About Us
Driving Digital Tranformation in the 4th Industrial Revolution
Information Technology History
Today, it is difficult to imagine a world without the variety of computers, including desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones and the unseen computers in most of our household appliances (and much more) that we ke for granted. Computers have an immense impact on our daily lives and have changed the nature of scientific research completely.
PUTTING THE IBM 1130 INTO OPERATION
The computer was officially handed over to the University’s rector, Prof HJJ Bingle, on 14 September 1967 by Mr JF Clarke, IBM South Africa’s CEO. During the ceremony, the photo in Figure 4 was taken. Reports on the event appeared in Die Wapad of 20 September 196711 and Die Veteraan of Sept/Nov 196712.
Our Strategy
OUR DREAM
To be a leading partner in positioning the NWU as a unitary institution of superior academic excellence, through Digital Transformation
NWU IT STRATEGY 2019-2023
- build the NWU Digital Ecosystem consisting of infrastructure, services, solutions and support;
- enabling the NWU’s strategy and transformational changes;
- with modern practices, motivated and capacitated people;
- by engaging stakeholders, forming partnerships, manage change, building capabilities (awareness);
- and focus on low hanging fruit first.
NWU IT STRUCTURE 2019-2023
The Information and Technology strategy is not a strategy for the IT department. It is a description of how information and technology will be used across the university to achieve business success. The first step in developing this strategy is to diagnose the opportunities and challenges facing the NWU and then define a direction in response to the diagnosis. This is followed by by identifying strategic actions that will move the NWU in that direction, and the guardrails that will keep us on the right track. The IT strategy will be developed by the Chief Director of IT with the help of the Enterprise Architect, but it should be owned by the senior leadership.
Meet our Team
The men and woman who plays a key part in pursuing the IT strategy and provide input to short term operational planning.
CHIEF DIRECTOR IT
Boeta Pretorius
Mr. Boeta Pretorius, appointed Chief Director of IT remembers his career journey as one where he had started off as a junior lecturer at Computer Science. He confesses, that it led him to this very challenging position where he, his team of managers and everyone in IT will strive towards excellence. He also stated that: “I never thought I would be in this position one day. When I think about all the great people before me, Prof. Giel Hattingh, Dr. Philip Welman, Dr. Cobus van der Walt and most recently Mr. Attie Juyn, it still feels too good to be true. Fortunately they laid a solid foundation for me to work from and I am very grateful for that”. There are lots of other challenges for this year, Boeta replied. “I will only mention a few: IT Governance, eResearch strategy, Restructuring (completed), IT strategy, Business continuity planning, Disaster recovery planning, broader transformation, peer evaluation improvement plan, national and international collaboration...” This inspirational words are both comforting and reassuring as Boeta states: “With a highly competent IT team, I feel comfortable to tackle any challenge coming our way”
►Staff Bios
MSc in Computer Science / Board member of:
International Apereo
Foundation
Association for SA
Directors of IT
Open Collab
SIG leader of
benchmarking IT at SA Universities Co-convenor of Cyber Security SIG at SA
Board member of:
Senate
Senate committee for Library systems
Senate committee for Research and Innovation
Senate committee for Teaching and Learning
University Budget committee
Combined assurance forum
Potchefstroom Campus management committee
Strategic management and coordination of Information and Communication Technology, including:
Management of ICT resources;
Advocacy for digital transformation;
Setting and executing strategy;
Provision and optimisation of ICT-supported systems, processes and services for teaching, learning, research and administration;
ICT Governance, including development and implementation of ICT policy and standards;
ICT Representation and Positioning in external and internal relationships; and
Management of IT portfolio.
►Staff Bios
MBA, BSc Computer Science & Statistics
Management of Campus IT department which includes:
Senate
Management of student & staff IT Service Desks
Provisioning and support of student IT services including:
computer rooms and residences
Support of staff IT services including:
applications,
workstations,
end-user devices,
IT infrastructure, etc
Providing general IT consulting, training and advice at individual or small group level and;
manage, deploy and support ICT, electronics and audio visual resources on campus
►Staff Bios
MSc in Computer Science / Board member of:
Management of Campus IT department which, including:
Manage IT services to students including:
- IT Walk-in service,
- computer rooms,
- residents,
- software on mobile devices,
- network and or wi-fi support, etc.
- Manage a Service Desk which provides support to the campus community, staff and post graduate students;< br/> Support application software from an end user perspective;< br/> Do user registration and rights administration;< br/> Provide general IT consulting, training and advice at individual or small group level;< br/> and support information technology and communication infrastructure.
►Staff Bios
MPhil in Informatics – UP / Board member of:
UNISA: School of Computing
Mohlotlo Thuto Foundation (NPO)
Member of:
Vanderbijlpark Campus
Management Committee
IT Senior Management team of the North West University (NWU).
