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July 2020
Committee_july2020
Meet Our R10 Newsletter Team
Mohammad Faizal Ahmad Fauzi
Chair/Chief EditorMohammad Faizal received his bachelor degree from Imperial College London in 1999 and doctoral degree from the University of Southampton in 2004. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, Multimedia University, Malaysia. A very active IEEE volunteer since 2007, he served as the Chair for the IEEE Signal Processing Society Malaysia Chapter from 2008 to 2013, and the Chair for the IEEE Malaysia Section from 2017 to 2018. Under his stewardship, the chapter won the inaugural IEEE SPS Chapter of the Year Award in 2011. He also recently been awarded the IEEE Signal Processing Society Meritorious Chapter/Regional Service Award. A member of the IEEE Region 10 Executive Committee since 2019, he currently serves as the chair for the newsletter committee.
Shaikh A. Fattah
Lead EditorShaikh Fattah received his Ph.D. from Concordia University, Canada and was a Postdoc. at Princeton University, USA. He is now Professor, Dept. of EEE and Director, INPE, BUET, Bangladesh. He was the Chair of IEEE Bangladesh Section (2015-16) and General Chair of IEEE R10-HTC 2017. He is the Editorial Board Member of IEEE Access, Editor of IEEE PES Enews and Associate Editor of CSSP Springer. He has published 180+ international journal/conf. papers. He is the recipient of 2016 IEEE MGA Achievement Award, 2018 R10 Outstanding Volunteer Award, and 2017 IEEE R10 HTA Outstanding Volunteer Award. He served various committees of IEEE PES, EAB, SSIT, SIGHT and R10. He is the Education Chair of IEEE Humanitarian Activity Committee (HAC). He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Fellow of IEB.
Prashant R. Nair
EditorPrashant R. Nair is currently an Associate Professor in Computer Science & Engineering and Chairman of Rankings & Accreditation cell at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (University), Coimbatore, India. He has been visiting faculty at University of California, San Diego and Sofia University, Bulgaria as an Erasmus Mundus fellow. His intellectual contributions include 6 books, 50+ research publications and editorial board memberships of IEEE MAS Link newsletter of IEEE Madras Section, Computer Society of India (CSI) Communications and CSI Transactions journal. He has held IEEE leadership positions such as Chair-Publications, IEEE Madras Section; Vice-chair, IEEE Education Society chapter of IEEE India Council and rendered service for premier conferences such as IEEE India Council International Conference (INDICON) 2018, IEEE R10 HTC 2014 and IEEE All India Student Congress (AISC) 2013. Awards won include IEEE Education Society global chapter achievement award, six CSI Academic Excellence awards and fellowship of IETE.
Redwan Ferdous
EditorRedwan Ferdous is professionally a certified project manager and electrical engineer. Currently he is leading as Senior Manager of the Electro Mechanical Engineering department of one of the projects of the largest healthcare chain of Bangladesh, Labaid Group. He is a veteran in cellphone manufacturing industry of Bangladesh. He is a professional member of IEEE for the past 10 years. He has engaged with IEEE R10 Newsletter Committee as editorial board member from 2017. He has been serving the IEEE MGA Member Benefits Portfolio Advisory Committee since 2020. Also, he has served in different IEEE vTools position of IEEE Bangladesh Section, IEEE PES Bangladesh Chapter. Currently he is country representative for Bangladesh of ‘International Robot Olympiad’ and ‘World Robot Olympiad’. He is also international judge of Global Conrad Challenge and Conrad Challenge China. Also, he is Executive Committee member of one of the prominent volunteer organization of the country- ‘Bangladesh Open Source Network’. Moreover, he is engaged in different professional and volunteer organization and activities as well as policy maker related to Humanitarian activities, Robotics, IoT, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.
W. M. W. Sharika Jayalath
Associate EditorGraduated with B.Sc. (Honours) Eng. Degree specializing in Electrical & Electronic Engineering in 2018 from University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, she worked as a junior electrical engineer at E-Net Integrated solutions (Pvt) Ltd. Currently, she is pursuing her higher studies in electrical engineering field. She published various aspects of her undergraduate research project in IEEE 9th International Conference on Information and Automation for Sustainability (ICIAFS) 2018 and 2nd National Undergraduate Research Symposium 2019, Sri Lanka. She has been selected as a committee member for IEEE StudPro 3.0 Career Fair 2019. She started her volunteering career in IEEE from student branch level and recently, he extended it into international level. Currently, she is contributing towards the regular release of the IEEE Region 10 Newsletter.
