Tshilidzi Marwala (born 28 July 1971) is a South African artificial intelligence engineer, a computer scientist, a mechanical engineer and a university administrator. He is currently Rector of the United Nations University and UN Under-Secretary-General. In August 2023 Marwala was appointed to the United Nations scientific advisory council.

Early life and education

Marwala was born at Duthuni Village in the Limpopo Province. He obtained a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Cambridge and a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Case Western Reserve University, graduating with a Magna Cum Laude. He attended school at Mbilwi Secondary School and St. John's College in Johannesburg.

Career

Marwala has been Rector of the United Nations University and UN Under-Secretary-General since 1 March 2023. Marwala was previously a vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Johannesburg. He was previously the deputy vice chancellor for research and internationalization as well as the dean of engineering at the University of Johannesburg and a professor of electrical engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. He served as a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation and on a board of Nedbank. One of the books he co-authored on modelling interstate conflict has been translated into Chinese by the National Defense Industry Press. His work and opinion have appeared in media such as New Scientist, Time, The Economist, CNN, and BBC. He has also given talks at Rhodes House, Royal Society, Cambridge Union, Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and Oxford Union. In 2016 Tshilidzi Marwala delivered the Bernard Price Memorial Lecture in South Africa. With Stephen Hawking and Guy Laliberté he was a judge of the YouTube Space Lab competition.

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg

Fourth Industrial Revolution

As Vice-Chancellor, Marwala developed and implemented the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) strategy. To move the fourth industrial revolution, Marwala introduced a compulsory artificial intelligence course and an Africa Insights course for all students, irrespective of their majors. Furthermore, he introduced Africa by Bus Project, where thousands of students travel by bus to various African countries to understand the African continent.

Rankings

Under his leadership, the University of Johannesburg was ranked first in Africa in the 2021 Times Higher Education (THE) University Impact Rankings on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and first globally for Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8). In the 2023 Times Higher Education Impact Ranking, it was ranked first in Africa and globally for SDG 1 (no poverty). From 2018 to 2022, the University of Johannesburg increased research output from sixth position to position first in South Africa. Furthermore, according to the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ranking, UJ increased from being number 5 in Africa in 2021 (announced in 2020) to number 2 in Africa in 2023 (announced in 2022).

Fundraising

Under his leadership, the University of Johannesburg increased its endowment from US$61 million to US$200 million from 2018 to 2022. During his tenure, the University of Johannesburg purchased and financed two additional campuses, Devland Campus (US$10million) and Media 24 Park (US$20 million), and completed the Soweto Residence Complex (US$30million). Furthermore, the University of Johannesburg increased electricity consumption from solar energy from 0% to 15% from 2018 to 2022.

Institutes

Marwala established of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, UJ Press, Johannesburg Business School, Institute of Future Studies, with University of West Indies the Institute for Global African Affairs and Institute of Intelligent Systems.

United Nations

As the Rector of the United Nations University, Marwala has secured $65 million to establish the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Big Data in Bologna, Italy. This Institute will be located at the supercomputing facility CINECA. Marwala has also worked with the United Nations through agencies such as UNESCO, UNIDO, WHO, ITU, ILO, UNICEF, and WIPO. He was a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) committee that developed the ethical guidelines of using artificial intelligence in medicine. Furthermore, he was a member of the committee that developed the international accord on open data for the International Council for Science (ICSU) in Paris. Institute of Future Studies, with University of West Indies the Institute for Global African Affairs and Institute of Intelligent Systems.

Governments

Marwala has served globally and nationally on policymaking bodies. Most recently, he was the Deputy Chair of South Africa’s Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (with the President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa serving as Chair). This committee developed the country’s fourth industrial revolution strategy. Continentally, Marwala is the Chair of the International Scientific Advisory Board for the African Centre of Excellence in the Internet of Things (ACE-IoT) based in Rwanda. The government of Namibia appointed him on the Fourth Industrial Revolution Task Team.

