News
Distinguished Lecturer Visits South Africa
During the month of September 2009, Prof Bill Gruver, Sr. Past President and Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society, presented 13 lectures in 9 cities throughout South Africa.
The events were co-hosted by the IEEE student branches at University of Pretoria, University of Witwatersrand, and University of Cape Town. Prof Gruver’s trip to the student branches was organized by Prof Alta van der Merwe, Chair of the SMC South Africa Chapter which provided partial support under the SMC Distinguished Lecturer Program for his DL presentations in Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Cape Town.
Prof Gruver’s trip was also co-hosted by the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE), for which he presented the 2009 Bernard Price Memorial Lecture (BPML) to the electrical engineering community throughout South Africa including the Vaal Triangle, Western Cape, Southern Cape, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal.
The topic of Prof Gruver’s SMC Distinguished Lecture was “Distributed Intelligence: A New Paradigm for Systems Integration” which included an overview of multi-agent system technologies that have been developed in cooperation with the Holonic Manufacturing Systems Consortium, and members of the SMC Technical Committee on Distributed Intelligent Systems. His DL presentation contrasted the differences between centralized and distributed systems, and discussed the technologies and applications of distributed intelligence.
His BPML presentation was titled “Intelligent Systems for a Global World, an overview of the technologies of systems science and engineering, human-machine systems, and cybernetics that are providing increased levels of service and infrastructure. Applications were drawn from robotics, manufacturing automation, RFID, brain interface systems, smart grid, and integrated digital services.
On 16th of September 2009, Prof Gruver gave his first IEEE presentation at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg to the IEEE Student Branch, chaired by the IEEE Student Branch Chair, Daniel de Canha. More than 50 students and faculty across various disciplines attended the lecture which stimulated intensive technical discussions afterwards.
On 17th of September 2009, Prof Gruver engaged the IEEE SMC Society community in Pretoria. He participated in a meeting with committee members of the SMCS South Africa Chapter, where some ideas were discussed on the management of the Chapter and the formation of interest groups. The South Africa SMC Chapter was newly established in May 2009, and envisages growth in the future by the creation of Interest Groups within the South African community. Currently there are three active Interest Groups: Enterprise Information Systems, Ontologies, and Information Security.
Daniel de Canha, Prof Bill Gruver,
Prof Alta van der Merwe
Afterwards, Prof Gruver presented his lecture at the Meraka Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), on the Pretoria campus. His lecture was co-hosted with the newly established IEEE Chapter of the Robotics and Automation Society (RAS). This was indeed a valuable opportunity, since Prof Gruver was one of the founders of RAS.
Prof Bill Gruver, Mr Herman Myburgh,
Jean van Niekerk, Dr Saurabh Sinha
Prof Gruver also presented a lecture at the IEEE Student Branch, University of Pretoria, where a large number of graduate and undergraduate students listened with great interest. This event was coordinated by Jean van Niekerk from the Student Branch and we were also privileged to host the IEEE South Africa Section Chair, Dr Saurabh Sinha who had helped in organizing Prof Gruver’s visit.
During 18th of September through 1st of October, 2009, Prof Gruver was the guest of SAIEE President, Mr du Toit Grobler, and his wife who accompanied Prof Gruver for the BPML events. The SAIEE and IEEE bind together via a national society agreement promoted by both organizations. In addition, the SAIEE is celebrating its centennial year at the same time that the IEEE is celebrating its 125th anniversary. He travelled with Mr. Grobler to the cities of Bloemfontein, George, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban, Pretoria, Secunda, and Johannesburg. These presentations were well attended, many with 50-100 SAIEE members. The main BPML event took place at the University of Witwatersrand on the 30th of September 2009, a formal lecture with an audience of 250 including the entire leadership of the SAIEE.
This was a demanding itinerary that involved presentations at all of the centres and interest groups of the SAIEE, the first time that since the establishment of the annual Bernard Price Memorial Lectures in 1931. It is believed that this is the first year that the BPML series were presented by an IEEE member.
He also enjoyed visits to the BMW assembly plant in Pretoria and several locations of Sappi Ltd, a major international producer of coated fine paper and chemical cellulose, and a weekend at the Hluhluwe Umfolozi Game Reserve in KwaZulu Natal province.
Prof Gruver’s visit was very valuable for the SMC South Africa Chapter and we received positive feedback from members of our community. We recommend other IEEE regions and sections to invite Prof Gruver to present this lecture. The SMC Society will certainly further engage with Prof Gruver in years to come, and continue to build support for our SMCS chapter at the local and international levels.
The SAIEE thanks Prof Gruver for participating in the BPML series which has led to renewed interest by South African engineers and technologists in the applications of intelligent systems. Moreover, it has increased cooperation in South Africa between members of the SAIEE and the IEEE which will further advance the goals of both organizations.
| Prof Alta van der Merwe, Chair IEEE SMCS Chapter IEEE South Africa Section e-mail: |
Mr. du Toit Grobler, President South African Institute of Electrical Engineers e-mail: |