Malaysia Section

Saaveethya Sivakumar is an Engineer, Academician, Researcher and a proud and active volunteer at IEEE. Saaveethya received her PhD in Mechatronics Engineering at Monash University in 2020 and her B.Eng. Electronics and Communication Engineering (1st class Honours) at Curtin University in 2014. Currently, Saaveethya works as a lecturer at Curtin University Malaysia. She is the proud recipient of Keysight Best Electronic Communication Graduate Award presented by Curtin Malaysia in 2015 and the Monash Vice-Chancellor’s International Inter- Campus PhD Mobility Grant in 2018. According to Saaveethya, IEEE continues to play a major role in shaping her professional career. Saaveethya is a member and volunteer at IEEE for the past nine years. She has gradually move from Student Branch (SB) to Section to Region and Global volunteer leadership positions. In 2013, she stepped into volunteering with IEEE as the secretary of Curtin Sarawak SB.

She played a major role in organizing the 2013 IEEE Exhibition on Technology of New Era and led a team in publishing a technical proceeding booklet for Malaysia Section. In 2014, Saaveethya was elected as the SB Chair of IEEE Curtin Sarawak, wherein the SB organized more than 100 activities in a single year and was globally recognized with the IEEE Exemplary Student Branch Award in 2014. Saaveethya has a key interest in enhancing society standards through technology. She has initiated Educate Rural Malaysia Program in 2016 that aimed to create awareness among the rural communities in Malaysia on the importance and benefits of engineering and sciences. She has also volunteered as the advisor for Light of Borneo (organized by AIESEC Curtin Sarawak in collaboration with Curtin Sarawak SB) in 2015, which is an initiative that aimed to provide ecologically sustainable & cost-effective lighting for underprivileged and marginalized communities in Sarawak Malaysia.

Her contributions have also focused on empowering Women in Engineering (WIE). In 2016, she initiated the IEEE WIE Student Network, intending to create a fresh WIE student volunteer culture in Malaysia through facilitation and providing the necessary guidance for WIE student activities. Saaveethya and her team managed to form the first three WIE SB Affinity Groups (AGs) in Malaysia within the first 2 months from the launch of the initiative. This has been the first key milestone for WIE SB AGs of Malaysia Section. She has also contributed at the R10 level as part of the R10 WIE Supporting Volunteer Committee from 2016 to 2018. Moreover, she was also involved with the Women in leadership subcommittee as the secretary in handling the Collabratec group dedicated for leadership aspirations of women engineers and scientists. Saaveethya was the publicity chair of Malaysia’s first IEEE Women in Engineering International Leadership Summit held in 2018, where she led the publicity team in developing and implementing strategies for promoting the summit to an international audience. In recognition of her contribution towards women in engineering, she was awarded the IEEE Malaysia Section’s Women In Engineering Outstanding Volunteer Award in 2016 and Monash Engineering & IT Women’s Leadership Award in 2018.

Saaveethya’s service to the R10 Student Activities Committee (SAC) started in 2017, when she was appointed as the R10 SAC Zonal Student Coordinator for South-East Asia. She also worked as the point of contact between IEEE China student volunteers and R10 SAC in reviving student activities in China which resulted in a positive impact. Consequently, she was appointed as the R10 Student Representative 2019 -2020. She was also part of the MGA SAC 2019-2020 representing IEEE R10 Student members and providing regional support for the MGA SAC initiatives.

“I cherish every experience with IEEE R10 and MGA SAC. I am honored to be able to represent student members of the largest region of IEEE.” Said Saaveethya. In addition to representing more than 50000 student members of R10, Saaveethya has also initiated and coordinated many IEEE student-related projects at the regional level. In 2019, she and her team launched the first R10 SAC Chair and SSR manual, highlighting terms and guidelines to execute successful Section-level SAC programs. She led a team to establish a strong network between the SAC Chairs and SSRs in R10. Saaveethya and her team worked on providing funding opportunities for Sections and Student Branches (e.g. Membership Development and Leadership Training fund and Joint SB Fund) specifically aiming to enhance quality of IEEE student activities. She coordinated the Regional Student Branch Website Contest 2019-2020 and assisted the R10 SAC team in coordinating the R10 Postgraduate Paper Contest and Undergraduate Video Contest. Saaveethya also provided her assistance for the launch of IEEE R10 Special Call for Proposals Related to Covid-19, an initiative which focused on identifying innovative technical approaches of R10 students towards solving issues related to Covid-19. In addition to this, Saaveethya has delivered keynotes, guest lectures and talks promoting IEEE member benefits and services across R10 countries, namely Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Japan, Australia, Bangladesh and New Zealand.

