Built right here on home soil, George is equipped with advanced AI and is paving the way for the future of collaborative robotics… Oh, and he can also copy your moves and give you a cool thumbs up, too!
Stellenbosch, South Africa (30 July 2025) – Most of us have seen those futuristic movies where AI-powered robots live among humans, performing functions that mirror, or even surpass, our own. Well, this sci-fi vision is increasingly weaving itself into reality, and engineering students and researchers at Stellenbosch University (SU) are playing a significant role in this advancement.
Introducing George, South Africa’s first locally produced humanoid robot!
George, which was built at the SU’s Faculty of Engineering, is now helping SU students and researchers explore the future of collaborative robotics. George can track your movements, copy your gestures, and even give a thumbs-up!
When instructed to lift his arm and give a thumbs up, George’s left arm rises in a smooth, mechanical arc with the soft whirring of internal mechanisms. His fingers curl into a fist and, after a brief pause, a clear thumbs-up emerges.
According to SU’s Dr William Duckitt, Electrical and Electronic Engineering lecturer and head of the project, George was built as a collaborative robot; one designed to work in both home and workplace environments.
“A large language model paired with vision-language processors is just one of the technologies that makes George state-of-the-art. While he already recognises objects and interprets technical material, our next goal is to make him fully bipedal. This will allow him to walk and navigate spaces autonomously, opening up new possibilities for direct human-robot interaction.”
A video shared by SU shows Duckitt interacting with George as he asks the humanoid robot to tell him what it sees in front of him, to which George takes only brief moments to observe and process before explaining the objects in front of him.
The university has received further funding to enhance the robot, and by showcasing George version 0.1 to the world, Duckitt hopes that it will establish SU and the electronic systems department as a research hub for humanoid robotics here in Africa.
Sources: Stellenbosch University
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