SAS Institute signs five year contract with North-West University’s Centre for Business Mathematics and Informatics (BMI)

SAS (South Africa) Managing Director, Mr Bill Hoggarth and NWU (Potchefstroom Campus) rector prof Annette Combrinck recently signed a five year contract and letter of understanding between the two parties.

At the signing ceremony, Mrs Nina Frauenfeldt (SAS EMEA Head Office in Germany) presented the SAS Academic Intelligence Award to prof Combrinck and congratulated the NWU on the outstanding achievements of the Centre for BMI in bridging the gap between industry and academia and for the innovative use of SAS products in the BMI training programmes. NWU competed against 2000 universities world-wide for this prestigious award.

According to the five year contract, SAS (South Africa) will donate more than R4 million to the Centre for BMI’s SAS Risk Lab. The money will be partly used to fund the position of the Head of the SAS Risk Lab, Prof Machiel Kruger, and to support directed research in risk analysis and business intelligence. In return the Centre for BMI’s SAS Risk Lab will train BMI students in flagship SAS products like SAS Risk Dimensions, SAS Enterprise Miner and SAS Forecast Server and will provide technical support services on SAS products, projects and industry courses.

The research of Prof André de Waal and Mr Tiny du Toit on automatic model building techniques using neural networks led to the signing of the letter of understanding. This research has led to the AutoGANN node of SAS Enterprise Miner. According to this agreement SAS will involve Prof Andre de Waal (or other researchers from the data mining group) in SAS research and development workshops in the USA and Europe in order to facilitate further research and development co-operation.

At the signing ceremony Centre for BMI’s director, Prof Riaan de Jongh, said the following about the SAS contract and letter of understanding: ‘We regard the SAS relationship as very important. Firstly, it allow us to train students with the latest state-of-the-art technologies used by many companies in SA and the world, secondly, it gives our BMI students an edge in the workplace and thirdly, it provides an excellent channel for the commercialization of research.

Mr Murray de Villiers, SAS partner manager, commented: ‘We feel likewise. By winning the SAS Academic Intelligence award the Centre for BMI has showed that it is not only in step with the latest trends in the world, but sometimes ahead. SAS South Africa is proud to be involved with such a professional unit as the Centre for BMI.

Prof. Annette Combrink, rector of the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University, and Mr Bill Hoggarth, CEO of SAS (South Africa), sign the agreement. Behind are Mr Murray de Villiers, SAS (South Africa), Prof Machiel Kruger, Head of the SAS RiskLab, Ms Nina Frauenfeldt, Head of Academic Programmes of SAS (Germany),  Prof André de Waal, lecturer at the Centre of BMI, and Prof Riaan de Jongh, Director of the Centre for BMI.