In 2020, Saaveethya Co-Chaired the Student Track of IEEE R10 Students Young Professionals Women in Engineering and Life Members (SYWL) Virtual Congress. She contributed in designing and executing the student track program that consisted of seven sessions delivered by 37 globally recognized speakers. She took a lead role in initiating the external collaborations for R10 SYWLC 2020, namely IEEE Industry Engagement Society, IEEE Entrepreneurship, IEEE Etta Kappa Nu Society, IEEE Industry Relations Society, IEEE Volunteer Leadership Program and IEEE Centre for Leadership Excellence. She led a team in launching the R10 Student Branch Partnership program, which is a new initiative that provided opportunities for R10 SBs to partner with R10 SYWL Virtual Congress with the aim of maximizing students’ participation. She and her team initiated exclusive networking sessions and exciting contests for student delegates, which were the key highlights of the Congress. The SAC and WIE joint contest was sponsored by Life Member Funding for student activities, where Saaveethya took the lead in the coordination towards securing the funds for R10 SYWLC 2020. In recognition of her contributions to IEEE R10 and MGA SAC, Saaveethya has been appointed as the 2021-2022 Young Professionals Committee Chair of IEEE R10 and the 2021 Students to Young Professionals Transitions Committee Chair of IEEE MGA SAC. It is noteworthy to highlight the fact that Saaveethya is the first female Young Professionals Committee Chair of Region 10.

As her concluding remarks, Saaveethya shares her thoughts about being a volunteer leader at IEEE, “IEEE has played a major role in shaping my career, profession and my personality through leadership opportunities and providing the platform to network and collaboratively work with pioneers and leaders across the world. I consider being part of IEEE network is an honor and a privilege to cherish. On top of all, I consider the valuable global level friendships I have earned through IEEE, as one of the biggest fortunes in my life. I would like to use this opportunity to also thank all my advisors and mentors for their constant guidance and support. IEEE acts as a bridge that connects the ocean of opportunities for its volunteers and members. Here are my two cents for all young and enthusiastic students and young professionals; Make use of IEEE as the platform to Contribute, Learn and Grow. Dream Big. Work Hard. And Never Ever Give Up! YOLO ”

Indonesia Section

Riri Fitri Sari became an IEEE member in 1994 and has been actively contributing as an IEEE volunteer from that year onwards when she helped the committee of the APCC 1994 hosted by the IEEE Indonesia Section. She served in the executive committee of the Indonesian Section in various positions. In 2011 till date, Riri Fitri Sari has served as the Women in Engineering Affinity Group Coordinator for Indonesia Section.

During the 2012 R10 Meeting in Calcutta, India, Riri Fitri Sari and Agnes Irwanti from Indonesia were both selected for the WIE R10 most inspiring engineer award. The 27 years that she has spent as an IEEE member, have made a significant impact on her professional as well as personal life.

Prof. Dr. Riri Fitri Sari is currently working as a tenure track professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of Universitas Indonesia. Between 2006 and 2014, she supported the Universitas Indonesia Rector as the Director of Information Technology (Chief Information Officer), which required her to lead the infrastructure and application system development towards the university’s digital transformation. She led the university of Indonesia team to win the Indonesia Tesca Award for being a smart campus. She also led the Universitas Indonesia collaboration with several industries such as Huawei technology who donated the CDMA EVDO system for training purposes in 2007. She was a tenure track Professor in computer engineering, in which she led her research group in protocol engineering, computer network, IoT, and Blockchain technology.

Her volunteering experience to encourage the young generation to be attracted to STEM is also in line with her position as the President of Indonesia Science Project Olympiad (ISPO), since 2012. She chaired the board of Jury to encourage high school students to love STEM through science projects and to present their work at the science fairs. She also served as a judge in many national ICT & award competitions such as Indonesia best CIO, Indonesia best learning organization, as well as selection for overseas scholarships and research grants. These activities are mutually aligned, thus enabling her to anticipate the adoption of new technology based on the current real condition in the society and promote STEM education.

In 2020, the IEEE Indonesia Section WIE affinity group has won the IEEE global humanitarian technology grant. This program, which is part of the humanitarian technology for Covid-19 pandemic initiative, was initiated by Dewi Liliana and Nur Afny, involved strategic partnership with some women against disruptive information (WADI) associations to campaign and conduct Training of Trainers for “Combating Misinformation”.

Another major and challenging worldwide initiative led by Riri Fitri Sari is the UI GreenMetric World University rankings, which ranked 912 universities from 84 countries, and became the first world university rankings on sustainability. She worked with the UI GreenMetric member universities to evaluate and document their effort to build a green and smart campus as well as other UI GreenMetric Indicators such as built smart buildings and the use of Building Information Modelling (BIM). She and her team have written books on “The making of UI GreenMetric” (2019) and “The making of UI GreenMetric Network”, in addition to various research publications on Information Technology deployment in society with state-of-the-art approach.

