MESSAGE FROM IEEE REGION 10 DIRECTOR
Dear All IEEE Region 10 Members,
We have reached the 4th quarter of 2020. Even though the global COVID-19 pandemic is still with us, I hope each of you and your families remain safe and healthy! Our IEEE activities have been very much affected by the pandemic, and everything went virtual from March, comprising the Region 10 Annual Meeting, TENSYMP 2020, and our recent R10 SYWL Congress 2020.
The SYWL Congress is far better done face-to-face, but we had no way to host the meeting other than online. Under the excellent leadership of General Chair Zia Ahmed and General Co-Chair Supavadee Aramvith, our individual Chairs of Region 10 Committees of “Students, Young Professionals, Women in Engineering, and Life Members,” all worked extremely hard to prepare, organize, and hold the Congress under newfound conditions.
The Opening Ceremony on Saturday, 19th September was attended by 266 persons on WebEx with an additional 8,300 viewers joining on Facebook Live Stream. So, we can be proud that SYWL was an outstanding success in terms of the number of its attendees. In the physical meetings, we cannot have so many people due to limited space as well as travel costs. Many, however, must be frustrated because networking opportunities, one of the main benefits of the Congress, were by necessity limited.
We will hold two more flagship conferences: TENCON 2020 and R10 HTC 2020 in this 4th quarter, once more online. Our early 2021 events may also have to be virtual. All of us are getting used to online meetings, but we still have to devise new ways of conducting events where the warmth of a human touch is more an integral part of the event.
In my most recent message three months ago, I mentioned our outreach programs making use of local languages. This is now officially referred to as “Region 10 Project Reaching Locals,” and it is headed by Lance Fung, Region 10 Educational Activities Committee Chair. Webinars, workshops, meetings, and so forth are already conducted in local languages in many areas of Region 10. Especially for pre-university students, the local tongue is more convenient and offers greater learning efficiency. We can provide many different sorts of IEEE-related content, and by doing so can imprint the IEEE brand subliminally, so that younger student attendees become interested in joining IEEE after reaching the appropriate age.
The year 2020 the world has been gobsmacked by COVID-19, but the year with its sadness and many inconveniences will come to an end in just three months’ time. I really hope next year will mark a net improvement. Probably we’ll have to live with COVID-19, just as we do with many other viruses, not by a total eradication, but by exploiting extant and new technologies.
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 October issue of IEEE Region 10 Newsletter, which is already our fourth and final edition for 2020. We are glad to receive continuous support from the various organizational units across Region 10 for our newsletter, with a lot of submissions received for each and every one of our newsletter issue. And this issue is no different; despite still being clouded with the COVID19 pandemic, which no doubt affecting most units in carrying out their activities, we received close to 50 article submissions for inclusion in this newsletter edition. We would like to again thank all these volunteers for their contributions to this newsletter.
This edition features a special report on the winners of the recently announced IEEE Region 10 Awards. Both the individual and OU/group awards winners are featured in the report, two of which also features in our Personality and Organizational Unit of the Month column. Congratulations again to all the winners for their well deserving awards. The newsletter continues with another four Personalities of the Month and four Organizational Units of the Month in this edition. This issue also continues to feature another one of our COVID-19 heroes in the COVID-19 Personality of the Month column, introduced for the first time in the July issue following the advice from Region 10 Director, Akinori Nishihara, to highlight our members and units who contributed in countering the COVID-19 threat. This time, the honor goes to the IEEE Indonesia Section for their effort in distributing Automatic Handwash Portable Machine in Makassar, South Sulawesi.
Besides, this October newsletter issue also bring a new technical column featuring articles by the winners of the 2020 IEEE Region 10 Postgraduate Research Paper Contest, updates from various IEEE Region 10 committees, reports on events organized by Region 10 (Conference Leadership Program, R10 Director’s Dialogue etc.), as well as other major events across the region (GUCON2020, ICC2020, VCOP2020 etc.). As usual, I would like to offer my very special thanks to all my R10 newsletter committee members below for their incredible team efforts, without which the October newsletter issue will never materialized. 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