Luzango Mfupe is a Principal Researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) within the Next Generation Enterprises and Institutions cluster. He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering, specializing in Telecommunications technologies. His research focuses on improving spectrum utilization efficiency and the capacity of national wireless ICT infrastructures, aiming to reduce the cost to communicate, bridge the digital divide in hard-to-reach, low-income rural communities.
Luzango is a renowned expert in Dynamic Spectrum Access and Management. He is a leader and co-inventor of the CSIR TVWS spectrum-sharing technology, which has obtained regulatory approval in South Africa (2021), the United Kingdom (2016), and Tanzania (2022) to lower communication costs.
As a Principal Investigator, Luzango leads a portfolio of RD&I projects and initiatives, funded by South Africa’s national government and international organizations such as FCDO and UNDP. These projects have significantly impacted the development of ICT-focused SMMEs, creating job opportunities for women and youth in underserved communities.
Luzango has contributed to key national strategic policy documents, including the Recommended South African Strategy for 5G and Future and Emerging Technologies and the Findings Documents and Position Paper on the Framework for Dynamic Spectrum Access and Opportunistic Spectrum Management.
In the SADC region, Luzango has advised the Ministry of ICT in Tanzania on TVWS utilization for affordable broadband services in rural areas, facilitated the provision of CSIR TVWS technology to the University of Dar es Salaam, and contributed to the SADC Digital Transformation Strategy in 2018.
Luzango was a visiting scholar at the European University in Cyprus in 2019 and participated in the European Union’s IRACON project activities, successfully supervising postgraduate students.
Since 2019, he has been the Vice Chair of the IEEE DySPAN-SC Working Group P1900.6, developing global standards for “Spectrum Sensing Interfaces and Data Structures for Dynamic Spectrum Access and other Advanced Radio Communication Systems.” He also co-convenes the South African 5G Forum R&D WG.
Luzango is an Adjunct Professor at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) in Tanzania, supervising and training postgraduate students. He has co-supervised PhD and Master’s students from various universities, including Wits, TUT, EUC Cyprus, and AAiT Ethiopia, and mentors CSIR candidate researchers. He has authored and co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed conference papers, articles, book chapters, and journals, and several CSIR Technology Demonstrators in innovative digital technologies.
He holds patents on an intelligent channel allocation technique for reconfigurable white space radios, granted in five territories worldwide. He also contributed to developing the global IETF standard “Protocol for Access White Space” databases (PAWS) RFC 7545.
Luzango has spoken at numerous local and international workshops, symposiums, and meetings as an invited and keynote speaker. In 2021, he was co-General Chair and Organizing Chair of the IEEE flagship conference in Africa, AFRICON 2021. In 2023, he was invited by the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa to speak about the Fourth Industrial Revolution during the inaugural session of the Parliamentary committee on the 4IR youth campaign.
Luzango is a recipient of several scientific awards, including the prestigious National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF) award in 2019, won under the category “Innovations and their Research and/or Development by teams, individuals, or organizations” for the Smart Spectrum Sharing Team.