Malaysia Section

Mohd Hafiz Ismail joined IEEE in 2010 and has been actively contributing as an IEEE volunteer when he co-founded and became the Vice-Chair of IEEE Malaysia Section Sensors and Nanotechnology Joint Councils Chapter in 2017. This joint council’s chapter is the first council chapter established in the Malaysia Section. In 2018 and 2019, Mohd Hafiz was elected as the Executive Committee of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Malaysia Chapter and during the 29th Annual General Meeting, Mohd Hafiz was elected as the Executive Committee of IEEE Malaysia Section – Educational Activities Chair 2019 – 2020. He was also part of the IEEE Day Team 2018 – 2020, serving as IEEE Day Ambassador for Malaysia Section in 2018 – 2019 and R10 Regional Lead for IEEE Day 2020.

Mohd Hafiz Ismail is currently an academic staff at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering Technology, University Malaysia Perlis. He was a visiting researcher at Institute FEMTO-ST, Besancon France in 2013 and Institute of Applied Mechanics, National Taiwan University in 2015. Between 2006 and 2020, Mohd Hafiz has initiated and led various educational outreach and university social responsibilities programs. He was awarded with Excellence Service Award in 2009 and 2019 as well as Maal Hijrah Personality Award by University Malaysia Perlis.

Since 2017, Mohd Hafiz has involved as advisor, coordinator, instructor and speaker for more than 20 national and state levels university and pre-university programs, in collaboration with Ministry of Education Malaysia, Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, National STEM Centre Malaysia, various State Education Departments, IEEE Organizational Units and private educational companies. These programs have benefited more than 10000 school administrators, teachers, students and parents as well as university volunteers – in line with the purpose of IEEE Educational Activities Board i.e. to serve the educational pursuits of IEEE members, the engineering and scientific communities, and the general public. STEM initiatives by IEEE Malaysia Section led by Mohd Hafiz has been awarded with STEM Mentor-Mentee Merit Award during Malaysia Technology Expo 2018. In recognition of his outstanding contribution and services for educational activities to the IEEE Malaysia Section, Mohd Hafiz was selected as the recipient of IEEE Malaysia Section Outstanding Volunteer Award 2019, R10 Educational Activities Outstanding Group Award 2019, and R10 Educational Activities Outstanding Volunteer Award 2020.

Recently, Mohd Hafiz has been elected as the Executive Committee of IEEE Education Society Malaysia Chapter during its 13th Annual General Meeting. He is also currently a member of the STEM Portal Testing Group and IEEE TryEngineering Translation Project under the IEEE Educational Activities Board.

For the second year running, the IEEE Region 10 Annual General Meeting (AGM) had to be held virtually due to the ongoing COVID19 pandemic. With experiences gained from the first-ever virtual R10 AGM in 2020, as well as the earlier 2021 R10 Executive Committee Meeting in January, the 2021 AGM for IEEE Region 10 was smoothly conducted via WebEx on 6th and 7th March 2021. Each day consists of a 4-hour session starting at 7.15 am and ending at 11.30 am Indian Standard Time. Besides the Executive Committee and Section Chairs from Region 10, the meeting was also joined by IEEE President – Susan Kathy Land; IEEE Executive Director – Stephen Welby; IEEE Vice President MGA – Maike Luiken; MGA Managing Director – Cecelia Jankowski; as well as the 2022 IEEE President-Elect Candidates – Saifur Rahman (Virginia Tech Advanced Research Institute), S K Ramesh (California State University, Northridge) and Francis Grosz.

The meeting started on Day 1 with a roll call by the Secretary, Sameer SM, followed by a welcoming address by the Director, Deepak Mathur. The Director started by giving appreciation to the outgoing Director, Akinori Nishihara for his outstanding leadership and achievements for Region 10 especially in the challenging time of 2020. The Director then updated the members on the history and current development in IEEE Region 10, before presenting several initiatives for 2021. Among others, the initiatives are an orientation program for committee chairs and volunteers, governance training for Section officers, conference leadership program, and engaging more volunteers in Region 10 Committees. The Director also stressed the three thrust areas which are member retention and continuation of students to Young Professionals (Membership Activities), Section-Chapter collaborative programs, conference quality and industry engagements (Technical Activities), and entrepreneurship and career advancement programs (Professional Activities).

Following brief addresses by IEEE President, IEEE Executive Director, IEEE Vice President MGA, and Managing Director MGA, the Secretary presented the report on the R10 Executive Committee meeting. Akinori Nishihara then chaired a discussion session between the delegates and the 2022 IEEE President-Elect Candidates. The extracted question and answers from the session is attached in Page 71-76 of the newsletter. Day 1 concluded with the presentation from the three Vice-Chairs and the Treasurer.

