Media stories

Professor Vilakazi says his vision for Wits includes turning the University into an incubation space for technology, entrepreneurship and innovation, learning from the success of Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where students and academics collaborate to form new, globally competitive technology companies. 

Professor Vilakazi was previously the youngest project leader in the Large Hadron Collider experiment in Geneva, Switzerland, and the first African to participate in the initiative. 

Under Professor Vilakazi’s leadership, since 2014 Wits’ research output has more than doubled, and is having more impact. He chairs South Africa’s National Quantum Computing Working Committee that aims to develop a framework for technology-driven research and innovation in South Africa and the continent.

As an indication of how he will respond to the challenges that come with the post, he says “I have been in the eye of the storm”. Read more here.

Professor Vilakazi is a Renaissance man who speaks French, German, Zulu, Siswati, Sesotho, Afrikaans and English, and enjoys listening to jazz and classical music, particularly Bach. He tells how he wishes to harness the creative hub within Joburg and use its accompanying social pressures to come up with unique South African solutions. Read more here. 

See most recent interview with Financial Mail here.