Monthly Archives: January 2012

The main strategic directions for 2013, as established by Member and Geographic Activities (MGA) YP subcommittee, are:

• MGA YP facilitate recruitment, training, development of IEEE volunteer leaders
• YP / Technology professionals will understand IEEE membership’s importance to their careers

Our Region 8 YP Subcommittee focuses on its continuous involvement in increasing the YP visibility and continues to have a tremendous momentum on Region 8 activities.
We will:

• Support and energize the YP Affinity Groups (AGs) in R8
• Create new Affinity Groups and revive dormant ones
• Launch the first official edition of the R8 GOLD Book
• Continue with the Student Transition & Elevation Partnership (STEP) program
• Promote and raise awareness of the Humanitarian workshop Program
• Motivate more young professionals to join and be active in IEEE
• Organize regular online meetings with YP Chairs in R8
• Develop cross-activities with other committees in R8
• Contribute to GOLDRush and R8News
• Keep an updated website
• Be present in social networks

Recent activities of our subcommittee

• GOLD Operation Manual

The IEEE R8 YP subcommittee 2013 has compiled a concise operation guide for the new YP Affinity Groups to start their IEEE and YP activities. It guides you on how to report new Affinity Group officers, activities reporting, publishing, YP awards & recognitions, recommendations and the R8 YP Team.

• Cross-section Student and Young Professional Congresses (SYP)

The R8 YP Subcommittee is conducting YP introductory sessions in the crosss-section SBCs.  Successful YP sessions were conducted in the R8 SBC 2012 and ISBC 2013. In fact, many of the attendants of these SBCs are actually YP members as they’ve already graduated and are studying a higher grade. These YP introductory sessions also include the importance of becoming a YP member and why to stay in IEEE after graduation for IEEE student members.

• GOLDBook

The GOLD Book is a project launched in 2010 with the purpose of creating a legacy about the activities that have been organized by YP Affinity Groups (AG) around Region 8. Though compiled and edited during 2010, this book was never officially published during that year. For this reason, during 2011 the Region 8 YP subcommittee decided to extend the book’s content and span it from 2008 to 2010. The scope of the book is not only to present the activities of the AGs, but also to show their well-succeeded and failing experiences. Special focus was given to YP oriented programs, such as the Student Transition & Elevation Partnership (STEP) and the Humanitarian Workshop (HW).

• IEEE Day

It is the second time in history when all electrical engineers worldwide are going to celebrate the IEEE Day. As a leading organization IEEE defines standards and directions in technology but as a leader, it is also responsible for future generations of engineers. Thus, this year the theme of the IEEE Day will be focused on “Leveraging Technology for a Better Tomorrow”.

The IEEE Day Team is made of IEEE student volunteers, young professionals and staff to assure that this year celebration will be even bigger and more impressive than a year ago. The main task of the IEEE Day Team is to initiate, motivate and coordinate events and efforts to celebrate this day worldwide.

Based on the experience from last year, the organizers prepared a totally new website with new features and enhancements. Social networks – the blood stream of recent days has been filled with new IEEE Day content. A new T-shirt design will be published for all who want to actively participate.

Beside a great time and empowering members to shape the future, the team took care of supporting active volunteers and encouraging them to participate in second edition of the photo contest.

• IEEE YP Webinars Program

YP offers webinars for members on topics related to professional development, humanitarian efforts, and technical knowledge. YP webinars are scheduled monthly and are recorded for on-demand viewing.
IEEE YP Webinars Program website
To find more informations about latests webinars visit our Facebook page.

GOLD Book – the paper version arrived to San Francisco for the Sections Congress. The R8 GOLD Team got crazy! Book was spread among all present GOLDies and influential participants of the Congress. Additionally, Nele Reynders had a pleasure to present the book at the Region 8 meeting.

The GOLD Book is a project launched in 2010 with the purpose of creating a legacy about the activities that have been organized by GOLD Affinity Groups (AG) around Region 8. Though compiled and edited during 2010, this book was never officially published during that year. For this reason, during 2011 the Region 8 GOLD subcommittee decided to extend the book’s content and span it from 2008 to 2010. The scope of the book is not only to present the activities of the AGs, but also to show their well-succeeded and failing experiences. Special focus was given to GOLD oriented programs, such as the Student Transition & Elevation Partnership (STEP) and the Humanitarian Workshop (HW).

The content of the book was obtained by direct contact with the local AG chairs whom have been encouraged to submit a structured report. The report consisted in several questions aiming at summarizing AGs operation. The questions were then adequately arranged in order to give this book its final format. Thus, the book is separated by topics and each topic is separated by AG and year. The topics are:

• Events: lists the events that have been organized by each AG and summarizes the main lines of each one of the activities;
• STEP program: summarizes the details of the STEP events that have been organized. The GOLD AGs have been asked to specify the content of the event and to give clear insight on the dates and number of attendees;
• Humanitarian Workshop: summarizes the details of HWs that may have been organized in the local AGs;
• Successful stories: Stories of success and accomplishment are stated in this section. The purpose is to identify the best practices that drive AGs towards fruitful and rich content organizations;
• Failing stories: In many cases the AGs do not succeed in organizing their events, in operating smoothly their committees or fundraising their activities. For this reason, this section aims at spotting such cases so that further work can be performed at IEEE in a global perspective;
• Main problems: This section though similar to the previous one aims at identifying the issues that each AG faces, despite the success of their activities;
• Future plans: Gives some insight on the planning of activities in the AG and the continuation of the AGs as organizational units.

Regarding AGs operation, Region 8 has seen much activity spanning from technical to professional and social events. The GOLD oriented programs have been proving to be a good platform for well establishment of GOLD in local sections. The STEP event is currently organized in several AGs and in some of them it is organized even more than once a year. The HW, since it is not yet presented as a closed package, it has not been organized as frequent as it would be desired. During 2010, it has been organized only twice. Regarding success stories, reports typically mention the success of events with higher participation than expected and good feedback from attendees. The failing stories are commonly related to difficulty in sustaining the continuity of the GOLD committees and fundraise.

With the content of the current book, the editors expect that it will serve future volunteers and committees so that they can learn and take advantage of these experiences in order to enrich and enlarge their activities in local AGs. Additionally, it is expected that some of these details enlighten what members expect IEEE to deliver to them, and ultimately drive some of the strategic direction of IEEE as a worldwide organization.

Download the electronic version of The Region 8 GOLD Book