Prepared by: Paulina Chan, Chair for HK Section & Leon Lei, Newsletter Editor for HK Section
The COVID-19 pandemic has generated pendulum changes in organizational ecosystems and made all embrace new norms. For the Hong Kong (HK) Section, it was a big challenge but also a huge opportunity to fulfill our goals of providing individual benefits and services to current and prospective members. The Section was inaugurated in 1972. As of November 2020, the section has 9,570 members, with 20 Chapters, 3 Affinity Groups, and 5 Student Branches.
The Section has vibrant chapters, student branches, and affinity groups. Recently, the section received support from IEEE Region 10 Membership Development and Leadership Training Fund for further enhancing and improving membership recruitment, retention, and reinstatement (the “3Rs”) of the Section. The Section also launched the “IEEE Gift of Membership Program” to offer complementary memberships to motivate new entrants of Student Members to all five Student Branches. The Section and Young Professionals Affinity Group (YPAG) organized a Tech-in-Life (TIL) Business Hackathon for teams of students from universities. Unlike traditional hackathons, this TIL hackathon focused on business planning and product development rather than programming a prototype. The goal was to encourage everyone to think out-of-the-box and solve problems through effective teamwork. All team members gained insights beyond their classroom experience towards benefits in career planning, personal development and networking.
The Section has been recently declared the Winner for the IEEE Region 10 Educational Activities New Innovative Challenge (Pre-University Category) for its initiative “Empower Diversified Learners in Hong Kong with IEEE TryEngineering”. The section is now actively designing a series of blended activities for local secondary school students based on the adaption of IEEE TryEngineering resources and VR resources. The first theme will be on “Fighting against COVID-19”. Meanwhile, the Education Chapter worked closely with e-learning support teams in universities for helping teachers to overcome challenges in conducting their remote/hyflex teaching during COVID-19. This initiative has also been shortlisted for the E-Learning Award in the Wharton-QS Reimagine Education Awards 2020.
The Section has also closely collaborated with industries and Region 10 committees on professional activities. For example, there is an active collaboration with external partners on Continuing Education on Deep Learning workshop. Section members also attended and presented in tracks of Region 10 SYWL Biannual Congress on sharing experiences with other Sections.
Some of the recent achievements of the HK Section include:
- Region 10 Best Membership Growth (Large Section) Award
- Region 10 Best Membership Retention (Large Section) Award
- Region 10 Student Membership Development and Leadership Training Fund: Recipient
- Region 10 Educational Activities New Innovative Challenge (Pre-University Category): Winner
- Region 10 Individual Benefits & Services (IBS): Rank 1 Best Proposal Award