Day 2 commenced with a presentation on the Nominations and Advisory Committee by Akinori Nishihara, and IEEE Humanitarian Activities and SIGHT by Sampathkumar Veeraraghavan. This was followed by reports from the four flagship events held in 2020; the IEEE Region 10 Conference (TENCON) by Takao Onoye; the IEEE Region 10 Symposium (TENSYMP) by Celia Shahnaz; the IEEE R10 Humanitarian Technology Conference (R10HTC) by Lau Bee Theng; and Students, Young Professionals, Women in Engineering and Life Members (SYWL) Congress by Zia Ahmed. Presentations on TENCON 2021 (Auckland, New Zealand), TENSYMP 2021 (Jeju, Korea), R10HTC 2021 (Bangalore, India), TENCON 2022 (Hong Kong), TENSYMP 2022 (Bombay, India) and R10HTC 2022 (Hyderabad, India) were then delivered by the respective Section chairs. The rest of Day 2 featured discussions on 2021 Sections Congress Virtual Training, 2021 IEEE strategy, awards, and new STEM portal for volunteers.

R10 Director Deepak Mathur adjourned the meeting with a vote of thanks to all participants. Each participant was presented with mementos from Region 10, posted to their home address. The following section highlights the 2021 planned activities for several selected R10 committees.

Professional Activities

Parkash Lohana, IEEE Region 10 Professional Activities Chair

The following is the thrust area set by the R10 Director for professional activities: “Entrepreneurship and Career Advancement Program”

This year R10 PA committee set the plans that are in line with the mentioned thrust area and the objectives of the committee, we are happy to share this with our members that the PA committee especially focuses more on entrepreneurship initiatives, lifelong employability, and career prospects for IEEE Student, YP, and WIE members.

R10 PA committee in collaboration with Sections sponsors the certification courses offered by IEEE Learning Network (the details will be announced in the last week of March 2021). In parallel with these activities, the R10 PA committee has planned to begin the Webinar series; the main objective of which is to enhance the soft skills of our members. R10 plans to support the selected Section for arranging the SMARTECH/HARDECH and IEEE future direction workshop. In 2022, the IEEE R10 PA committee will introduce the R10 PA Outstanding Section Awards and R10 PA Outstanding Volunteer Awards.

Educational Activities

Preeti Bajaj, IEEE Region 10 Educational Activities Chair

The IEEE Region 10 Educational Activities Committee (EAC) is committed to implementing programs specifically intended to serve and benefit IEEE members in educational pursuits, the engineering and scientific community, and the general public in Asia and Pacific Region. Guidance and assistance to Region 10 entities will be provided in organizing pre-college education programs, workshops related to TryEngineering and STEM, and other EAC-related activities.

Hence, IEEE Region 10 Educational Activities Committee (EAC) would like to invite all IEEE members of R10 Council, Section, Subsection, Society Chapter, Women in Engineering (WIE), Young Professional and Life Members Affinity Groups to submit proposals under five categories listed below:

• New Innovation Challenge under Educational Activities
• Call for a workshop on TryEngineering and STEM
• Social Media Challenge under Educational Activities
• Call for Proposal for “Reaching Local Initiatives”
• Call for Capacity Building Workshop under Educational Activities

The detailed guidelines & submission templates for all the openings can be found on the IEEE R10 EA homepage (https://ea.ieeer10.org/) and submission of the proposal to be done at https://events.ieeer10.org. Before submitting the proposal, participant OUs must read all the guidelines from the website and submit the proposals accordingly. For any query on proposal submission, you can contact at [email protected] with cc to Dr. Preeti Bajaj, Chair, IEEE R10 EAC at [email protected].

Student Activities

Jennifer Chua Dela Cruz, IEEE Region 10 Student Activities Chair
Warunika Hippola, IEEE Region 10 Student Representative

IEEE Region 10 Student Activities Committee, known well as the R10 SAC, is streamlined to realize the mission for 2021 in alignment with IEEE’s core values. The highlight of the plan for 2021 is the mission of increasing the student membership in the Region and especially upgrading the outreach capabilities of the SAC within the R10. The team is working hard on delivering the best to R10 students. The significant activities carried out by R10 SAC annually, are well-aligned to be executed this year as well.

The Training and Webinar Series is focused on providing the necessary information for students on IEEE SB operations as well as technical and professional knowledge. The annual plan of the training and webinar is already set and all the sessions will be conducted by very keen and active speakers. The sessions will be online and will be live-streamed through IEEE Region 10 Student Activities Committee social media channels. For those who are interested, the sessions will be recorded and uploaded to the Region 10 YouTube channel as well.

Funding opportunities at R10 SAC will be open under Special Call for Covid Related Projects and IEEE R10 2021 Student Branch Membership Development & Leadership Training fund (SBMDLT). This year, the newly initiated funding portal of the R10 Information Management Committee will be used for all R10 SAC funding calls and it will eliminate all the barriers of certain countries to use some of the online platforms.

