Good News

BULLETIN 2 September  

Good afternoon, here is your Good News:

# The University of the Witwatersrand’s Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery Institute has been awarded 17.6-million-rand in funding by Google.org. The institute, which was launched in November last year, is home to some of Africa’s leading fundamental artificial intelligence researchers. It is led by professor Benjamin Rosman, who has been named in the ‘Thinkers’ category of TIME magazine’s TIME100 AI 2025 list. Wits says this financial support will boost the institute’s targeted capacity development and networking-building programmes.

# The City of Cape Town says the Tourism Development Framework, which will be published soon, is the metro’s action plan to grow and strengthen the visitor economy. According to the latest Economic Value of Tourism Report, Cape Town welcomed 2.4-million overnight visitors last year who spent 24.5-billion-rand directly in the economy, and supported over 106-thousand jobs. Mayoral committee member for Economic Growth, James Vos, says with September being Tourism Month, it’s about celebrating Cape Town’s beauty:

# The fifth edition of FAME Week Africa officially kicked off at the Cape Town International Convention Centre yesterday. From its modest start with three-thousand attendees during Covid-19 restrictions, it has grown significantly with nearly seven-thousand delegates this year. Mayoral committee member for Safety and Security, JP Smith, says this year the metro has partnered with students from AFDA, the Animation School, Film School Africa, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, University of Cape Town and the SAE Institute, whose films are being showcased at the pop-up cinema.  

# The University of Pretoria will confer 169 doctoral degrees during its spring graduation ceremonies at the Hillcrest campus this week. More than two-thousand-100 students will be capped and robed. Alongside the doctoral graduates, the university will also award 494 masters degrees, 460 honours degrees, 392 postgraduate diplomas, 355 bachelor’s degrees, and 237 advanced diplomas and certificates. Chancellor Justice Sisi Khampepe says graduations are a testament to the institution’s long-standing tradition of academic excellence.

# And finally: Over the past few months, over one-thousand-100 young people from across South Africa participated in the Hear Me Out and Keready to Ringa creative competitions. This was part of the national Hold My Hand campaign in support of the National Strategy to Accelerate Action for Children. Through letters, poems, videos, songs, and drawings, the participants expressed their thoughts on topics including love, mental health, respect, digital life and safety. Hold My Hand’s Lebo Motshegoa says the competitions gave the young people permission to speak freely.

Stay tuned for more news………….