The University of Pretoria (UP) academic professor Vukosi Marivate has earned a National Order for his contribution to artificial intelligence (AI).
This, as South Africa’s most influential thinkers, artists and innovators were honoured at the 2026 National Orders this week.
National Orders are the highest awards the country, through the president, bestows on citizens and eminent foreign nationals who have contributed towards the advancement of democracy and who have made a significant impact on improving the lives of South Africans.
They also recognise individuals who contributed and continue to contribute to the building of a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous South Africa as envisaged in the Constitution.
President Cyril Ramaphosa bestowed the Order of Ikhamanga, the Order of the Baobab, the Order of Mapungubwe and the Order of the Companions of OR Tambo.
The Order of Mapungubwe is one of South Africa’s highest honours, awarded to citizens who have achieved excellence in science, medicine, technology and innovation.
Marivate received the Order of Mapungubwe in silver for his contributions to AI, computer science and natural language processing, which advanced both national and continental technological capabilities.
Commenting on the national recognition, Marivate describes it as the culmination of years of collaboration between researchers, students, educators and communities committed to building African-centred technological innovation.
“When I look at this milestone, I don’t see an individual achievement. I see a mirror reflecting a vast, beautiful village of researchers, students and community-builders who chose to build a shared vision with me,” he says in a statement.
The computer science professor has become one of Africa’s leading voices in AI, especially through his work advancing African language technologies and inclusive AI systems.
His research is said to have contributed to broader conversations around digital sovereignty, ethical AI and the role Africa should play in shaping emerging technologies rather than simply consuming them.
According to Marivate, the defining moment in his career came when researchers began recognising that African languages, histories and contexts were largely absent from global technological systems.
“Seeing the rapid rise of movements like Masakhane and the Deep Learning Indaba proved that building localised AI tools was not just a niche academic exercise, but a societal necessity,” he says.
He is of the view Africa cannot afford to remain on the margins of technological development. “AI in Africa should not be something that just happens to us from the outside. It must empower our youth, protect our digital sovereignty and solve local socio-economic challenges using our own data.”
Marivate is a professor of computer science and holds the Absa data science chair at UP. He is interested in using data science to solve social challenges and has worked on projects related to science, energy, public safety and utilities.
He specialises in developing machine learning (ML) and AI methods to extract insights from data, with a particular focus on the intersection of ML/AI and natural language processing.
The UP professor is also credited as co-founder of Lelapa AI, the South African AI research and product lab that develops speech recognition tools for African languages.
In February, he was selected as one of the 40 leading experts that will serve on the United Nation’s Independent International Scientific Panel on AI.
Earlier this month, he was appointed to the independent expert panel that will review South Africa’s AI policy development process, minister Solly Malatsi announced during his department’s budget vote.
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