Joshua Tshifhiwa Maumela

Councillor, ICASA

South Africa

Dr. Tshifhiwa Joshua Maumela is a trailblazing AI researcher and machine learning expert

with over a decade of experience spanning banking, logistics, telecommunications and

academia. He holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and is a registered Professional

Engineer. Dr. Maumela is best known for co-inventing the Ulimisana Optimisation

Algorithm, Africa’s first AI algorithm inspired by Ubuntu philosophy and mechanism

design.

He has successfully led the development of several first-in-continent AI solutions,

including Standard Bank’s customer-facing Deep Learning-powered anomaly detection

and recommendation systems. He also served as a Technical Lead for AI and Machine

Learning at Vodacom and chairs the Computing Chapter of the South African Institute of

Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) where he lead the design and development of a large deep

learning recommendation system development and deployment capability.

Dr. Maumela holds advanced degrees in AI and Economics from the University of

Johannesburg and Waseda University in Tokyo. He is currently a Councillor at ICASA.

He is currently a Councillor at ICASA where he a member of a 9 people team that make

regulatory decisions for Telecommunications, Broadcasting and Postal Services sectors

in South Africa where he is in charge of the Digital Data Portfolio

Speakers