IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society (SMCS) Chapter hosted a series of four (repeat) lectures by Dr. Bill Gruver, past president and distinguished lecturer for the IEEE SMC Society. The events took place in various locations in South Africa during September 2009, and were co-hosted with IEEE student branches at University of Pretoria, University of Witwatersrand and University of Cape Town and the SAIEE.
The subject of discussion was "Distributed Intelligence Systems: A New Paradigm for Systems Integration." Prof. Gruver was invited by Prof. Alta van der Merwe, IEEE SMCS Chapter chair, and was the guest of the SAIEE’s Du Toit Grobler. The presentation at the University of Witwatersrand’s IEEE student branch attracted more than 50 students, with IEEE and non-IEEE members across different disciplines attending. The lecture stimulated intensive technical discussions afterwards.
Dr. Gruver attended a meeting with some of the committee members of the local SMCS chapter, where deas were discussed on the management of the chapter and the formation of interest groups. The newly-established South African SMCS chapter envisages future growth by the creation of more interest groups within the South African community. Current interest groups are enterprise information systems, ontologies and an information security group.
Dr. Gruver also presented his talk at the Meraka Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Some 20 participants were present at this event, co-hosted with the newly established IEEE chapter of the Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), of which Prof. Gruver was one of the international founders. He also gave a talk at the IEEE Student branch, University of Pretoria, where approximately 25 students attended his presentation.
The University of Cape Town event attracted approximately 50 UCT students, lecturers and visitors from industry within Cape Town. Dr. Gruver’s talk was extremely engaging and relevant to a wide range of technical fields (e.g wireless communication, robotics etc.)
For the IEEE SMCS chapter the visit was very valuable and we received positive feedback from members of our community. We recommend other IEEE regions and sections invite Dr. Gruver to present this presentation. The IEEE SMCS will certainly further engage with him in years to come, and continue to build support for our SMCS chapter, internationally.
Contact Prof. Alta van der Merwe, chair: IEEE SMCS Chapter, IEEE South Africa Section, avdmerwe@ieee.org