After his parents had lived through bitter years of not conceiving a second child, Oluwole Adekanmbi was born; bringing hope, joy and a new meaning to his family.
The name Oluwole means ‘God has intervened’ in Yoruba, one Nigeria’s native languages. The DUT international student yet again brought joy to his parents when he graduated cum laude for his Master of Technology degree in Information Technology today (03 September 2014).
Adekanmbi, who has always been passionate about technology, conducted his research on: Differential Evolution Algorithm for Optimal Strategic Decision Making in Crop Farming System, which took him 11 months to complete. Inspiration behind the topic came from his previous studies and his yearning towards improving society. “I have an agricultural and computer science background so I found it interesting to do research in this area. Year after year, farmers have to allocate their acres of land to different crops based on their various crop planning decision options. Efforts to raise agricultural productivity in the farming systems of the developing countries have dominated recent interventions policies. In South Africa for instance, several programmes have been introduced by government to increase the productivity of small scale farms that now have to compete with commercial farms which have always been able to survive the harsh past and the current socio-economic environment. The increasing environmental trepidations, and possibility of change in climate, makes it necessary to adopt proactive decision making farming practices to meet challenges of the future,” he said.
Adekanmbi said farmers and decision makers within the South African agricultural sector lack access to farming tools and resources that could assist them in optimising crop planning. He said his research will assist farmers in their annual and long-term joint crop planning and land allocation.
“The research applies the differential evolution algorithm (a computer program that is designed to evolve and improve in response to input) to support farmers with optimal strategic decision making in the crop planning system. The research formulates crop-mix planning problems by concurrently maximizing net profit and crop production, while minimizing the total land in hectare used to determine optimal cropping patterns. Different optimal crop-mix problems formulated in this research were solved using a mathematical methodology of generalized differential evolution 3 algorithm to obtain globally optimal solutions. The methodology of this research strikes a balance between mathematical formulations of crop planning problems and effective implementation of crop planning decision models. The empirical results of this study generally indicate that generalised differential evolution 3 algorithm is a viable alternative for optimal crop-mix planning decision. Based on the performance of the generalized differential evolution 3 algorithm, the design of a decision support system was realized which promises to assist farmers and decision-makers within the agricultural sector to make optimal decisions pertaining to crop planning,” he said.
Adekanmbi was ecstatic about his graduation, saying he expected nothing less than excellence. “I’m very happy to be completing my Master’s degree cum laude. I expected to do well, especially since I put a lot of effort into my research and got incredible guidance from my supervisors,” he said.
He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria. He has published five publications in internationally accredited academic journals and conference proceedings, is a member of various professional bodies which include Project Management Institute (PMI), Nigeria, as well as the Institute of Information Technology Professionals South Africa (IITPSA). He is certified by Oracle University as an Oracle Database 11g Administrator Certified Professional and Oracle Database SQL Certified Expert.
“I was exposed to a wide range of IT subjects which include Artificial Intelligence, Database Design and System Analysis. These courses provided me with extensive background knowledge on the complexity and dynamics of computer systems. Above all, they help in building my problem-solving skills and providing solutions to complex and real-life”, he said.
Adekanmbi says he is appreciative of the opportunities granted to him. His next step is to study towards his PhD. “Thank you to my supervisors, Professor Oludayo Olugbara (Professor of Computer Science and Information Technology at DUT) and Dr. Josiah Adeyemo (Associate Director in the Civil Engineering Department at DUT) for giving me the platform and support needed to successfully carry out my studies. I’d also like to thank the National Research Foundation for their financial assistance towards this research, my family for their support and the DUT Postgraduate Research Directorate for providing a series of trainings and capacity building workshops which were instrumental to the success of my study,” he said.
– Talent Buthelezi
Pictured: Oluwole Adekanmbi
