African-German Centre for Resilient Food Systems and Applied Data Science in the making?
A German delegation visited Stellenbosch University (SU) on 8 September 2022 to explore and identify possible interested partners for a proposed Centre of Excellence (CoE), an African-German Centre for Resilient Food Systems and Applied Data Science.
The ten-person German delegation included representatives from the Federal Ministries of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) and Education and Research (BMBF), several members of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) as well as the Agricultural Attaché from the German Embassy in Pretoria, Maximilian Berger, also an alumnus from SU.
SU’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies, Prof Sibusiso Moyo, welcomed the group
Mr Christoph Hansert, Head of the Division Development Cooperation and Transregional Programmes from DAAD explained the plans for this proposed CoE.
Prof Hester Klopper, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Strategy, Global and Corporate Affairs, Prof Danie Brink, Dean of AgriSciences, Prof Kanshukan Rajaratnam from the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking, and Dr Jan Greyling from the Faculty of AgriSciences’ AgroInformatics Initiative (SAI) shared what SU can bring to this partnership.
Other SU delegates at the meeting were Prof Louise Warnich, Dean of Science, Prof Wikus van Niekerk, Dean of Engineering, Prof Francesco Petruccione, the interim director of the National Institute for Theoretical and Computational Sciences (NITheCS) and four Post-docs from AgriSciences and the Data School.
DAAD will announce its final plan and call for this CoE in 2023.
Photographer: Anton Jordaan. Article: Anneke Müller