Awards and Contests will be calling nominations through a web-based platform. IEEE Region 10 Outstanding Volunteer and Outstanding Student Branch Advisor awards are awaiting to recognize the most deserving candidates. IEEE Region 10 Undergraduate Project Video Contest and Student Research Paper Contest will be open as a spotlight for the students to showcase their exemplary research and project works. The Student Research Paper Contest is open for graduate students as well, so that not only students, but graduate students will also get an opportunity to discuss their research interests.

The R10 SAC team lead by Prof. Jennifer Chua-Dela Cruz is committed and motivated in organizing all these activities for 2021 and they are reachable for any kind of issues or interests you may have. R10 SAC team is looking forward to a fruitful year with IEEE R10 SAC which will benefit the students in all aspects.

Humanitarian Activities

Jing Dong, IEEE Region 10 Humanitarian Technology Activities Chair

What we have done for 2020?

• Encourage R10 Sections and individuals to work in the area of Humanitarian Technology (HT). Three HT projects were selected for funding via R10 TENHUMCH2020. Projects from Bangalore Section, Sendai Section, and Hyderabad Section were funded USD1000 each for their Humanitarian project development. Two projects were selected for funding via HAC Initiate Program Supporting Fund for the COVID-19 response. Programs from Vizag Bay Section and the Sarawak Subsection were funded each for USD2000. There are 72 SIGHT groups formed in R10 out of 169, this is 43% of the global count. And 31 (42.5%) projects from R10 were funded by IEEE region affiliation of HAC/SIGHT COVID Projects. IEEE Hyderabad Section, IEEE Madras Section & IEEE Sri Lanka Section were successful in securing the first round of #COVID-19 special project funding. It shows that R10 HAC has always played the important role in organizing and participating in HAC Global activities.
• Enhance visibility of R10 HTA and give recognition to significant humanitarian work and projects done by R10 members: HTA Outstanding Volunteer Award 2020 was awarded to Dr. Bijoy Antony Jose from Kerala Section for his excellent contribution on promoting regional and local Humanitarian technologies activities in the year of 2020. What we have done for 2020?
• Active Communication with R10 members to promote Humanitarian Technology: The HTA tracks were designed and conducted during almost every R10 flagship conference, such as TENSYMP2020, SYWL2020 & R10HTC2020. R10 HTA shall provide a wide range of communication platforms for all members who are interested and enabled for humanitarian technology activities.

What will we do for 2021?
R10 HTA shall encourage and promote more IEEE members to participating in Regional HT projects and bridge a regional representative channel for IEEE HAC. The work plans for R10 HTA 2021 are:

• R10 HAC Highlights Video Contest: The R10 HTA Highlights Video Contest aims to improve the SIGHT members’ project presentation skills to a wider online viewing community, which may include the technical and non-technical audience. The theme of the contest this year is the “Regional Representative Humanitarian Projects Showcase”. This contest also provides a platform for experience sharing amongst different areas within Region 10. Certificates will be provided for the top 3 winners.
• R10 HTA-Oriented Project Enabler (TENHOPE2021) Project Fund: TENHOPE2021 is an additional support funding for a humanitarian project in R10 that aims to inspire and enable IEEE R10 volunteers to carry out and support impactful humanitarian technology and sustainable development activities at local level. This project aims at orienting talent minds towards identifying local community problems and developing technology solutions, focusing on actual implementation reaching the beneficiaries. It also provides an opportunity for IEEE members and participants in R10 to work and cooperate with NGOs and other organizations for the benefit of advancing technology towards the SDG in our region. Maximum USD2000 will be funded per project. Total Budget for this project is up to 15,000 USD.
• Training Sections & Volunteers in HTA: The R10 HTA Webinar is scheduled in April, July and October, aiming to share feature highlights, best practices and experience sharing in Region IEEE members as well as SIGHT volunteers. The training/discussion will be made online and also could be scheduled in R10 Flagship Conferences upon request.
• 2021 HAC Awards and Recognition: 2 categories of awards will be called for nominations: 1) R10 Outstanding HAC Section Award and 2) R10 Outstanding HAC Individual Award. R10 HTA will continue to recognize significant work and projects done by IEEE R10 Sections and individual members.

