Africa-Press – Mauritius. The University of Mauritius (UoM) and Cybernaptics signed, this morning, a Research Collaboration Agreement (RCA) for future collaboration between the two entities in the field of Robotics Process Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The signing ceremony was held in the presence of the Vice-Chancellor of the UoM, Professor Dhanjay Jhurry, and the Managing Director of Cybernaptics, Dr Viv Padayatchy, at the UoM Lecture Theatre, in Réduit.
The signing ceremony was followed by a forum-debate on “Future of Work, Digital Transformation and the Future of our Economy. ” The forum-debate focused on the impact, change and influence that digitalisation has on the world of employability and the key role of digitalisation in the current and future economy.
In his address, the Vice-Chancellor highlighted that a university cannot just build human and intellectual capital through training, teaching, learning or research, but needs to open up and build bonds through business capital and social capital as well.
Business capital, Professor Jhurry underlined, requires working in collaboration with industries so as to allow them, not only to move forward, but also to use the talent as well as the equipment that universities possess.
On this score, he pointed out that this partnership with Cybernaptics is most welcome and added that there have been many other agreements as regards research, technology and innovation that have been signed before, notably with companies like Accenture and Ceridian, among others.
Moreover, the Vice-Chancellor emphasised that it is important that university students be part of the future pool of technopreneurs as they have all the required credentials to be successful.
Technopreneurs will have an essential role in ensuring economic growth in a sustainable manner as well as generating new jobs, especially for young people trained in emerging technologies, he underlined.
These kinds of agreements, the Vice-Chancellor indicated, aim to encourage young people to develop high-end technical skills and become more competent and versatile in today’s highly technological world.
For his part, Dr Padayatchy stressed that under this RCA, Cybernaptics will commit to fund, for a period of three years, a Research Assistant from the UoM in the field of AI and Robotics Process Automation to carry out Research and Development work alongside their own team of developers. The Research Assistant may also undertake, in parallel, academic work that will lead to an MPhil and, eventually, a PhD, he added.
Moreover, the Managing Director indicated that the objective for signing this agreement is in line with Cybernaptics’s roadmap to develop solid Research and Development capabilities that will lead to innovative products and services with commercial applications in both the local and export markets where they operate.
By tapping into the University’s intellectual pool of talent, we will effectively be expanding our own Research and Development capabilities, Dr Padayatchy stated.
In the same vein, he highlighted that close and sustained collaboration between the UoM and the private sector will help to bridge the gap between academic training and the industry-readiness of new graduates as they come onto the job market.
Technology, Dr Padayatchy underlined, is an enabler that helped ensure business continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, COVID-19 has accelerated technology adoption by both government and private sector organisations alike through the implementation of work from home strategies or using cloud-based technologies, he pointed out.
On this score, the Managing Director observed that as Mauritius transitions to a higher income country, we are faced with the challenge of preparing our workforce for an increasingly technological economy and one of the ways that society can achieve this enhanced productivity is through the use of technology, especially in automation.
Cybernaptics
Cybernaptics has been in the IT business for twelve years. The company, based in Freeport, Mer Rouge, is specialised in providing IT Managed Services, Infrastructure and Business Solutions. It also has offices in Mauritius and Africa.
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