Other activities

Marwala is on the corporate board of Nedbank (2019-2023), and is a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation (2020-2023). Marwala has been a visiting fellow at Harvard University, Wolfson College, Cambridge, and University of California, Berkeley. He is an honorary professor at the Nanjing Tech University as well as the Central South University in The People's Republic of China.

Academic contributions and research

Marwala's research interests include the theory and application of artificial intelligence to engineering, computer science, finance, economics, social science and medicine. Marwala and Israeli researcher Daniel Muller studied the St. Petersburg paradox using the concept of the relative net utility. Marwala and Bo Xing have also studied the relationship between blockchain and artificial intelligence. With Evan Hurwitz, Marwala built software agents that can bluff on playing a game of poker.

Artificial intelligence and aerospace engineering

Marwala has applied artificial intelligence in aeronautical engineering and an example of this is his work on using AI to detect faults in aerospace structures, which he published papers in journals of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics such as AIAA Journal and Journal of Aircraft.

Artificial intelligence and medical sciences

Marwala has worked on the application of artificial intelligence to health care. For example, he has used AI to diagnose pulmonary embolism and epileptic activity as well as understand HIV and Covid-19. He was a co-inventor of the innovative methods of radiation imaging and with Megan Jill Russell as well as David Rubin the artificial larynx.

Artificial intelligence and economics

Marwala and Evan Hurwitz proposed that there is less information asymmetry between two artificial intelligent agents than between two human agents and that the more artificial intelligence there is in the market, the less the volume of trades in the market. Tshilidzi Marwala and Evan Hurwitz in their book applied Lewis turning point theory to study the transition of the economy into automated production and identified an equilibrium point (Lewis turning point) where it does not make economic sense to move human labor to automated machines. Tshilidzi Marwala and Evan Hurwitz, in their book, observed that the advent of intelligent online buying platforms such as Amazon and technologies such as flexible manufacturing offers the opportunity for individualized supply and demand curves to be produced. They observed that these reduce the degree of arbitrage in the market, permitting individualized pricing for the same product and bringing fairness and efficiency into the market. Furthermore, with Evan Hurwitz in their book, they observed that decision-making and predicting machines that are executed using artificial intelligence and other machine learning techniques reduce the biases and variances of the errors on decision making and thus make decisions in a closer manner to the conclusions of rational expectations theory than human decision-makers. In his response to Bill Gates, Marwala has also brought to the attention the difficulty of taxing robots given the fact that a great deal of the devices that we use have robotics features. He developed the concept of pseudo-modal energies, proposing the theory of rational counterfactual thinking, rational opportunity cost and the theory of flexibly bounded rationality. Marwala also observed that the applicability of prospect theory depends on how much artificial intelligence is used to make a decision. He also observed that the more artificial intelligence is used for decision-making, the more efficient the markets become. For example, if artificially intelligent machines make all decisions, the markets will be fully rational.

Artificial Intelligence and Political Science

Tshilidzi Marwala has contributed to the application of artificial intelligence in political science, international relations, and interstate conflict. With Monica Lagazio, he has studied the effects of artificial intelligence on international relations, including the possibility of interstate conflict. In this regard, these researchers have discussed how AI can be used to predict and manage conflicts, as well as how it may alter the nature of diplomacy and international negotiations. This work involved analyzing data and predicting potential conflicts using machine learning algorithms. Marwala and Bhaso Ndzendze have investigated how AI can be utilized in international relations decision-making procedures. He has discussed the potential for artificial intelligence to enhance decision-making by providing more precise forecasts and analyses.

Awards and honors

Marwala is a member of The World Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, African Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Science of South Africa. In high school he won the National Youth Science Olympiad and represented South Africa in the London International Youth Science Forum. He is the recipient of the Order of Mapungubwe. In 2022, Marwala was awarded the IT Personality of the Year Award in South Africa for his work on the fourth Industrial Revolution, and in 2020 the Science-for-Society Gold Medal from the Academy of Science of South Africa. Marwala has received honorary doctorates from the Caucasus University in Tbilisi in Georgia, the University of Venda. and Tshwane University of Technology.