AMIHRP arranged an informative technical visit to Wits Digital Mining Laboratory known as DigiMine.
We were welcomed by Professor Cuthbert Musingwini the acting Dean.
The first presentation, Prof. Frederick Cawood took us on a perspective on the Future of Work and Mining with considerations on the influence of COVID and Hybrid systems of work. He also shared perspectives on the future of mining looking at issues on trend analyses pointing out that there are more issues outside of mining as oppose to previous years impacting on the mining industry e.g. Sustainability, Political, Business financial etc.
Previously Mining was 90% and other concerns were 10% and the table is immerging to be reversed.
Lobbying will be critical going forward with Mining influencing Government and communities.
Machine Psychology that is understanding Machines in relation to people and other machines since AI is not too distant in the future with looming of the 4IR
The second presentation was conducted by M Ahsan Mahboob, the head of DigiMine.
The use of different technology for different outcomes were remarkable and all of this was to ensure safe production. The merging of different systems to ensure collaboration of data to provide real-time feedback was phenomenal to observe. This followed by a walk through the laboratory to visualise the practical implication.
It was an overall huge learning curve of the strides the mining industry is making to ensure the safety and well-being of employees such as Emotional detection, locating lost employees, Safe controlled blasting and LIFI, a wireless communication technology which utilizes light to transmit data and position between devices.
An informative and mind challenging day was experienced by all.