We normally hear about predatory journals/publishers, which accept articles for publication without performing the required quality checks. And they collect hefty author fees, in the process. These are generally considered as a global threat. While many institutions have put in place measures to counter this evil, many unsuspecting authors are still falling prey to it.

Those of you who have been following my blog over the years, will realise that I started flirting with computer vision and robotics research while studying for my PhD at Tokyo Institute of Technology way back in 2008. This was driven by the fact that more than 70 % of my peers were working on robotics, computer vision, gesture recognition and other related topics.

Two days ago, National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has agreed to Eskom increasing its tariff by over 15% for the 2021/22 financial year. This is a huge blow to South Africans who are already reeling from the effects of the Covid-19 lockdowns as well as Eskom’s own ongoing load-shedding.

Thandile Nododile, a very enterprising young man, who was my student in Computer Architecture last year, has been working on a web app for automatic creation of CVs and cover letters for more than two years. The young man has finally released his app and it can be accessed at C-vity.

Just like many countries in the world, South Africa has been experiencing a deadly second wave of Covid-19, which, according to experts, has been fuelled by a new strain of the virus. This strain is more contagious and has led to more deaths.

At the end of last year, I read a very interesting article online about Alpha Tau Medical’s revolutionary cancer therapy, that dissolves cancerous tumors in days. At that time, Alpha Tau had just successfully completed its first-in-human clinical trial of Alpha DaRT with squamous cell carcinoma patients from Italy and Israel.

This morning I read an article, in which Francis Munthali, one of my senior friends from our high school days, explains how he almost died of Covid-19. This Covid-19 is very dangerous! Francis is now out of danger and has made a public call for people to help Mzuzu Central Hospital with financial contributions in order to acquire oxygen as a matter of urgency.

With the 2020 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence already gone, the only major conference in Computational Intelligence remaining on this year’s calendar is the 2020 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (IEEE SSCI).

The Malawi social media has been awash with debates on fake PhDs for the past week or so. Some highly inquisitive fellows have been taking some time off their work to check and verify the authenticity of some PhD degrees held by some prominent people in our country.

On 20 April, 2020, Andry Rajoelina, Madagascar’s President launched Covid Organics (CVO), a herbal medicine that, he believes, can prevent and cure patients suffering from COVID-19.