INTERNATIONAL COVID19 CONGRESS (ICC-2020)

Raihan ur Rashid, Secretary for IEEE Bangladesh Section

To exchange diverse view points and sharing of ideas to fight against the COVID19 pandemic, IEEE Bangladesh Section organized a full virtual event, the International COVID19 Congress (ICC-2020) on 9th and 10th August 2020. Dr. Celia Shahnaz, Chair for IEEE Bangladesh Section was the General Chair of the Congress and Dr. Shaikh A. Fattah, Nomination and Appointment Chair for IEEE Bangladesh Section was the Technical Chair of the Congress. Raihan Ur Rashid, Secretary of IEEE Bangladesh Section was the Congress Secretary while the Virtual Congress Management Chairs were S.M. Saiduzzaman, S.K. Azmaeen Bin Amir and A.N.M. Nasimunnabi.

The inaugural ceremony of ICC2020 was held on 9th August 2020 at 06:00 AM (GMT +6). The Chief Guest of the ceremony was IEEE President, Professor Toshio Fukuda, LFIEEE. Special Guests were IEEE R10 Director, Prof. Akinori Nishihara, LFIEEE and IEEE R10 Vice-Chair Technical Activities, Prof. Sri Niwas Singh, FIEEE. In his inaugural speech, Professor Toshio Fukuda complimented Dr. Celia and Dr. Fattah for organizing the Congress to share experiences and ideas of this global pandemic. The Recording of the Inauguration Ceremony can be found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXdhqwz0jUc.

The registered participants of this congress included 440 from 15 countries. In this congress, IEEE Bangladesh Section organized five different sessions in the format of Competition/Sharing/Discussion. These included Idea Sharing Competition, Project Competition, Debate Competition, Research Progress Sharing, and Great Initiative/Policy Making Sharing.  In these competitions, 329 participants from 136 teams across 7 countries registered in the preliminary round and amongst them 98 teams were selected and registered for the final round. There were 12 invited speakers in 5 sessions:

  • Juan Carlos Montero Q. Vice President, Membership & Image, IEEE PES
  • LI-Yang, Division Director, State Grid Corporation of China, China
  • Dominique Duncan, University of Southern California, USA
  • B.S. Chowdhry, Member BOG Higher Education Commission & Professor Emeritus, MUET Pakistan
  • Kuncoro Wastuwibowo, Portfolio & Synergy Project Leader at Telkom Indonesia, Indonesia
  • Ruwan Ranaweera, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
  • San Murugesan, Director, BRITE Professional Services, Sydney, Australia
  • Thiago Ribeiro de Alencar, IEEE PES YP MD Coordinator (IEEE Region 1 – 10), IEEE PES Brazil
  • Bee Theng Lau, Associate Professor, Swinburne University, Sarawak, Malaysia
  • Pabitra Mitra, Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India
  • Saif Islam, Professor, University of California – Davis, USA
  • Goutam Chattopadhyay, Senior Research Scientist, California Institute of Technology, USA

The Closing Session and Award Ceremony of ICC 2020 were held on 10th August 2020 at 9:30 PM. The chief of guest of the Ceremony was Honorable Mayor of Dhaka North City Corporation, Mr. Atiqul Islam.

Detailed Article Link – https://docs.google.com/document/d/174NNzx3P1GKQjQBefJ6pVuymcDAS2r1SBHXIAyLEGAs/edit#