Personal Profile
Aurobindo is an experienced urban development professional with more than 20 years of international project experience in multidisciplinary areas of Smart Cities, Urban Planning and Development, Urban Infrastructure, and Local Government, and Industrial Parks Development/ Special Economic Zones from South Africa, India and China. During the last two decades, he has worked on multi-sectoral urban planning and infrastructure development projects within the academic, research, and consulting industry environment across the three spheres of government. He had worked on several multi-sectoral urban projects from multilateral and bilateral donor agencies like ADB, World Bank, JBIC, USAID, and National, Provincial and Local Governments. In consulting/ advisory engagements, he has contributed and provided expert consulting inputs in urban and regional project assignments at the national and international level in the capacity of Team Leader, Urban Infrastructure, and Technical Specialist/ Expert. During 2015-16, he served as a Technical Task Team Member, Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission (PICC), South Africa to provide strategic inputs in areas of SIP-6: Integrated Municipal Infrastructure Project, SIP 7: Integrated Urban Space and Public Transport Programme, and Innovative Building Technologies (IBT). He is a Registered Professional Planner – South African Council for Planners (SACPLAN) and member of several national and international associations in planning, public administration and governance sector. At an institutional/ industry engagement level, he has provided technical inputs at various levels in the capacity of an Expert Panel Member, Working Commission Member, Scientific Committee Member, Editorial Board Member, Reviewer, Session Chair, and Keynote Speaker. He has around 13 years of experience in the Higher Education Institution (HEIs) sector from University of Johannesburg, globally ranked at position 412th as per QS World University Rankings 2022. His current teaching, research and consulting interests span across areas of Smart City, Urban Infrastructure Planning and Development, Urban Governance, 4IR, Industrial Parks Development, Spatial Planning and Industrialization, Integrated Waste Management System, and other areas of built environment sector. He has published and presented more than 60 research papers in the multidisciplinary urban sector thematic areas as journal articles, book chapters, and peer-reviewed conference proceedings and others.
Company Profile
Vibrant, multicultural and dynamic, the University of Johannesburg (UJ) shares the pace and energy of cosmopolitan Johannesburg, the city whose name it carries. Proudly South African, the university is alive down to its African roots, and well-prepared for its role in actualising the potential that higher education holds for the continent’s development. UJ has transformed into a diverse, inclusive, transformational and collegial institution, with a student population of over 50 000, of which more than 3000 are international students from 80 countries. This makes UJ one of the largest contact universities in South Africa (SA) from the 26 public universities that make up the higher education system. The University has 7 faculties and a college viz., Education, Law, Humanities, Art, Design and Architecture, Health Sciences, Science, Engineering and the Built Environment as well as the College of Business and Economics, housing the newly established Johannesburg Business School. The University has four campuses, namely the Auckland Park Bunting Road Campus; the Auckland Park Kingsway Campus; the Doornfontein Campus; and the Soweto Campus. The vision of the UJ is to be “an international University of choice, anchored in Africa, dynamically shaping the future”. The mission can be described as follows: “inspiring its community to transform and serve humanity through innovation and the collaborative pursuit of knowledge”. These are underpinned by four values, namely: imagination, conversation, regeneration and ethical foundation. The six strategic objectives provide a focused means for realising the Vision, Mission and Values of the University as set out above. They further represent a re-working of the original UJ Strategic Thrusts 2020 in the context of a wider positioning of the University as “The Pan-African” Centre for Critical Intellectual Inquiry, with the primary goal of achieving global excellence and stature. The six strategic objectives are: (1) Excellence in Research and Innovation (2) Excellence in Teaching and Learning
(3) An International Profile for Global Excellence and Stature (GES) (4) An Enriching Student-Friendly Learning and Living Experience (5) National and Global Reputation Management (6) Fitness for Global Excellence and Stature (GES).
Recognised as the country’s second strongest brand, UJ offers world-class, internationally recognised academic programmes based on curricula informed by cutting-edge developments in both undergraduate and postgraduate education, and that are designed to prepare students for the world of work and for global citizenship. Our curriculum is increasingly reflective of previously marginalised scholarship that talks to a transformation and decolonisation agenda, with Africa at its core.