R10 WEBINAR: A DIALOGUE WITH IEEE MANAGEMENT COUNCIL SPEAKERS

Organized by R10 Strategic Planning Committee

Prepared by: Ewell Tan, Project Manager for IEEE Asia-Pacific Ltd.

Region 10 volunteer leaders have expressed their views on a survey conducted by R10 Strategic Planning Committee in 2019 to have a better connection with the IEEE management leaders. In response to the feedback, R10 Strategic Planning Committee led by Prof. Byung-Gook Park has initiated a Webinar on 27th October 2020 in order to provide an opportunity for our R10 volunteers to have an interactive dialogue session with the IEEE Management Council leaders.

Region 10 was very honored to have invited IEEE Chief Information Officer (CIO), Dr. Cherif Amirat; IEEE Member and Geographic Activities (MGA) Managing Director, Ms. Cecelia Jankowski; IEEE Educational Activities (EA) Managing Director, Mr. Jamie Moesch and IEEE Technical Activities (TA) Managing Director, Ms. Mary Ward-Callan to share their strategic direction, new initiatives and to provide an insightful view of their respective departments and expertise.

Prior to this webinar, Region 10 has opened the door to welcome questions from the R10 organizational units’ volunteer leaders; this is to ensure that all volunteers have the opportunity to address their concerned questions. During the webinar, Prof. Byung-Gook Park gave a welcome message and highlighted the objective of this event. After this welcome, Region 10 Director, Prof. Akinori Nishihara graced the event by delivering an opening address.

Dr. Cherif, IEEE CIO was the first presenter. He highlighted the launch of IEEE APP which represents a global gateway to IEEE and introduced the NextGen Finance, which is one of the 2020 IEEE Board’s strategic initiatives. This NextGen platform will streamline and simplify the existing financial process; most importantly, it will advance the business activities and provide operational efficiency.

Next, IEEE MGA Managing Director, Ms. Cecelia shared about the IEEE MGA specific strategies and operational responsibilities. Some IEEE volunteer tools were highlighted, for instance, IEEE Centre for Leadership Excellence (CLE), IEEE vTools, IEEE Volunteering Portal, IEEE Badges and etc. These resources are essential in providing support to the volunteers in managing their local IEEE communities.

Thereafter, IEEE EA Managing Director, Mr. Jamie talked about the educational programs and capabilities that will increase the impact and benefit our members, especially on the continuing education and lifelong learning that will enhance the value of IEEE membership and value proposition.

IEEE TA Managing Director, Ms. Mary Ward-Callan also provided an insightful view of technical activities strategic framework with new technologies, new audience group, new delivery method and new contents. With the new change of landscape due to the global pandemic, IEEE has supported many virtual and hybrid events to keep its members and communities engaged.

Each of the speaker’s presentations was followed by an interactive Q&A session to make sure that the concerned topics and questions were answered. The webinar was fruitful and was concluded by R10 Strategic Planning Committee Chair, Prof. Byung-Gook Park with closing remarks.

Region 10 has wrapped the event by sharing the useful materials for the benefit of its members on IEEE R10 website. The recorded webinar can be found on IEEE Region 10 Facebook page.