SAS Institute SA, leaders in analytical and business intelligence, has signed a five-year contract with North-West University's (NWU's) Centre for Business Mathematics and Informatics (BMI), which will see SAS donate more than R4 million to the centre's SAS Risk Lab.
The contract and letter of understanding was signed by SAS SA's managing director, Bill Hoggarth, and NWU (Potchefstroom Campus) rector professor, Annette Combrinck.
The money will help fund the position of the head of the SAS Risk Lab, Prof Machiel Kruger, and support directed research in risk analysis and business intelligence. In return, the centre will train BMI students in flagship SAS products and provide technical support services on SAS products, projects and industry courses.
The agreement also provides that SAS will continue to involve the centre's Prof Andr'e de Waal in SAS research and development (R&D) workshops in the US and Europe to facilitate further R&D cooperation.
In the past, the cooperation between the university and SAS in terms of R&D has proved beneficial. For instance, the research of Prof de Waal and Tiny du Toit on automatic model building techniques using neural networks resulted in the AutoGANN node of SAS Enterprise Miner.
Commenting on the relationship with SAS, Prof Riaan de Jongh said: "We regard the SAS relationship as very important. It allows us to train students with the latest state-of-the-art technologies used by many companies in the world and gives our BMI students an edge in the workplace. It also provides an excellent channel for the commercialisation of research.
At the signing ceremony, Nina Frauenfeldt from SAS EMEA Head Office in Germany, presented the SAS Academic Intelligence Award to NWU's professor Combrinck and congratulated the centre for BMI on its innovative use of SAS products in the BMI training programmes. NWU competed against 2 000 universities worldwide for this prestigious award.
"In winning this award the centre has shown that it is not only in step with the latest global trends, but sometimes ahead. SAS is proud to be involved with such a professional unit as the centre for BMI."
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