Primarily responsible for overall ICT and electronic services at the Vanderbijlpark Campus
Strategic management and coordination of Information and Communication Technology, including:
Stakeholder relationship management’;
IT service delivery;
IT strategy planning;
Human resources;
Financial management;
Project management.
DIRECTOR: ACADEMIC & OFFICE SOLUTIONS (AOS)
Shakes Scott
My career path started when I was still a student at the University of Fort Hare, where I worked as: A Tutor for Computer Science, Pure Mathematics and Physics, for both mainstream and foundation phase, a Laboratory Assistant for Computer Science and Physics, an Admission and Registration Administrator, a Coordinator for Telkom Bursary Students of Fort Hare, a Residential Corridor Rep and later a Residential Warden.
Ltd as an Operations Specialist/Engineer, where I worked within the Network Infrastructure Provisioning group under Technology Introduction for Element and Network Management Systems. In this role I have been exposed to network management products from Cisco, HP, Alcatel Lucent, Huwaei Technologies, ROSA, ProMD etc... and with IBM and HP Servers and Virtualization using VMWare. This role has also seen me undertaking Network Monitoring for the live-broadcasting of the FIFA2010 World Cup.
►Staff Bios
MSc in Computer Science /
Management of AOS department which, including:
Provide, maintain, develop and support Teaching/Learning and Research Solutions;
- guidance,
- advice,
- provisioning and,
- support of end-user application environments, and empowerment of end-users in the optimal use of ICT.
►Staff Bios
Management of ARC department which includes:
The IT architects are responsible to plan, document and control the optimal evolution of the IT systems, infrastructure and process architectures of the NWU;
- It includes architectural analysis of user requests according to a structured architecture development methodology;
- The middleware support specialists provide general middleware development, integration and support services to the rest of the IT department.
►Staff Bios
BSc with Econ subjects, HED post grad / Board member of:
Finclude Technologies
Member of:
IT Management Committee
Provisioning, management, development, implementation and support of:
Management of ICT resources;
- Enterprise Business Administrative systems
- Collaborative related administrative projects
- Optimization and digital transformation of administrative business processes and services
- Management of contracted vendors and SLA’s
- Executing IT strategy related to administrative eco system
- System representation and positioning in external and internal relationships
- Management of IT projects related to administrative systems, and
- Management of Business System’s resources
DIRECTOR: ELECTRONIC SERVICES (ES)
Danie Stoop
Danie allowed us a small peek into his life. Starting out as a kid in Potchefstroom, he attended school and university in the same town. Danie is therefore a proud Alumni of the NWU and whilst he started his studies on the Potchefstroom Campus, he finished studying Electrical and Electronic Engineering on the Vaal Campus when the faculty of Engineering moved over there in 1987. Danie still remembers having no tarred roads between the hostels and class rooms and shaking the mud from your legs in class during summer! Afterwards Danie joined a company working on energy scheduling. After a year he was called back and started as a temporary lecturer at EE Engineering and have not left the NWU since. Danie became a professional engineer in 1996. He completed a Masters in digital communications in 2000 and accepted the position to head up Electronic Services on Potchefstroom campus in the same year. With that, he moved from the engineering faculty to the services side of the NWU. In 2014, electrical services and municipal accounts were added to his portfolio and he became Director of Electrical and Electronic Services on PC. He also served on several school governing bodies, often as chairman in the past few years. During 2016, Danie decided he was now ready for a new adventure and was promptly elected to the Council of the NWU where he currently serves.
►Staff Bios
B Eng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering M Eng (Cum Laude) in Electronic Engineering Australian certificate for presenting FET (Further Education and Training)
Member of:
Professional Engineer registered at Engineering Council of South Africa
Senior member of SA Institute for Electrical Engineers
IT Management Committee
IT Services Management Meeting
Potchefstroom Campus OHS Committee representing IT Potch footprint
Strategic management and coordination of Information and Communication Technology, including:
- Executing IT strategy, plans and programs
- Management of IT-Electronic Services resources;
- Advocacy for moving electronic systems to the digital realm and Cyber Security thereof;
- Serving as consultancy to Physical Infrastructure on electronic content of projects;
- Overall management of electronics projects executed by own staff and contractors;
- Innovative usage of electronic and other technologies to solve real business problems.
►Staff Bios
B-Engineering (Electrical and Electronic)
Directorships and memberships:
Director: IT-Operations & Infrastructure
Director: North-West Fibre (Pty) Ltd
Board Member: SAFIRE Steering
Member: NWU Compliance Committee
Member: ASAUDIT
Management of OI department which, includes:
- Overall responsible for all IT Infrastructure at the University (Strategy, Plan, Implement, deploy and Operation)
- Overall responsibility for IT Operational
- Management
- Staff Management (3 Department - Operations, Systems and Infrastructure)
- Key role player in determining ICT strategies and directions at NWU
- Key role player in IT Governance planning and implementation
- IT-Infrastructure financial and budget management
- IT and HE sector collaboration & community engagement
- Cybersecurity
