To ensure digital fluency, staff and students from Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) attended a high-intensity, five-day masterclass in Data Analysis and Visualization. Held from 13 to 17 April 2026, the virtual programme was delivered by the Big Data Technology Company, a premier Chinese organisation at the forefront of global data solutions. Close to 70 students from the Department of Information Communication Technology (ICT) at MUT were prominent among the 1,000 attendees from China, Russia, South Africa, Zambia, and Kazakhstan. Other students and lecturers from MUT came from other departments, such as the Department of Office Technology and Nature Conservation.
Mbali Mkhize, Senior Director, Marketing and Communications, said, “With different time zones and a different platform (Zoom) other than Microsoft Teams, we needed to ensure that everyone was able to participate. We are grateful to the Head of ICT department, Dr Vikash Jugoo, Xolisa Piyose, a lecturer in the department, and Jay Roopsunker, Webmaster at the Department of Marketing and Communications, for ensuring that proper processes were in place so the event would succeed. We also acknowledge the participation and mobilisation of our other colleagues, including Sthembile Nkosi, Nonku Ntimbane, Trevor Govender, and many more. We hope to receive reports on these from them as well.”
The curriculum challenged participants to master the full data lifecycle. Over the course of the week, attendees moved through a rigorous workflow that included data wrangling, which is cleaning and manipulating complex datasets to ensure accuracy; technical toolkits, that is a hands-on sessions using Microsoft Excel and Python to automate analysis; visual storytelling, which was about designing interactive dashboards, maps, and charts that translate numbers into narratives; and strategic decision-making, which gave attendees a chance to learn to select the specific visualisation types, such as heat maps or scatter plots that best support executive-level choices.
The MUT cohort found themselves part of a massive, global classroom, gaining a competitive edge in a job market where data-driven roles are seeing unprecedented growth.
While the technical skills were a major draw, the programme offered a secondary, unexpected benefit: a deep dive into cross-cultural collaboration. For many MUT participants, the experience was a productive “culture shock.” Mbali Mkhize, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications and one of the event’s key organisers, noted that the course’s virtual format forced students and staff to adapt to a globalised work environment in real time. “Our participants got to experience the reality of different time zones and navigated a space where three languages were being spoken simultaneously,” Mkhize shared. “They quickly learned to use translation tools and adapted to unfamiliar accents. They were also able to voice their frustrations about the languages used when they could not find the translation buttons. It was true Internationalisation at Home without the need for travel”, added Mkhize.