Women in Engineering

Emi Yano, IEEE Region 10 WIE Chair

Region 10 WIE promotes women’s involvement in STEM by enhancing networking, knowledgesharing, and recognition of outstanding WIE achievement in R10. Currently, more than 16000 WIE members are active (as of January 2021) in Region 10. Our objectives are: (1) Promote women involvement in science and engineering in R10, (2) Facilitate the development of supporting program and activities of WIE in R10, (3) Enhance networking and knowledge sharing of WIE, (4) Recognize WIE’s outstanding achievement in R10 and promote nominations for MGA awards from R10. Projects for 2021 are:

• WIE Engagement Project: We have more networking opportunities for accelerating communication between WIE members in R10.
• WIE Support Funds: R10 WIE encourages the development of local activities to solve the social issues under the COVID-19 situation.
• WIE Visibility Enhancement: We continue to enhance networking and knowledge sharing for IEEE WIE members through the events at R10 Flagship Conference; TENCON, TENSYMP, and R10HTC 2021.
• R10 WIE Awards: R10 WIE identify outstanding Section WIE Affinity Groups, Student Branch WIE Affinity Groups, and outstanding WIE volunteers (student/professional) for IEEE R10 WIE awards.
• MentorHer (Mentors-Mentees program): As a new initiative, R10 WIE starts mentoring program in 2021.

Stay tuned with us for the updates on R10 WIE Website, Facebook, and LinkedIn page.

Young Professionals

Saveethya Sivakumar, IEEE Region 10 YP Chair

2021-2022 IEEE Region 10 Young Professionals (YP) committee represents the IEEE community of young, enthusiastic, dynamic, and innovative members and volunteers across the Asia Pacific region. IEEE Region 10 comprises 43 Section YP Affinity Groups (AGs) with more than 34000 members. This year we have 19 vibrant R10 YP committees, dedicated to working towards providing quality services for our members and affinity groups. Our objectives are; 1. Improve Student to YP Transition, 2. Professional Development for R10 YPs, 3. Enhance R10 YP and Industry collaborations, 4. Organize Regional level YP-focused events, 5. Membership Development and Retention and 6. Formation and Revamping of YP AGs.

• Region 10 Young Professionals Summit: A virtual event to provide technical knowledge, career development training, and virtual networking opportunities for YPs.
• Career and Leadership Aid Program (CLAP): A regional event organized by young professionals for students/GSM to articulate their strengths and experiences through career guidance & training sessions.
• YProSS (Young Professionals Scalable Skills): Professional development activities to be initiated at Section level with financial support from Region 10 to conduct skill development activities for YP engineers focusing on career advancement.
• New/dormant AG seed fund: Provides financial support for inactive or newly formed YP AGs to kick start their activities and consequently gain enough momentum to function as a fully sustainable YP AG. For more details and submissions please visit here.
• YP student joint activities fund: This fund will be initiated to provide financial support for YP AGs activities organized by YP AGs for students, to guide them in their professional & career after graduations, and to improve YP-student engagement and collaborations. For more details and submissions please visit here.
• Region 10 Young Professionals Affinity Group Supervisions and training: Series of YP AG Meetups and Training Sessions will be virtually organized to provide the necessary volunteer leadership guidance. YP AGs will be frequently updated via mailing lists, WhatsApp, and Wechat groups on announcements related to IEEE events and services. We further continue to help revamp inactive AGs and form new affinity groups within R10.
• Volunteer Recognition: To recognize the efforts and achievements of YPs and YP AGs who have made substantial contributions to IEEE and YPs.

Region 10 YP Outstanding Volunteer Award & Region 10 YP Outstanding Affinity Group Award

Region 10 YP Revolt Contest (to recognize outstanding final year student members who are potential future YPs of R10. The winners will be appointed as R10 YP ambassadors to promote the importance of continuing IEEE membership after graduation).

For frequent updates please follow R10 YP on; Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and Website. For inquiries, please contact us at: [email protected].

Life Members

Rajendra K. Asthana, IEEE Region 10 Life Member Committee Chair

2021-22 Region 10 LM Committee consists of 7 members. 2 LMAG Chairs, 2 Advisors & 2 IT Engineers besides Chair. Major activities for 2020 were the formation of LMAG at Hong Kong, four R10 LMC meetings & six LM Committee meetings during the year, R10 SYWL Congress in September/October 2020, and All India SYWL Congress 2020 during December 2020, both in virtual mode. In spite of the pandemic, LMAGs in R10 conducted 82 activities (2nd highest to 99 in IEEE). Globally, 3 LMAGs (R2, R8 & R10) were formed and 2 (R8 & R9) were dissolved in 2020. 5 LMAGs in R10, namely Delhi, Kerala, Hyderabad, South Australia & Tokyo LMAGs, conducted 6 or more activities.

Major highlights of R10 SYWL Congress were a new competition (IEEE R10 Life Members Photographic Competition and cash prizes were given to Winners), LMAG meeting between all 16 LMAGs for the first time, sharing session by 3 LMs on their successful career journey in IEEE, and sessions on LM activities, IEEE Milestones, Vtools, Collabratec. The events were well attended & participation varied from 38 to more than 300. Plans for 2021 include the launch of R10 website for the benefit of R10 Life Members, formation of 3 new LMAGs, exploring possibilities of launching new competitions/awards for R10 LMs, to have more interactions with LMAGs/LMs, and to implement ways & means to extend the involvement of those LMs who are not attached to any LMAGs. Each LMAG is expected to carry out a minimum 6 activities, out of which 4 must be of technical nature.

