#02 2018
News
SARAO celebrates the successful completion of the SKA Telescope Manager Critical Design Review
The General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union to be hosted on African soil for the first time in 2024
US Embassy members visit Losberg and Carnarvon
European Union delegation visits SARAO Cape Town office
First cohort of SARAO-sponsored Northern Cape matrics progressing well at university
2017 SARAO bursary beneficiaries progress to second year of tertiary studies
Students from African countries complete third HartRAO AVN training school
Outreach
MeerLICHT telescope inaugurated
SARAO hosts Minister Kubayi-Ngubane and members of Parliamentary Portfolio Committee at Losberg
SARAO hosts Community Information sessions in the Northern Cape
South Africa’s initialling of the SKA Convention and Protocol texts takes place in Rome, Italy
Astronomy in South Africa is profiled at the IAU GA 2018 in Vienna
SARAO staff member leads 2018 NRAO NINE Program
Chinese Vice Minister for Science and Technology visits SARAO offices
Ghana and South Africa celebrate first success of African network of telescopes
Servitude establishment program
Latest developments on the land acquisitions programme
SARAO Human Capital Development Programme – Creating excellence in radio astronomy
SARAO Tech News
Ghana marks first spot on the AVN
Standing on the shoulders of giants: a South African’s contribution to global radio astronomy
HERA: Building to view the past
Across the Globe
SKA prototype dish assembled for the first time
First SKA-Low Prototype Station completed on site
SKA precursor upgrade makes telescope 10 times more powerful
Paving the way towards the SKA: astronomers detect signal from the first stars
Spain joins the SKA Organisation
New platform to showcase SKA’s major engineering progress
SKA treaty open for initialling
SARAO Science Engagement
RD9 Solutions: Introduction to Robotics
DST Mini Science Forum ignites conversations about big science
SARAO participates in Science Centre World Summit 2017
SARAO participates in third Science Forum South Africa
SARAO/SKA SA hosts DST Mini Science Forum in Northern Cape
Scifest Africa 2018
SARAO and Oculus announce partnership
SARAO wins Best Workshop prize at Scifest Africa 2018
NASA Electrical Engineer visits schools in Sutherland
SARAO participates in Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference in Dunedin, New Zealand
Participants graduate from Phase 1 of MAPPP NINE
SKA AVN MAPPP NINE Development Lab
MAPPP NINE expands to SKA AVN
IAU CAP 2018
SARAO participates in EuroScience Open Forum 2018 in Toulouse, France
National Science Week 2018
SARAO hosts 2018 SAASTA National Schools Debates Competition in the Northern Cape and North West
SARAO Big Data Africa School 2018 kicks off
Carnarvon High School teams through to National Competition of World Robot Olympiad 2018
SARAO Big Data Africa School 2018 ends on high note for African students
SARAO People
SARAO staffers shine at INCOSE SA 2018 conference
Five SARAO electrician trade artisan students attend media training in Carnarvon
SARAO Junior engineer wins Best Poster Presentation at UCT Engineering Research Expo
Dr Bonita de Swardt presents at plenary session at Grand Challenges Partners meeting in Kenya
SARAO bursary holder wins first prize in AT-RASC student paper competition
Dr Aletha de Witt elected to the IAU commission on astrometry
Dr Rob Adam inducted as a Fellow of the South African Academy of Engineering
SARAO bursary funded students selected for 2018/19 CSIRO scholarship
Junior Science Process Developer wins Thomson Reuters Award
Brendan Swarts – Electrician Artisan student
Morgan Daba – Electrician Artisan student
Marthinus Steyn – Telescope Operator
Griet Tobias – Housekeeper
Jan Mouers – General Worker
Mathakane Molewa – HERA Construction Supervisor
Malissa Pietersen – Procurement Officer (Site)
Lourencia Lyon – HERA General Worker
Peter van Wyngaarden – HERA General Worker
Bradwin Vermeulen – HERA General Worker
Tyrone Adams – HERA General Worker
Levurd Vaarland – HERA General Worker
R. Sean Oliphant – Mathematics teacher at Carnarvon High School
SARAO Big Data Africa School 2018 ends on high note for African students
SARAO News #02 2018
The second Big Data Africa School ended on a high note when the 27 students presented their projects in their respective teams.
