Prof. Amir Patel is a robotics researcher with over 14 years of experience in both industry and academia. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Cape Town (UCT), as well as the director of the African Robotics Unit (ARU). His research involves studying the manoeuvrability of robotic and biological systems such as the cheetah. He has held visiting professor positions at Carnegie Mellon University and Johns Hopkins University. Some of his accolades include a Google Research Scholar (one of the first two African recipients), two Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Fellowships, a Mathworks Research Award (the first ever African recipient) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) Emerging Researcher Award. He is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford hosted by Prof.

- Andrew Markham

Dr. Iretiayo Akinola is a Research Scientist at NVIDIA, where he focuses on developing accelerated simulators for robot learning and implementing sim-to-reality techniques for the transfer of policies from simulation to real-world robotic systems. He holds a PhD from Columbia University's Computer Science department, where his research centered on equipping robots with multi-modal (visual and tactile) perception to enhance self-awareness and reactive manipulation of objects. Prior to that, he earned his M.S. and BSc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and Obafemi Awolowo University, respectively. Throughout his career, Dr. Akinola has contributed to various robotic manipulation and AI topics, including grasping, tactile sensing, reinforcement learning, and human-in-the-loop learning. He has engaged with a diverse range of researchers through fellowships, internships, and research collaborations. Dr. Akinola continues to be actively involved in innovative research and mentoring others in the field of robotics and AI.

Dr. Paul Amayo is a researcher and technology enthusiast with broad experience in both hardware and software development over various sectors (from self-driving cars in the UK to para-transit in Kenya) with a primary focus on robotics. He strongly believes that technology holds the key to solving some of the world's and in particular Africa's most pressing problems. His interests are therefore not only in advancement of technology through research but also in its subsequent education that ensures that this technology is adopted into communities where it would do the most good. He is currently a Senior Lecturer and Principal Investigator at the University of Cape Town

Mabatho Hashatsi is a HPC technologist/engineer at the Center of High-Performance Computing (CHPC), as a member of the Advanced computing Engineering (ACE) Lab, the development wing of the CHPC. The lab serves as a technology testing and innovation hub to enhance the use of HPC  products and services offered to the community. Her interests in the ACE Lab are the usage of HPC products to enable machine learning applications. She has a BSc (Honors) Electrical and Information engineering from the University of Witwatersrand (Wits). Started out as a signal analyst at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), as part of the Radar and Electronic Warfare (REW) group, was later introduced to high performance computing and joined the CHPC. Always had a passion for education and outreach, always looking forward to opportunities were technical skills meet the love for people and upliftment.

Samuel Mathekga is an aeronautical engineer specializing in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Currently, he serves as a research engineer at the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) in South Africa. In this role, he is responsible for utilizing the Lengau cluster to apply computational mechanics in various applications. Apart from his technical expertise, Samuel is deeply committed to outreach and training initiatives in African communities. With a Master's degree in Computational Fluid Dynamics from Cranfield University, UK, Samuel has a strong academic background. He is also currently pursuing a postgraduate diploma in Data Science at Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Panel Discussion