Durban - Dr Zephania Philani Khumalo from Manguzi in northern KwaZulu-Natal endured three-and-a-half years of sleepless nights to obtain his Doctor of Engineering degree at the second session of Durban University of Technology’s (DUT) Autumn graduation ceremony held at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Durban International Convention Centre on Monday.
DUT said Khumalo was the only PhD student who graduated under the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the second graduation session.
Khumalo said his hard work and sleepless nights finally paid off.
Recalling his journey at DUT, Khumalo said it was not a smooth one. He said he joined DUT straight from high school in 2002 to pursue engineering studies.
He said his main challenge was coming from a poor family and he had to apply for a Tertiary Education Fund of South Africa loan now called the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.
“I pushed my studies in such a way that 60% of my subjects were converted to a bursary. But all in all, it was sleepless nights and no partying. Hard work was required. We used to sleep in the library basement when we had study sessions. The institution was very supportive with all material we required,” said Khumalo.
Khumalo said he is grateful for the support he received from his family and friends, and he is looking forward to all the celebrations promised to him after graduating.
The university said the title of his thesis is “Privacy and Security for Applications and Services in Future Generation Smart Grids”.
Khumalo completed his thesis under the supervision of Professor Bakhe Nleya, Associate Professor at the Department of Electronic Engineering at DUT.
“This thesis mainly addresses the security and privacy concerns within the Information and Communications Technology subsystem’s architectures. On the customers’ side networks, both data security, confidentiality, privacy, and integrity must be ensured at all times. In the grid’s core, measuring and monitoring units must be protected against integrity attacks, such as false data injection,” he said.
According to Khumalo, he chose this topic as he discovered a loophole in the smart grids that was not addressed and there was little interest on addressing the privacy and security in application on smart grids.
Khumalo would like to be a lecturer one day and believes obtaining his PhD will help him reach his dream.
He plans to continue writing and publishing more papers with his supervisor, Nleya.
Khumalo added that it has always been his dream to use his expertise to change the life of the rural community of Manguzi where he comes from.
DUT said Khumalo’s future research work will be on further enhancing privacy and security in modern smart grids with Internet of Things as the underlying communications infrastructure.
Khumalo’s advice to current students in his field is that while it is very challenging, nothing is impossible with hard work and determination.