Naila Mukhtar
Webmaster/ Social MediaMs Naila Mukhtar is currently doing PhD from Macquarie University Australia. She has over five years’ experience in industry and her research interests include Embedded System Security, Artificial Intelligence, Cryptography and Information Security. Currently, she is serving as Webmaster and social media coordinator of IEEE Region 10 Newsletter, Chair IEEE New South Wales (NSW) Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group (AG), Vice-Chair IEEE Computer Society NSW Chapter and Treasurer IEEE NSW Young Professionals Affinity Group. She has actively participated in various technical and non-technical conferences and hosted/co-hosted the WIE track receptions, including Tensymp2018, ANZSCON 2017, IEEE WIE International Leadership Summit Brisbane, and Macquarie University Leadership Summit. She has collaboratively organized prolific events to support students and young professionals, promote gender diversity and inclusion, and professional development. She was the recipient of Macquarie University Best Student Services award (2018), and IEEE WIE Inspiring Student Member of the year award (2019).
Nabeel Ahmed Masoodi
Graphic Designer/Social MediaNabeel Ahmed Masoodi is an undergraduate student in Electronic Engineering. He is 19 years old and lives in Karachi, Pakistan. He is working as the Head of Media in IEEE Dawood University of Engineering and Technology (DUET) Student Branch. It has been a year since he started Graphic Designing, and he also has interest in robotics. He has learned C, Java and Python and like to learn more to achieve one of his goal to become a full-stack developer. He has also enrolled in many different courses such as Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Ethical Hacking and WordPress. He is looking to start freelancing soon.
Welcome Messages
Message from IEEE Region 10 Director
Dear All IEEE Region 10 Members,
Even though all are suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic, I hope each of you is individually safe and healthy! When we held our most recent 7th March online Region 10 Meeting, in fact the first such online regional meeting among all our ten IEEE Regions, we had an ominous feeling concerning future events. Yet a number of events have since been successfully held online, and further online events and meetings are scheduled. These are to include our Sections Congress, R10 SYWL Congress, TENCON 2020, and R10HTC 2020. We are getting used to online meetings in this difficult situation, helped by us being engineers. But I still believe face-to-face meetings and the warmth of a human touch are very important for our organization and its gatherings. Like you, I naturally look forward to a return to such occasions in a not too distant future.
During this period of staying home, we began some outreach programs making use of local languages. Within our Region 10 we have a plethora of local languages, and there are many who would like to receive materials in their local tongue. With the generous help of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, not long ago we provided both Chinese- and Japanese-language subtitles for a very popular plenary speech on the topic of AI. We’ve also started a webinar series in Japanese. Let me know where local interest lies in furthering such innovation. Indeed, many Sections have signaled their interest in this activity of reaching out to local groups and subgroups, and I’m confident that a wealth of such materials in diverse languages will follow from our initial efforts with your significant help.
Another piece of news is new multimedia content in the current issue of our R10 Newsletter. We try fully to utilize our technology to create enriched content. I hope you will take notice and be pleased with the results, perhaps suggesting or facilitating further experimentation. Now we’re halfway through the year 2020. Most of us are still faced with a changing variety of restrictions, especially in traveling abroad. For example, I am addressing this message to you during the current online Board of Directors meeting series, supposed to have been hosted in Chicago instead of digitally.
The good news is I and others are able to avoid long-distance travel, but the bad news is that a number of us have to attend meetings during our local nighttime and then work as usual during the day. We know we have to take care, but at the same time, we are striving to create a new normal both in our daily lives and in all IEEE activities. I do hope we are creative enough to do that and perhaps some unexpected good will come of it.
Keep staying safe and healthy!
With every good wish,
Akinori Nishihara
Director, IEEE Region 10
Message from IEEE Region 10 Newsletter Coordinator
Dear Region 10 Members,
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the July issue of IEEE Region 10 Newsletter, which is already our third edition for 2020. While COVID-19 pandemic may have halted many of our planned activities physically, it definitely did not stop Region 10 organizational units and volunteers to organize alternative online activities. Despite the lockdown in many countries, we received more than 50 report submissions from various organizational units for inclusion in this issue. Quite a number of these reports are on COVID-19 related activities. We would like to thank all these volunteers for their contributions to this newsletter.