IEEE Region 10 Executive Committee held their virtual 2021 meeting on 10th January 2021. The meeting, held from 7.30 AM to 1.30 PM Indian Standard Time over Webex virtual meeting platform, was attended by all the newly appointed executive committee members of IEEE Region 10 for the year 2021 (refer Table 1). IEEE Past President, Toshio Fukuda, and Past VP MGA, Kukjin Chun also attended the meeting.

Due to the virtual nature of the meeting, and the fact that Region 10 spans eight different time zones, the meeting was only scheduled for just over half a day, and was quite different from the previous R10 meeting. The meeting started with the address by R10 Director, Deepak Mathur, followed by messages by IEEE Past President, Toshio Fukuda and Past VP MGA, Kukjin Chun. R10 Past Director, Akinori Nishihara then gave an update on the region’s activities and achievements for the year 2020.

Throughout the meeting, the activities and plans were presented and were due for review and approval before the R10 AGM on 6th and 7th March 2021. Each Executive Committee, led by the three Vice-Chairs (Zia Ahmed – Technical Activities, Byung-Gook Park – Membership Activities, Nirmal Nair – Professional Activities) presented their plans for the year 2021. Akinori Nishihara then presented the advisory and nomination, before financials and budget were discussed by the past and current Treasurers, Seishi Takamura and Rajendrasinh Jadeja. The meeting concluded with the sharing of the 2021 meeting calendar and AGM agenda by the Secretary, Sameer SM.

MESSAGE FROM IEEE REGION 10 DIRECTOR

The past three months have been somewhat challenging as we continued to organize Region 10 events in virtual mode. The Region 10 Executive Committee Meeting in January and R10 Annual General Meeting in early March were both held virtually and were well participated. The Region 10 AGM was attended by IEEE President Susan Kathy Land, Past-President Toshio Fukuda, Executive Director Stephen Welby, VP MGA Maike Luiken, Past VP MGA Kukjin Chun, MD MGA Cecelia Jankowski, and Regional Directors Barry Tilton (R2), Tim Lee (R6) and Jason Gu (R7). The AGM was a great success and ran without a glitch thanks to the excellent coordination between Region 10 volunteers and IEEE staff from the Singapore office and MGA in the USA.

The other important presentations in Region 10 AGM were by Janina Mazierska, IEEE History Committee Chair and past Region 10 Director, Loretta Arellano on Sections Congress Virtual Training, Lorena Garcia on New IEEE Pre-University Volunteer STEM Portal, and by Sampathkumar
on IEEE Humanitarian Activities/ SIGHT.

As we still don’t see any relief in the near future from the ongoing pandemic, there is a strong possibility that we shall continue with virtual events in the next quarter too. Organizing large scale virtual events can be very challenging requiring innovative and creative thinking by our
volunteers for using online resources advantageously. I am happy to share that our volunteers outperformed and came out with great ideas to organize events with value.

Our philosophy is “Member Value Creation – Let our programs create value to address memberrecruitment and member retention.”

Region 10 continues its efforts on training volunteers. We organized a training workshop on ‘Governance’ and ‘Conference Leadership Program’ for the volunteer leaders of Region 10. The Region focuses on Conference Quality and there is a plan to organize more such programs to train more volunteers this year.

We have added one more subsection in Region 10. The newly formed Kuala Lumpur Subsection is the 40th Subsection. A new Life Member Affinity Group in Singapore Section has been formed and many more are expected this year. Region 10 is a very large, diverse, and growing region and we’ll see further growth in the coming years.

A dedication ceremony, commemorating the recognition of 42nd IEEE Region 10 Milestone ‘Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in Pune, India’ was held virtually on 30th March 2021. There are a total of 234 milestones in IEEE and 42 in Region 10 (38 in Japan, 3 in India, 1 in Australia). Countries in Region 10 have great potential and there is a need to explore further possibilities of such milestone recognitions.

As Collaboration is key to success, I encourage organizational units to collaborate for various activities. Region 10 Young Professionals, Student Activities, Women in Engineering, Industry Relation, and Professional Activities have collaborated to organize member-focused events on enhancing the awareness of trending topics. Region 10 launched the ‘IEEE 10Talk’ webinar series with the first webinar on ‘Innovation and Funding’ on 3rd April. We would be coming up with more such webinars throughout the year keeping the interest of members and current trends in mind.

Region 10 Information Management committee has come out with an innovative idea of funding a portal, which would facilitate submission of proposals in an effective way. The committee is also planning a Q&A, ‘Region 10 Director’s Dialogue’, recorded sessions for members, where Region 10 Director shall address various questions on selected topics. This is expected to be a regular feature.

