The man who will take over the reins at the University of Johannesburg next year knows a lot about tasting beer.
Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, appointed new vice-chancellor this week, is a world authority on artificial intelligence.
The engineer once worked at South African Breweries, where he developed an "artificial beer taster" — a software programme that awarded a taste score for beer. SAB had previously employed beer tasters.
Marwala, 45, the deputy vice-chancellor of research and internationalisation at UJ, will take over from Professor Ihron Rensburg in January.
The university's council unanimously endorsed his appointment at a meeting on Thursday. The other shortlisted candidates were University of Venda vice-chancellor Professor Peter Mbati and Philemon Mjwara, director-general of the Department of Science and Technology.He said: "Technology is becoming intelligent ... many activities once done by humans are now done by machines."
This meant education had to become more multidisciplinary. "The convergence of the disciplines will necessitate a curriculum where somebody in the sciences will have to study humanities and vice versa."
Because of his extensive government and private sector networking, he has secured R717-million in funding for research projects.
Welcoming the appointment, Rensburg said: "We have in Professor Marwala a combination of a collegial leader, a scholar leader and a person with an excellent set of domestic and global networks."
He said Marwala was "home-bred" as he had been at the institution for nine years...