This edition features special report on the recently concluded IEEE Region 10 Symposium 2020 (TENSYMP2020), the first flagship R10 conference to be held in full virtual mode. With more than a thousand valid submissions from 19 countries, and more than 400 papers accepted for presentation, the conference did very well in organizing all the virtual presentations smoothly. TENSYMP2020 organizers (Prof. Shaikh Fattah, Prof. Celia Shahnaz and team) have also very kindly agreed to share their experience in carrying out such a huge online event via a comprehensive article for immediate release in this issue. I believe every conference organizer will find the article very useful.
The newsletter continues with another four Personalities of the Month and five Organizational Units of the Month in this edition. Besides these, the issue also features the very first COVID-19 Personalities of the Month, a new initiative by the newsletter following the advice from Region 10 Director, Akinori Nishihara, to highlight our members who contributed in countering the COVID-19 threat. Besides the regular article, it also features a multimedia version which is published on our newsletter website. If you are working on COVID-19 related activities, and would like us to feature you in the coming issues, please drop us an email. We hope the pilot article and video featured in this issue will attract many more interests from our COVID-19 heroes to showcase their valuable work.
Our website version of the newsletter is also now live. From this issue onwards, you can read your newsletter through both the regular PDF version, as well as the more navigable website version. I would like to offer a very special thanks to all my R10 newsletter committee members for their incredible efforts in preparing both versions of the July newsletter issue. Finally thanks again all of you for your support, I hope you enjoy reading it. Stay safe.
Mohammad Faizal Ahmad Fauzi
Chair, IEEE R10 Newsletter Committee
IEEE University of Moratuwa Student Branch [Sri Lanka Section]
Dinithi Amarasinghe, Organizing Director for IEEE WIE Sri Lanka
HackDown 2020: An effort to make the Lock Down worthwhile
“HackDown 2020”, a 3-hour coding competition organized by the IEEE University of Moratuwa WIE Affinity Group with Miss Tharani Karunathilaka as the event chair, was held on 25th April 2020, from 2.00 PM to 5.00 PM, through the HackerRank platform. This competition was open to all undergraduates; the main focus being bringing out the coding skills and analytical skills of female undergraduates of Sri Lanka. Team registrations were done as 2 members per group, with a female leader. The number of total registrations exceeded 500 within 3 days. Parallel to the main competition, a selfie contest was conducted through the Group’s Facebook page. The teams were invited to post a team selfie on the page, and the most popular selfie was selected as the winner. All the contestants participated from their homes, practicing social distancing as per government regulations. Three winning teams were selected at the end of the 3 hours.
IEEE MBCC Student Branch [Kerala Section]
Biju K, Vice-Chair for IEEE IA/IE/PELS Kerala Jt. Chapter
IEEE IAS Student Chapter Inauguration of Mar Basaleous Christian College of Engineering& Technology Peermade
IEEE Mar Basaleous Christian College of Engineering & Technology Peermade IAS Student Chapter was inaugurated on 9th March 2020 by Er. A. Shajahan, Managing Director for Kerala Automobiles Limited. The event was conducted jointly with IEEE IA/IE/PELS Kerala Jt. Chapter. Dr. C. Pradeep, Principal MBCCET Peermade presided over the function. Prof. K. Biju, Vice-Chair for IA/IE/PELS Jt. Chapter offered felicitations. There were two technical sessions held after the inauguration. The first talk was on “sustainable development of e-vehicle” by Er. Shajahan while the second talk was on “fundamentals of power electronics” by Prof. K. Biju. Students found both the sessions very useful and informative. 53 IEEE student members and 70 non-IEEE members attended the program.
IEEE UET Taxila Student Branch [Islamabad Section]
Muhammad Saif Raza, Chair for IEEE UET Taxila Student Branch
Webinar on The Science of Well-being
United Nations World Happiest Index has placed Pakistan at 66th rank amongst the happiest countries of the world. We are a nation with many depressed individuals, blaming themselves for every bad that happens to them, and always in self-doubt and self-pity.
IEEE UET Taxila Student Branch arranged a webinar on “The Science of Well-being” on 21st May 2020 along with more than 30 participants on “How to be Happy”. It was an interactive session to address various problems and queries. The audience learned about the art of achieving satisfaction and happiness in their life. All participants were highly encouraged to be a part of the live session to make the rest of their quarantine time free of anxieties and depression.
CALL FOR COVID-19 ARTICLES
Covid-19 Interviews
CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS
CFP IEEE HAC EVENTS
IEEE HAC Events – 2020 Call for Proposals