Region 10 Educational activities committee is promoting the ‘Reaching Locals’ initiative and has started a YouTube Channel focussed on different local languages aiming at effective dissemination of information to members and the community.

The Region 10 Awards and Recognition Committee has issued the call for nominations. I urge you to nominate deserving candidates for the R10 prestigious awards by the closing date of 30 May. Also please watch out for opportunities for funding and to participate in various contests
organized by several Region 10 committees. IEEE has established a single platform for all COVID19 related resources to support members
during the pandemic. You can access the latest virtual educational opportunities, free ebooks, virtual networking, and more in one place by visiting covid19.ieee.org.

As we all are waiting for the pandemic to be over, we wish soon to be able to meet and greet each other in person. It is time to be creative and innovative. Let us put all our efforts to enhance our skills to be future-ready. We have knowledge, resources, and potential, let our programs be designed to address challenges of the new normal.

Thank you.
Deepak Mathur
2021-2022 Region 10 Director

MESSAGE FROM IEEE REGION 10 NEWSLETTER COORDINATOR

Dear Region 10 Members,

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the second edition of 2021 IEEE Region 10 Newsletter. First of all, I would like to apologize for the slight delay in releasing this newsletter. As you may have noticed, we have a new name for our newsletter, and with the new name we are also giving the newsletter a new look and format. IEEE R10 Today has been the name for our newsletter since July 2017, and we think it is a good time to change the name and look of the newsletter to better reflect its current objectives and content. We ran the R10 Newsletter Naming Contest in March, and within just over a week, received more than 100 unique suggestions from around 90 enthusiastic members.

We really appreciate the strong support from our members. After going through all the suggestions, we have decided to name our newsletter the IEEE Region 10 Connect. Thank you and congratulations to the contest winners Navaneethakrishnan Ramanathan and Rajnish Gupta who independently came up with the suggestion. We will soon call for another contest to design a logo based on the new name, so watch out for the announcement.

The first edition of the IEEE R10 Connect features excellent content for your reading pleasure. We continue with our recently introduced technical column, and are honored to have another two (2) of our IEEE Fellows, Sri Niwas Singh and Sushmita Mitra, to write about their latest work on Control Strategies for Grid-connected PV System utilizing MPPT and Reactive Power Capability, and Radiogenomics and Deep Learning in Management of Brain Cancer, respectively. This issue also features a special report on the IEEE Region 10 Executive Committee Meeting in January and the IEEE Region 10 Annual General Meeting in March, both of which were held virtually. This issue also features another five (5) Personalities of the Month as well as six (6) Organizational Units of the Month articles. Besides, another COVID-19 heroes were also featured in the COVID-19 Personality of the Month column. Other articles received from various sections throughout the region rounded out this latest newsletter issue. We again thank all the contributors.

I would like to take this opportunity also to introduce the current line-up of our newsletter committee, with their short biographies below. The committee consists of old and new faces, and as we continue to expand, drop us a line if you are interested to be part of the team. Last but not least, to all readers, enjoy the newsletter and stay safe wherever you are.

Mohammad Faizal Ahmad Fauzi
Chair, IEEE R10 Newsletter Committee

IEEE R10 Interviews related to Covid-19

For any query, feel free to mail the R10 Newsletter team at [email protected]. 

 
You may also follow-up with the R10 Newsletter team at our Facebook page:

 https://www.facebook.com/IEEER10Today

Meet Our R10 Newsletter Team

IEEE Region 10 Newsletter

Newsletter 2021

• Quarter 1: January Edition [PDF] [WEB]

Newsletter 2020

• Quarter 1: January Edition [PDF] 
• Quarter 2: April Edition  [PDF] [WEB]
• Quarter 3: July Edition [PDF] [WEB]
• Quarter 4: October Edition [PDF] [WEB]

Newsletter 2019

• Quarter 1: March Edition 
• Quarter 2: June Edition 
• Quarter 3: October Edition 

Newsletter 2018

• Quarter 1: March Edition
• Quarter 2: June-July Edition
• Quarter 3: October Edition

Newsletter 2017

• Quarter 1: March Edition
• Quarter 2: July Edition
• Quarter 3: October Edition
• Quarter 4: December Edition

Newsletter 2016

• Quarter 1: March Edition
• Quarter 2: June Edition
• Quarter 3: September Edition
• Quarter 4: December Edition
• Special Supplement Issue

Newsletter 2015

• Quarter 1: March Edition
• Quarter 2: August Edition
• Quarter 3: December Edition

Newsletter 2014

• Quarter 1: March Edition
• Quarter 2: June Edition
• Quarter 3: December Edition

Newsletter 2013

• Quarter 1: June Edition
• Quarter 2: September Edition
• Quarter 3: December Edition

Newsletter 2012

• Quarter 1: March Edition
• Quarter 2: JuneEdition
• Quarter 3: December Edition