecom Namibia, Mr F Ndoroma, the deputy Minister of Education, Dr Namwandi, and the deputy Minister of Communications, Mr S Simataa.
Picture: From left to right: Mr James Mutuku UNAM), Mrs Nalinah Suresh (UNAM), Dr Hannah Thinyane (Rhodes), Prof Alfredo Terzoli (Rhodes), Dr Jameson Mbale (UNAM), Mr John Magenya (UNAM).