Prof Ruth de Villiers (Co-Chair SAICSIT 2012), Prof Benjamin B. Bederson (University of Maryland), Prof Alan Hevner (University of South Florida) and his wife, Cindy, Prof Judith Bishop (Microsoft Research, USA), Prof Irwin Brown (Outgoing President, SAICSIT), Prof Mmokgethi Phakeng (Vice-Principal: Research and Innovation) and Prof Jan Kroeze (Chair SAICSIT 2012)
CSET’s School of Computing recently hosted South Africa’s premier Computing Conference, SAICSIT 2012, at Irene Country Lodge. SAICSIT is the Annual Research Conference of the South African Institute of Computer Scientists and Information Technologists, which is an ACM-accredited Conference. The theme was Contemplate, Connect and Collaborate. The Conference Chair was Prof Jan Kroeze, with Prof Ruth de Villiers as co-chair. Programme Chairs were Prof’s Hugo Lotriet and Helene Gelderblom, who managed the submission and review processes and produced the formal Proceedings, comprising forty-two full papers. The sponsors were CSET – by kind favour of the Acting Executive Dean Prof Gugu Moche; CENSE (SoC’s Centre for Software Engineering) – under the management of Prof André van der Poll; Microsoft; and Masterskill. This support was greatly appreciated. A book table was manned throughout the conference by Pearson Publishers.
Themba Masombuka registers for SAICSIT with facilitation from Elmarie Havenga and Belda Shipalana
In response to the call for papers, a total of 120 submissions from authors in Africa, Europe, and Asia were received. All papers were subjected to a stringent double-blind peer review process, with every paper being reviewed by at least two reviewers. Ultimately, 42 full research papers were accepted for the final programme at an overall acceptance rate of 35%. The accepted research papers reflect a diversity of research projects in computer science, information technology, and information systems. As in recent years, the conference proceedings are available online in the ACM digital library. The presentations were grouped into three parallel tracks, according to the sub-disciplines of Computer Science (CS) – 16 papers, Information Systems (IS) – 10 papers, and a stream combining Human-Computer Interaction and ICT for Development (HCI/ICT4D) – 16 papers.
On the first day, according to SAICSIT custom, a Masters’ and Doctoral Symposium was held, at which 38 students from various SA universities presented their work. Prof Ian Sanders led the M&D Symposium, where the presentations were classified into the same three groups as the main conference: HCI/ICT4, IS and CS. In each of the three venues, at least two experienced supervisors were present to listen and give the students helpful personalised feedback.
A rich variety of workshops was also available on the first day – some as part of the main SAICSIT conference and one as an associated event. Delegates were able to attend the Microsoft Machine Translation Workshop on saving indigenous languages through translation, An Introduction to Formal Development and Verification of Software with Event-B/RODIN, or a workshop on Design Science Research. The latter was hosted by the Department of Informatics, University of Pretoria and addressed by Prof Al Hevner, renowned as one of the fathers of this research paradigm.
Over a hundred and twenty delegates attended the main SAICSIT 2012 Conference, which was opened on the first night at the Welcome Dinner by Unisa’s Vice-Principal: Research and Innovation, Prof Mamokgethi Phakeng. Prof Phakeng addressed SAICSIT on the day following her wedding, and, to the delight of the delegates, was accompanied by her husband, Mr Lucky Phakeng.
Three international experts gave keynote plenary addresses, namely: Prof Judith Bishop, a renowned South African computer scientist, who was a professor at the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Pretoria, before joining Microsoft in 2009, where she is the Director of Computer Science at Microsoft Research, USA; Prof Benjamin B. Bederson, a Professor of Computer Science and a past director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland, USA; and Prof Hans van Ditmarsch from the University of Seville in Spain, who is also an associated researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai. In his keynote, Social Participation: How Collective Activity Can Make Change, Prof Ben Bederson addressed technological social participation, bringing people together to solve problems in new ways, particularly making use of structured ‘crowdsourcing’. Prof Judith Bishop spoke on the value of Computer Societies – Past and Future, advocating the delegates to affiliate themselves with local and global societies and exploring the opportunities that are open to SAICSIT to operate globally to advance the interests of its members. Dynamic Epistemic Logic was the title of the talk by Prof Hans van Ditmarsch, in which he demonstrated the usefulness of dynamic epistemic logic in modelling and reasoning about dynamic aspects of knowledge in a multi-agent environment.
Prof Hugo Lotriet – Proceedings Co-Chair, Prof Mariki Eloff, Estelle de Kock
A positive feature was that the organising committee comprised a large number of SOC staff, who gave time and enthusiastic efforts, and contributed to team spirit as they brought the event to reality:
Conference chairs: Prof Jan Kroeze, Prof Ruth de Villiers
Programme chairs: Prof Heléne Gelderblom, Prof Hugo Lotriet
Treasurer: Prof Leila Goosen; Secretary: Mr Colin Pilkington
M & D Symposium: Prof Ian Sanders, Mr Shawren Singh, Ms Estelle de Kock
Website: Dr Mac van der Merwe, Ms Hanifa Abdullah, Mr Evan Dembskey
Workshops: Dr Bobby Tait
CENSE: Prof André van der Poll, Ms Elmarie Havenga
Local Arrangements: Ms Bester Chimbo, Prof Ernest Mnkandla, Mr Baldreck Chipangura, Mr Ted White
Proceedings (editing): Dr Grant O’Reilly
Conference with a Conscience: Prof Keshnee Padayachee, Ms Patricia Gouws
Registration: Ms Belda Shipalana, Ms Elmarie Havenga.
SAICSIT has a tradition of being the Conference with a Conscience. The UNISA hosts maintained this ethos by inviting I-SET Robotics teams to come and demonstrate their skills before the Gala Dinner. In addition, a silent auction was held in which robotics paintings done by young learners in an art school were auctioned, raising just over R4000 that will be used to buy a robotics kit for a school in Eersterus. With the Conference now an event of the past, there should be a lasting legacy in terms of input to a needy school, as well as meaningful contributions to academic discourse and further stimulation of productive research and innovation.
Prof Ian Sanders with some robotics paintings auctioned to raise funds for I-SET
Prof Helene Gelderblom – Proceedings Co-Chair, Colin Pilkington, Conference
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Story by Ruth de Villiers
