In 2018 the University of Venda became the first university in South Africa to pilot the use of Artificial Intelligence for access control.
From the results achieved, the university will further this technology with a full roll-out of multiple applications of AI across campus, availing the first intelligent university in Africa. This technology will aid greatly in enabling the university to predict the student of the future. What this essentially means is that there is a pressing need to be able to use predictive analytics using available data about current students as week as data from schools. Using data to predict student attributes and success stems from looking at students’ social and socio-economic backgrounds of students.
The challenges that initiated the exploration of using Artificial Intelligence.
Security of the students
Student safety on and off-campus as well as in the residences was a growing concern.
Mint, therefore, introduced a pilot study to test the facial recognition technology it had proposed.
Although the technology started as a security measure, it developed into other aspects of the learning institution namely;
Student and staff productivity,
Improvement in student life,
Evolved learning space,
Big data decision models and
Data-driven insights.
Through the partnership of Mint and Microsoft, the University of Venda can transform education by applying the power of tomorrow’s innovations, today.