The students, who participated in the School from 10 – 17 September 2018 in Cape Town, came from Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia.
The students were each placed in teams taking on a different big data research project for the duration of the school, ranging from reproducing results from a scientific research paper to analysing hacker attacks, medical imagery, or even traffic data. The categories ranged from cybersecurity, diabetic retinopathy, the Internet of Things, radio frequency interference and stellar rotation.
The Group Award went to the Health project (Detection of diabetic retinopathy disease by applying Machine Learning image classification techniques), in which the students aimed to develop a machine learning algorithm to accurately diagnose patients with diabetic retinopathy which can help to save the eyesight of millions of people worldwide.
They worked from a ready cleaned and labelled dataset, a set of images of patients’ retinas. The project had a small amount of data exploration and concentrated on feature extraction and applying machine learning algorithms to classify these images. The students employed a range of algorithms from the most basic to deep convolutional models. The project was aimed at beginner students who want to learn about different machine learning algorithms as well as advanced machine learning enthusiasts looking to create complex deep learning models.
The winning project was followed closely by the project which focused on the Internet of Things (How Big Data is powering the Internet of Things revolution), exploring a data set containing UK Traffic and Accident Data gathered over a period of roughly 16 years. This project moves away from the conventional machine learning type problems and tasked the students with exercising their creativity to explore the given data set and ultimately formulate a story from this data, asking a range of questions.
Individual awards were also given to the students, of which the accolade for the student showing the best leadership ability in a group went to Jordan Bakai, a B.Sc Honours student in Astronomy at the University of Cape Town.
“I expected to learn data science knowledge and application skills, specifically filling the gaps in my knowledge of machine learning. It met my expectations but it also ended up being focussed a lot more on presentation skills, insight and advice from respected people from the field, which I didn’t even realise I needed but found it a lot more helpful than something that you can Google,” said Barkai.
Safidinirina Razafiarison, a Masters student in Engineering from the Polytechnic School of Antananarivo in Madagascar; and Leon Mtshweni, a third year B.Sc student from the University of Pretoria, were awarded for being the students showing the most improved or developed technical skills.
“The project I worked on was really relevant for my career because my dream is to be a cybersecurity expert, and I have learnt a lot from this project – from coding to presentation,” said Razafiarison.
Three students were acknowledged as the students showing the most improved or developed soft skills, including presentation skills: Andriamirado Manoa, an M.Sc student from the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar; Vivian Otieno, an M.Sc student from the University of Nairobi; and Otlhomane Thibelang, an M.Sc student from the University of Botswana.
The Big Data Africa School is hosted by the SARAO Human Capital Development Programme in partnership with Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy, and the Newton Fund.
It aims to introduce fundamental data science tools and techniques to talented young science graduates across a range of disciplines, who have an interest to develop their skills and knowledge in working efficiently on extremely large datasets in any research environment.
SARAO received over 100 applications for this year’s school from students studying at universities in South Africa and the eight Square Kilometre Array Africa partner countries. This year, the 27 students who were hosted are completing a Masters or Honours degree in a range of science and engineering disciplines.
For more information contact Dr Bonita de Swardt, Programme Manager: Strategic Partnerships for Human Capacity Development on bonita@ska.ac.za
Coverage
Big Data Attendees at the one-day work session which was held on 11 July 2017 at the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation in Ghana to kick off the High Performance Computing training programme in Ghana.
Members of the nine SKA African partner countries concluded the Fourth Ministerial Meeting on the SKA in Accra, Ghana by signing a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on radio astronomy.
Minister of Science and Technology Naledi Pandor watches on as the President of the Republic of Ghana, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo cuts the ribbon at the launch of the Ghana Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Media coverage
The launch of the Ghana Radio Astronomy Observatory was covered 119 times in the media between 23 and 25 August 2017:
In Ghana: 24 times
In South Africa: 36 times
In other African countries: 8 times
Internationally: 51 times
The value of these placements is R6 983 234.17.
Last Updated on November 19, 2018
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