All News

Hon. Dr. J. Muswere, officially opens the 11th International Conference on Communication and Information Science

Image
The Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Hon. Dr. J. Muswere, has officially opened the 11th International Conference on Communication and Information Science , a two day conference running under the theme: "Re-imagining Communication and Information Science in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI)".

 Minister Muswere, who was the Guest of Honour and accompanied by his Deputy Minister Hon. O. Marupi, called on conference participants made up of communication science students, researchers, academics, and information and communication scientists from various fields,  to embrace the new digital revolution brought on by advancements such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) but to also be mindful of using it towards home grown solutions to local challenges.
“This conference must turn ideation and philosophy into practical sustainable solutions to African problems.” Hon. Dr. Muswere said. “We must re-imagine the use of AI and information science being championed from students, scholars, and researchers from Africa.” he added.

The conference which started on Thursday 12th of September, is being hosted by NUST’s Faculty of Communication and Information Science as a hybrid (in person and virtual) interactive seminar where over a dozen intellectual papers on the impact that AI on the communication landscape are being presented by experts in the field.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) which has become part and parcel of most of our daily computing activities, refers to computer systems “that can understand a natural language or perceive and comprehend a visual scene; and systems that perform other types of feat that require human type of Intelligence” (Echedom and Okuinghae,2021: 244).

Some of our computers and mobile phones have AI features which we are unaware of. These features include speech recognition functions, and grammar checks for example on Microsoft Word among other features. Compared to natural human intelligence, AI is “consistent, less expensive, has the ease of duplication and dissemination, can be documented and can perform certain tasks much faster and better than the human” (Avneet, 2015: 79).

Within the broader field of communication and information science, AI is used in fields such as journalism (Broussard et al., 2019), library (Echedom and Okuinghae, 2021), records management (Mosweu, 2021) and publishing (Zhao and Prabhashini, 2019) among others. While there have been positive discourses around AI, its negative implications on “employment, democracy and equality” (Kerr et al., 2020: 1) have not been overlooked considering that every innovation or technology has its own challenges. The growth, adoption and utilisation of AI in the field of communication is unique to each society and therefore, societies can learn from each other through debates and knowledge exchange on their encounters with AI.

Through this hashtag#ICCIS conference, NUST seeks to give the communication sectors an opportunity to reflect on AI broadly, sharing experiences and lessons learned, new ways of thinking and pathways for exploring opportunities associated with the technology while addressing related challenges.

 hashtag#ICCIS hashtag#AI hashtag#4IR hashtag#5IR hashtag#studyatnust hashtag#ChooseNUST hashtag#ThinkInOtherTerms.

Downloads

Staff

Connect with us

National University of Science & Technology
PO Box AC 939, Ascot, Bulawayo
Zimbabwe
Tel: +263 292 282842
Fax: +263 292 286803

 

 

Alumni

Faculties

Campus Life

Centres

Conferences

Banking Details

ZB BANK
Account name: National University of Science and Technology
Bank: ZB Bank
USD Account number: 437200035542405
ZWG Account number: 437200035542090
Swift Code: ZBCOZWHX
 
FBC BANK
Account name: National University of Science and Technology
Bank name: FBC Bank
USD Account number: 4820068620666
ZWG Account number: 3120068620276
Branch name: Jason Moyo
Swift code: FBCZPWHAX
 
BancABC
Account name: National University of Science and Technology
Bank name: BancABC
USD Account number: 54790116633330
ZWG Account number: 54790115502019
Branch name: Jason Moyo
Swift Code: FMBZZWHX

Disclaimer

The National University of Science and Technology (NUST) is committed to protecting your personal information. All personal data is handled confidentially in compliance with the Cyber and Data Protection Act [Chapter 12:07]. While the provision of personal information (including but not limited to name, address, and email address) on this website is generally voluntary, when provided, such information will be protected and will not be disclosed to third parties without your explicit consent.