About Us

Elma Akob holds a Master's in Strategic Business Management and supports the South African SDG Hub's communication functions. She has worked with global entertainment companies and has moderated and spoken on national and global platforms.

Dr Jurgens de Lange, the Hub’s technical project advisor, is a theoretical and computational chemist used to working with massive and highly correlated data sets, often developing machine learning, mathematical and computational models to find clear and pragmatic answers. He has a keen interest in evidence-based and data-driven policy research.

Richard Klepsch Richard is a digital transformation enthusiast with a passion for agriculture. He has worked with small and medium enterprises to help improve their digital infrastructure, from consulting firms to chocolate manufacturers. Richard's interest in the SDGs was nurtured while researching coffee agroforestry in the Rwenzori mountains of Uganda and his work in a governance project in Niamey, Niger.

Andre Kleynhans is a trained data scientist with an Masters degree in mathematical statistics. Andre has special interest in unsupervised learning and latent variable models.

Professor Vukosi Marivate is the ABSA UP Chair of Data Science at the University of Pretoria. Vukosi works on developing Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence methods to extract insights from data. A large part of his work over the last few years has been in the intersection of Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing.

Zama Moyo supports the South African SDG Policy Support Initiative. He completed his MA at the University of Essex and has written on a broad range of issues related to public policy and current affairs. In 2013 he was selected as a finalist in the Global Human Rights Essay Contest. He is currently working on his doctoral thesis.

Dr Stanley Ntakumba has extensive experience on strategic governance, policy analysis and research, development planning, monitoring, and evaluation. At ALLI, he is responsible for the MDP, SDG Hub and PSI. The title of his PhD thesis is ‘Responsible Leadership and Inter-Organisational Partnerships: A Relational Social Constructionist Leadership Lens’. His current research interests are on the practice of leadership in collaborative settings and how various actors in society could be mobilized towards the achievement of the SDGs. Over the years he has (co)published scholarly papers, book chapters and reports. He is passionate about the use of evidence for policy and practice.

Dr Dominique Mystris is the project lead for the SA SDG Policy Support Initiative. With a background in Public International Law, she has lectured at various universities since 2011, worked for international research institutions and organisations, and consulted for non-profit organisations in Africa, Asia and London on human rights and international law issues including development of policy approaches.

Nhlanhla Jamie Simelane is passionate about environmental sustainability and agriculture. She enjoys using trans-disciplinary skillsets from her diverse educational background to operate at the intersection between data science, informatics, genetics, and biology. Her work as a Product Manager builds on her technical expertise – gained from previous Data Scientist roles – while also allowing her to utilise her strategic and managerial skills. She is also working on a Masters in Big Data Science, where her research focuses on machine learning tools for agricultural genomics.

Hannes Strydom is a specialist in all things data: collection, (including APIs, repositories or webpages), management (including data formatting and storage) and data analysis.

Isak van der Walt is currently Digital Scholarship & Innovation Manager for the Department of Library Services at the University of Pretoria. He oversees the Digital Services and Systems unit which comprises of Digital Scholarship, Information Technology, e-Services, Digitisation, and the Library MakerSpace. With over 20 years of experience in the academic ICT sector, he has developed a key interest and focus on Research Data Management and using modern-day technologies for the enhancement, visibility, and discoverability of digital assets.

Hamish Craze holds a Masters in Bioinformatics where he specialised in deep learning applications. His broad skillset includes image recognition, natural language processing, and search. As well as web development, linux server setup/management and databases.

Professor Willem Fourie is the founder and coordinator of the South African SDG Hub. In addition to his peer-reviewed publication and postgraduate supervision record, he as extensive experience in advising companies, countries and multilateral organisations. He has worked closely with the United Nations, African Union, European Union and the Presidency of South Africa.

Graeme Ford is a Full-stack web developer with qualifications in both backend and front end industry-level frameworks. A development operations manager with experience in stack planning, environmental administration and architecture planning/configuration from small scale to enterprise-scale deployments.

Teresa Kroesen holds a Master’s in Physics with a specialization in optics and ultra-fast dynamics. She acquired profound knowledge in Python programming through the analysis of huge and unstructured data sets and simulations of physical experiments. After she worked as an IT consultant she became a data scientist for the major German newspaper Der Spiegel, which is known for its investigative journalism. Her work for the SA SDG Hub combines her passion for data with her strong interest in politics and research.

Christopher Marais is a data scientist with a skill set that focuses on machine learning applications to natural language process and graph network analysis.