Prof Alta Van der Merwe, the Deputy Dean of Teaching and Learning from the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology (EBIT) at the University of Pretoria received the 2021 AISSAC Life Achievement Award.  This award honors a scholar who has made significant contributions to the field of Information Systems, both in Southern Africa and worldwide, and whose lifetime of service deserves special recognition.

Prof Van der Merwe is also a full professor in the Department of Informatics where she provides supervision to postgraduate students. She focuses on the design of socio-technical solutions with research activities in Enterprise Architecture, Society 5.0 and different theories supporting the successful use of technology in the organization. Her research related to her position as Deputy Dean Teaching and Learning focuses on student success and especially using technology to enhance throughput.

Alta is the past president of SAICSIT, a past council member of AISSAC and on an international level, she was involved in the proposal and acceptance of the IEEE SMC Enterprise Engineering and Enterprise Architecture Technical Committee.

In 2018 she has been appointed as the IFIP 8 Vice-chair and until 2020 she was also the South African representative for the International IFIP 8 committee.