Page 22 - Issue 1 2023

IN CONVERSATION

Coded history

Hans van de Groenendaal in conversation with Prof. Barry Dwolatzky

oded History is the title of the autobiography of Prof. Barry Dwolatzky,
currently the advisor to the deputy vice chancellor for research and innovation
Cat the University of the Witwatersrand, Prof. Lynn Morris. Prof Dwolatsky’s task
is to develop an innovation stratetgy for the university. He recently completed the
strategy but as he said in our conversation, “a strategy remains a strategy until it is
implemented”. The university is currently engaged in recruiting suitably qualified and
experienced people to implement the strategy.

Who is Barry Dwolatzky
Barry Dwolatzky is an emeritus professor and director of innovation strategy at the
University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is also the founder and director of
the university’s Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) and founder of the
Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.
Barry holds a BSc(Eng) in Electrical Engineering and a PhD from Wits University.
Apart from a nine-year period in the UK in the 1980s, he has spent more than fifty years Prof. Barry Dwolatzky
at Wits where he has educated generations of software engineers.
Prof. Dwolatzky and I have a long association which started when I first
interviewed him about his vision to turn the inner city, and in particular “He wrote without fear about his
Braamfontein, into a digital hub. I reminded him of the days we walked through old, impending death. He wrote about a
dilapidated buildings and he pointed out what would become a lab, a test facility and weariness that few have experienced.
a conference area where students would gather to share ideas and become digital The all-encompassing exhaustion one
experts. My thought at the time bordered on the question: what is he smoking? But feels when every cell in your body
he had a vison and made it happen. craves oxygen. All but the most vital
In his autobiography he talks about many of the projects he initiated and turned systems in your body start shutting
into success stories but often with great difficulty and little or no recognition. In his down. His body slept for eighteen, then
book he writes: “My contribution to the South African ICT sector was recognised by twenty, then twenty-three hours a day.
my peers in 2013 when I was named by the IITPSA as joint recipient of South Africa’s His brain kept working as it bubbled
IT Personality of the Year. I shared the award with Mteto Nyathi, a good personal up a long lifetime of memories into
friend and enthusiastic supporter of the JCSE. He was head of Microsoft South Africa his subconscious in the form of vivid
at the time.” dreams that filled his hours of sleep. He
used his last remaining hour or two a
In 2016, the IITPSA presented Prof. Barry with the Award for Distinguished Service to day of wakefulness to share some of his
the IT Profession in South Africa, recognising all he had done through the JCSE in setting memories with his life partner, who sat
up the Tshimologong Precinct. The key objective of the project was to reinforce and at his side watching him fade away. With
enhance Wits University’s leading position and reputation in relation to South Africa’s his last tiny package of energy, he shared
IT sector. With the growth in the digital economy and the approaching Fourth Industrial his experience of dying with friends and
Revolution, Wits has a key role to play in developing digital knowledge, skills and others on Facebook, in a final post as his
innovations. For me it was a proud moment to present the award to him on behalf of life slipped away. And then he died. It
EngineerIT, co-sponsors of the award. was late 2018.
Life for Prof. Barry was not without hiccups, as the sub title of his book reflects: “My I read this final post. I hadn’t met
Life of New Beginnings” He suffered leukaemia twice, recovered and marched on. him, but I knew who he was: a fellow
During our conversation I asked him what made him write the book. He said he academic and a powerful force in his
never intended to publish a book but when in 2018 he was being treated for the second field, who had influenced those he
bout of leukaemia, he came across a post from a person in Cape Town dying of cancer, taught and those who read what he
which made him realise that when you die, your memories die with you. wrote. He was about my age and we

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