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Welcome to the 2020 School of IT Virtual Showcase!
It is my great pleasure to welcome you to our first virtual event, which marks the year end of an unusual and challenging academic year. If we ever wanted to assess the resilience of our students, their ability to adapt, to engage in new ways of communicating and to maintain a high standard of delivery in a constantly changing environment, nobody could ever have planned for what 2020 had in store for all of us.
It is therefore a particularly great pleasure to see what students have designed and developed as part of their final years of study. You will find projects of final year students after 3 years of study, honours level as well as masters and PhD work. It is important to note, that all of this work was done off University campus - from home observing the socially distanced protocol. Group work still had to happen, sometimes with the challenge of managing data provision, slow connectivity or interrupted service.
There were no labs available with great machines, many relied on VPN networks to access computers remotely. Without the efforts of our technical, professional and academic staff, a lot of the work would not have been possible. We also need to recognize the substantial work done by the University management through providing data bundles and computers to our students in order to ensure that the year and their work could be finished.
The projects exhibited this year, span again a variety of topics – from road infrastructure for autonomous vehicles, healthcare management systems, national heritage portals, freelance management systems and many other developments, you will see a range of projects that speak to what makes UCT graduates of the School of IT unique. Recognising social challenges and responding to them through computing solutions is one of the graduate attributes that we value particularly. We do believe that the fields of computer science and information systems have a profound ability to change the world we live in and to create a better and more just society for all.
What you find at this event represented in the presentations is not only the design and development of applications, research of methods and engagement in social challenges, you will also find resilience, stamina and perseverance of the final year classes of 2020 - undoubtedly one of the most testing years in recent history.
We trust you enjoy the experience and look forward to engaging with you!
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