Monthly Archives: January 2016

vTools Event Report Submission Tutorial

 in Support

All Affinity Groups need to submit reports of their events and meetings through the vTools Meeting system. These reports, previously called “L31 meeting reports”, and now simply “event reports”, help us and the IEEE MGA board know that your AG is active. In order to be considered active, a minimum of two events per year need to be submitted. If less than two events, or no events at all, are submitted for one year or more, you AG will be considered dormant and may be at risk of being dissolved! Below is a short tutorial on how to submit the event report, which will hopefully be useful to all of you and walk you through the entire process. This event reporting is also important since we will use these reports for judging the AGs nominated for the Region 8 Young Professionals Awards! You should submit all types of events hosted by your AG, including committee meetings, talks, workshops, social events etc. If you have any other questions or difficulties accessing the vTools Meeting platform, email us!

 

You can download the PDF tutorial here.

 

You can also find a video guide here.

 

For overall vTools tutorials, visit the tutorial page here.

 

Mentoring

 in Mentorship

Mentoring is support and guidance by experienced professionals in a particular field to develop the professionalism of those less experienced. Mentoring partnerships are particularly beneficial when strong connections are built between individuals who share professional interests.

 

Those who can benefit are new graduates entering an engineering job, an engineer changing jobs or moving into a new technology, an engineer wanting to progress his/her career, an engineer having to deal with adversity, just to name a few examples.

 

Why become a Mentor? As an experienced professional, you can share your experience and help guide less experienced professionals who are either starting in a new professional field or just seeking advice from a more experienced.

 

Why have a Mentor? As a mentee, IEEE Members at any stage of their professional journey, especially when just getting started, can receive insights and guidance on how to best navigate their career for a specific technical pursuit or leadership positioning.

 

The IEEE Mentoring Program is an online program that facilitates the matching of IEEE members for the purpose of establishing a mentoring partnership. The IEEE Mentoring Program is accessible through IEEE Collabratec, which provides all members of IEEE the ability to establish a mentoring partnership in just a few easy steps. Please find instructions how to access the platform here. The platform allows mentees to search and identify mentors with the relevant professional experience.

 

Benefits of Mentoring

Mentoring can benefit both parties. As well as helping the mentee develop and advance through their career, the mentor can gain extra skills and understanding from the partnership.

  • Mentoring helps both the mentee and the mentor recognize their abilities and limitations, thus highlighting areas for future development.
  • It helps prompt thought about career development and come to a realistic conclusion about their career potential. It can help increase the motivation of both the mentee and the mentor. The mentee gains a new direction or perspective while the mentor feels a sense of achievement when their mentee succeeds.
  • It will develop communication skills. As well as the obvious listening/questioning skills, you will gain experience of talking to a younger or older colleague. This could help you interact better with your own immediate colleagues at work or university.
  • You will be grooming future allies. Within the same company, this could help with internal promotion prospects for both the mentee – gaining a senior supporter, and for the mentor – being seen as someone able to communicate with staff at any level and with an interest in developing future leaders within the company. In addition, the mentor or mentee may find themselves in a position where they are looking for a career change or new position. By developing contacts in other companies, you can find out early if there is a vacancy that would suit you.

Mentee

  • A mentor can provide guidance and support for carrier development
  • A mentor can help to develop specific skills and competency
  • A mentor can provide a welcome point of stability during a time of change
  • A mentor can provide guidance on areas you are unfamiliar with, such as attending interviews or pitching to a client.
  • A mentor will be an independent voice, outside your direct sphere of activity. You can bounce ideas off them without fear of comeback.

Mentor

  • Mentoring provides an opportunity to share knowledge and experiences
  • Your mentee can provide a fascinating link to what is happening in the younger, less experienced part of industry or business.
  • Your mentee can update you on current issues as they happen.
  • By discussing issues with your mentee, you will be renewing and developing your communication skills.
  • Mentors mentoring final year students may find it a useful way to talent spot for later recruitment. This would be especially true for SMEs where there may only be an intake of one graduate per year.

Students

The benefits will depend on what you are looking for.

  • An undergraduate could gain valuable advice on exam techniques from a PhD student.
  • A final year BSc student could discuss job searching and career options with a recent graduate.
  • A final year PhD student could benefit from discussing their options with a post-doc or an experienced business executive.

Recent graduates

  • By choosing a mentor within your own company, you can get a more senior handle on internal politics.
  • A mentor from an external source would generally give you more freedom to discuss cultural issues concerning your department or hierarchy.

Members thinking about or taking a career break

  • Both men and women take breaks at points during their careers.
  • By choosing a mentor who has already taken a career break you will gain useful knowledge on how to tackle this.
  • Members on a career break may find a mentor a useful way to stay in touch with the wider community, especially when thinking about returning to work.

Members experiencing redundancy

  • A mentor can discuss strategies for re-entering employment.
  • If the mentor has been through a similar experience, they will be able to advise you on any activities that will help you maintain your competence during your period away from work.

Members considering becoming or practicing as a consultant

  • Becoming a consultant is not something that is done on a whim, so by choosing a mentor who has already done this, you will have access to valuable advice on the process you need to go through.
  • A mentor with experience of employing consultants will be able to advise you on the average rates and give you advice on bidding for work from the client’s point of view.

Internship Initiative to support Industry

 in Internship

IEEE Region 8 recognises that IEEE was founded by industry volunteers. It is now time to use the many strengths, facilities and global reach of IEEE to return value to industry. The value proposition of IEEE includes:

IEEE leaderships

  • IEEE is a prominent provider of Lifelong Learning for engineers through its learned webinars and continuing professional development (CPD) programmes
  • IEEE is a leader in establishing (e.g. interworking) standards. