IEEE R10 MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Parkash Lohana, Chair for IEEE R10 MD Committee

IEEE R10 MD Committee has been focusing on two important aspects namely:

1. Members’ retention and
2. Recruitment of new members.

The membership data with brief summary has been circulated monthly to all section leaders of R10 for monitoring purposes so as to encourage them to achieve the membership goals set by MGA MD committee. However, these goals cannot be achieved without the promotion of technical and professional activities at local level. Therefore, the R10 MD committee has planned to encourage OUs, student branches/affinity groups/chapters to initiate professional as well as technical activities for students, professionals, and senior members so as to achieve the objectives set by the R10 MD committee in 2020.

The committee has asked the section leadership to come up with ideas to meet the set objectives and appropriately execute them considering the challenges posed by the COVID-19 epidemic. To increase and retain members, elevation members to senior members and graduating students to young professionals, MD committee has planned some projects for 2020; the details of which have already been circulated to all sections/subsections/councils via R10 staff. A brief of one project focused on the increasing and retaining the membership is given below.

This project has been divided in four categories with main emphasis on increasing and retention of the membership with each category targeted on four different bodies of the R10 OUs. The details are as follows:

1. Targeted Bodies: Student Branches / Affinity Groups / Chapters
   1. Student branches come up with innovative ideas for increasing membership
   2. Training sessions may be conducted for new members and officers of the branches.
   3. Four different awards with grant of a total amount of USD 1000.00
2. Targeted Bodies: Section SAC/ SSR / AGs
   1. Student Activities Committee along with SSR and its affinity groups to come up with new ideas to retain the membership, like inter-branch promotional events with technical and professional training amongst different student branches
   2. Two different awards with a total grant amount of USD 400.00
3. Targeted Bodies: Section MD officers
   1. Mainly target the YP and the SIGHT groups of the section
   2. Ideas include internships and industry-academia linkages
   3. Activities for recent graduates to collaborate with SIGHT/Societies/chapters
   4. Activities to collaborate with industrial relation committee
   5. Three different awards with a total grant amount of USD 550.00
4. Targeted Bodies: Section Secretary
   1. Mainly target increase and retention of professional and senior members
   2. Any capacity building idea executed for senior members as a philanthropic activity
   3. SIGHT project supervision by senior members to get more involvement with IEEE
   4. Contribution towards sustainable development by professional and senior members
   5. Two different awards with a total grant amount of USD 450.00

Further, R10 MD committee has recommended that membership development should be a built-in prerequisite for all R10 financially sponsored activities, be it YP, WIE, Professional, Educational or Technical event. This can avoid duplication of financial grants to Sections for MD activity. It is therefore imperative for the R10 MD Chair to work with all R10 Committee heads for making MD an essential part of their objectives and work plans.