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 region10eab@gmail.com with cc to Dr. Preeti Bajaj, Chair, IEEE R10 EAC at preetibajaj@ieee.org.
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: r10yp@ieee.org.
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.