Vusumuzi Dube
Bruce Ndlovu , Sunday News Reporter
LEARNERS residing at the US$17 million student accommodation complex in Bulawayo will be protected by a top of the range Artificial Intelligence (AI) system, equipped with facial recognition technology that will allow security to eject undesirable individuals that do not stay at the facility.
The Bulawayo students complex, which is a joint venture project comprising the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ), Old Mutual, Zimnat, and Mining Industry Pension Funds, is a multi-purpose three-block of flats complex dubbed “Bulawayo Students City” which has 516 rooms that are expected to accommodate 1 023 students.
Located in Matsheumhlophe near the National University of Science and Technology (Nust), the facility is self-contained as it will have fast-food outlets, shops, salons and sporting facilities and is open to all tertiary students in the city from various institutions.
While it is set to bring relief to students in the city that have been struggling to get accommodation, concerns had been raised about the safety of students staying at the complex. In an interview, the chief executive officer of Allied Security, the company that has been engaged to secure the complex, Mr Bekezela Moyo said they had chosen to use AI for students, as it provided them with the best way of controlling a large number of people, while eliminating human error.
“We are creating a data base that will allow us to have less manned guards because you will have a person watching what is happening from a camera, without in any way infringing on the rights of students. The ultimate purpose is to have zero crime. The AI will be able to identify non-students and verify when there’s an impostor in the vicinity of the student residence.
“We have entrusted AI with this because, there will be thousands of people going in and out of the complex daily and a human guard at times cannot tell who is supposed to be in there or not. With the technology that we have put there, we will be getting notifications when people that are not supposed to be at a particular place are identified,” he said.
Under this system, Mr Moyo said they would be getting notifications in real time, when the facial recognition system flags any individual that is not a resident at the complex.
“AI works on data and I am sure by next year, our data base would have grown bigger than what it is now because we are in the process of continually feeding it. As we continue feeding information into our system, it will be sensitive to things that have been stolen. If someone moves something from the complex, it will notify that a certain object that is not supposed to move has been shifted from this place to that place. The technology that has been used for this is top of the range,” he said.
Mr Moyo said the system would help in protecting female students in particular, as they were aware that there were individuals who might seek to prey on them, given that they were not living on campus or under the protection of parents or guardians.
Mr Moyo said once fully implemented, they hoped to take the same technology to other educational institutions across the country.
Online Reporter