Tshilidzi Marwala. Tshilidzi Marwala  (born 28 July 1971) is a South African artificial intelligence engineer, a computer scientist, a mechanical engineer and a university administrator. He is currently Rector of the United Nations University and UN Under-Secretary-General. In August 2023 Marwala was appointed to the United Nations scientific advisory council.

Biography

Early life and education 
Marwala was born on 28 July 1971 in Duthuni Village in the Limpopo Province. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Case Western Reserve University, graduating Magna Cum Laude, followed by a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Cambridge in 2000.

Career 
From 2000 to 2001, Marwala was a post-doctoral research associate at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. In 2003, he joined the University of the Witwatersrand and became a professor of electrical engineering in 2008. From 2013 to 2017, He was the deputy vice chancellor for research and internationalization as well as the dean of engineering at the University of Johannesburg.

From 2018 to 2023, Marwala was the vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Johannesburg. As Vice-Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, Marwala developed and implemented the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) strategy, by introducing a compulsory artificial intelligence course and an Africa Insights course for all students, irrespective of their majors.

Marwala has been Rector of the United Nations University and UN Under-Secretary-General since 1 March 2023. He was a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) committee that developed the ethical guidelines of using artificial intelligence in medicine.

Marwala served as a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation (2020-2023) and on a board of Nedbank (2019-2023). He is a member of council of the University of Peace and the STS Forum Kyoto.

Marwala was the Deputy Chair of South Africa’s Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (with the President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa serving as Chair). He is the Chair of the International Scientific Advisory Board for the African Centre of Excellence in the Internet of Things (ACE-IoT) based in Rwanda. The government of Namibia appointed him on the Fourth Industrial Revolution Task Team.

Research 
Marwala's research interests include the theory and application of artificial intelligence to engineering and computer science such as the St. Petersburg paradox, blockchain, and poker., finance and economics, medicine like his work on pulmonary embolism epileptic activity, HIV and Covid-19, and political science.

Outreach and public engagement 
Marwala work and opinion have appeared in media such as New Scientist, The Economist, CNN, and BBC. He has also given talks at Royal Society, Cambridge Union, and Oxford Union. In 2016 Tshilidzi Marwala delivered the Bernard Price Memorial Lecture in South Africa. With Stephen Hawking and Guy Laliberté, he was a judge of the YouTube Space Lab competition.

Personal life 
Marwala is married to Jabulile Vuyiswa Manana since 2000, and together they have 3 children.

Awards and honours 
Marwala is a fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (2010), African Academy of Sciences (2012), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2022), Chinese Academy of Sciences (2023), and the Academy of Science of South Africa. He is the recipient of the Bronze Order of Mapungubwe in 2004. In 2022, Marwala was awarded the IT Personality of the Year Award in South Africa for his work on the fourth Industrial Revolution. In 2020 the Science-for-Society Gold Medal from the Academy of Science of South Africa, and in 2024 the Hans Carl von Carlowitz Sustainability Award.

Marwala has received honorary doctorates from the Caucasus University in Tbilisi in Georgia, the University of Venda. and Tshwane University of Technology. Marwala has been a visiting fellow at Harvard University, Wolfson College, Cambridge, and University of California, Berkeley. He is an honorary professor at the Nanjing Tech University as well as the Central South University in The People's Republic of China.

In high school he won the National Youth Science Olympiad and represented South Africa in the London International Youth Science Forum.

Marwala was selected as one of the 100 most influential Africans of 2024 by New African Magazine, which noted "his extensive application of artificial intelligence concepts across multiple fields, including health care, aerospace engineering, economics, finance, and political science."

See also

References

External links
Biography

1971 births
Living people
Under-Secretaries-General of the United Nations
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
TWAS fellows
People from Thulamela Local Municipality
Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
Case Western Reserve University alumni
University of Pretoria alumni
Science and technology in South Africa
Alumni of St John's College (Johannesburg)
Vice-chancellors of the University of Johannesburg
South African engineers
South African inventors
21st-century South African scientists
South African computer scientists
21st-century inventors
Fellows of the African Academy of Sciences