NLP, ML and Computational Linguistic  

Affiliation(s): University of Pretoria

Area(s) of Expertise:  Linguistics, Natural Language Processing(Language Technologies), Machine Learning/Artificial intelligence

Andiswa Bukula  is a Digital Humanities researcher at the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources, with a speciality in isiXhosa. She also held a position at Nelson Mandela University (formerly known as Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) an assistant lecturer teaching isiXhosa for non-mother tongue speakers where she also obtained her Masters Degree in isiXhosa Language and Literature. Andiswa is a PhD candidate at Rhodes University and is focusing her research on the influence of language technologies on the effectiveness of multilingualism in Higher Education.

Affiliation(s): SADiLaR

Area(s) of Expertise: Linguistics, Natural Language Processing (Language Technologies)

I teach Methodology of Sepedi. I am also interested in integrating technology into the teaching of African language.  

Affiliation(s): University of Pretoria

Area(s) of Expertise:  Linguistics, Natural Language Processing(Language Technologies)

I am a senior researcher at the CSIR Pretoria with a masters degree in applied mathematics from the University of Stellenbosch and a PhD in electronic engineering from the University of Pretoria. My focus is on incorporating machine learning in work projects and to learn as much as I can in the process. My current passion is to explore the broad field of Natural Language Processing because it combines two of my big loves: mathematics and languages.  

Affiliation(s): CSIR Pretoria

Area(s) of Expertise:  Machine Learning and Artificial intelligence.

Jade Abbott is the Machine Learning Lead at Retro Rabbit in South Africa. She has an MSc Computer Science from the University of Pretoria and works as a software engineer across Africa in every field from fintech, to NGOs, to startups. Currently, she trains and deploys deep learning systems to perform a variety of tasks for real world systems. In 2019, she co-founded Masakhane, an open research grassroots natural language processing initiative for Africans, by Africans, which aims to spur research into NLP for African languages, currently boasting over 400 members, from 38 African countries, and 13 affiliated publications. 

Affiliation(s): Masakhane

Area(s) of Expertise: Natural Language Processing( Language Technologies), Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence

I am a Lecturer (≈ Assistant Professor) in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Cape Town. My research area is Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning. My current research focusses on text generation, linguistic structure prediction, and low-resource language processing.

Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington. I completed my PhD at the University of Oxford, and before that I obtained a Masters degree and undergraduate degrees in Computer Science at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.   

Affiliation(s): University of Cape Town

Area(s) of Expertise:  Natural Language Processing(Language Technologies), Machine Learning/Artificial intelligence

Jocelyn Mazarura is a lecturer in the Department of Statistics, University of Pretoria. In the last 7 years her research focus has been on the development and application of topic models for short text. During this time she completed her PhD in Mathematical Statistics at the University of Pretoria. 

Affiliation(s): University of Pretoria

Area(s) of Expertise: Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence

Joseph is a Data Science and Natural Language Processing specialist researcher at the Council for Scientific Research. He holds an MSc and BSc in Computer Science from the University of Limpopo. His research interests include machine learning, natural language processing, speech processing, and development of digital solutions. His research outputs include journal articles and conference papers published in national and international publishers. He is currently supervising MSc students at the University of Pretoria.   

Affiliation(s): CSIR

Area(s) of Expertise:  Natural Language Processing(Language Technologies)

Madimetja Jonas Manamela is a senior lecturer at the University of Limpopo holding an MSc (Computer Science) (UNIN) and DTE (UNISA) offering courses in Artificial Intelligence, Speech Technology and Data Structures. My research interest are in Speech Synthesis, Automatic Speech recognition and Information and Communication Technology for Development. 

Affiliation(s): University of Limpopo

Area(s) of Expertise:  Natural Language Processing( Language Technologies), Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence

I am a data scientist currently working for a start-up in Stellenbosch, and I am interested in pursuing a masters with a research component in natural language processing. I am interested in the mechanisms that drive code-switching in multi-lingual contexts that include low-resource languages, how they preserve or erode language, and how this impacts the development of automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech technologies.  

Affiliation(s): Predictive Insights/Masakhane

Area(s) of Expertise:  Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence

Language Researcher at South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR)   

Affiliation(s): North-West University

Area(s) of Expertise:  Linguistics

Mmasibidi Setaka is a Sesotho language researcher at the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR). She is passionate about her research into the digital sphere of this language as well as research in the area of lexicography. As a researcher at SADiLaR, Ms Setaka is always working on a variety of different projects within the scope of DH and her research in lexicography for the Sesotho language. She is a DH scholar and part of her responsibilities at SADiLaR include, but are not limited to, introducing Digital Humanities, digital methods and digital tools to the broader South African community of researchers, hosting and organising workshops in both DH and linguistics. She is an exco member for Digital Humanities of Southern Africa (DHASA), instructor at the Carpentries instructors, organising committee for the Carpentries in South Africa. She has organised local and international workshops including the 1st workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages (RAIL) which was part of LREC 2020, and the 2nd workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages which is a part of DHASA 2021, including the organisation of DHASA 2021. 

Affiliation(s): SADiLaR

Area(s) of Expertise:  Linguistics

Prof. Mpho Raborife is an NRF-rated researcher and recently appointed associate professor at Department of Computer Science (UNISA). She is a L’Oréal-UNESCO sub-Saharan Regional For Women in Science fellow, 2013. In 2014, Prof. Raborife received the DST Women in Science fellowship In 2019, she was featured as one of the 200 exceptional and notable young people under the age of 35 in Mail & Guardian "200 Young South Africans" list. Most recently, in April 2020, she was selected as part of the first cohort of the Research Leadership Programme (University of Johannesburg). In 2021, Prof. Raborife was chosen as one of the Jakes Gerwel distinguished fellows.

Prof. Raborife's current research focus is on bridging the gap between formal methodologies and real-world applications. She is currently supervising students within the natural language processing area, formal language theory and digital humanities with all these projects aiming to discover scientific and technical African solutions for African problems. This has enabled her to contribute to the discourse, not only through scientific publications but also been participating in public lectures and panel discussions. Thus far, Prof. Raborife has successfully supervised two PhDs and an MSc. to completion. 

Affiliation(s): UNISA

Area(s) of Expertise:  Linguistics, Natural Language Processing(Language Technologies)

I am currently a Master of Arts student in Linguistics. I am also a corpus planning intern at the University Language Planning and Development Office. I have an interest in Digital Humanities, especially Natural Language Processing with an aim of being part of developing low resource African languages. 

Affiliation(s): University of Kwa-Zulu Natal

Area(s) of Expertise:  Linguistics

I am currently at the very early stages of my MA: Linguistics. I am also very interested in NLP and HLTs and wish to learn as much as I can so that I can produce research and be involved and contribute more in the intellectualization of African Languages. 

Affiliation(s): University of Kwa-Zulu Natal

Area(s) of Expertise:  Linguistics

Rooweither Mabuya is a Language Researcher at the South African Centre for Digital Resources (SADiLaR). She is a Linguistics Scholar interested in Corpus Linguistics, DH and African Languages.  

Affiliation(s): SADiLaR

Area(s) of Expertise:  Linguistics

I am a PhD candidate and my area of interest is socio-linguistics. Some sub-disciplines that I am interested in include multilingualism, Language and economics and business communication. 

Affiliation(s): University of Pretoria

Area(s) of Expertise:  Social Linguistics

A PhD Student interested in language technologies and efficient ways of representing text. My research is on sentiment and topic modeling of text to understand social concepts and discover topics in a corpus.

Affiliation(s): University of Pretoria

Area(s) of Expertise:  Natural Language Processing (Language Technologies), Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence

Thapelo Sindane is a Master student in computer science under the dsfsi research group at the University of Pretoria. He has a background in application heuristic algorithms, machine learning and NLP. 

Affiliation(s): University of Pretoria

Area(s) of Expertise:  Natural Language Processing(Language Technologies), machine learning/Artificial intelligence

Thipe is a member of the teaching staff at the University of Limpopo. His research interests include Automatic Speech Recognition and Code-switched speech  

Affiliation(s): University of Limpopo

Area(s) of Expertise:  Linguistics, Natural Language Processing(Language Technologies)

Chair of Data Science and Associate Professor in Computer Science. Pretoria. Prof Marivate works on developing machine learning/artificial intelligence methods to extract insights from data - much of this has been at the intersection of machine learning and natural language processing. Prof Marivate is interested in data science for social impact, using local challenges as a springboard for research. He has worked on projects in science, energy, public safety and utilities. Marivate is a founder of the Deep Learning Indaba, the largest Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence workshop on the African continent, aiming to strengthen African machine learning: https://dsfsi.github.io/

Affiliation(s): University of Pretoria, Masakhane NLP, Deep Learning Indaba

Area(s) of Expertise:  Natural Language Processing(Language Technologies), Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence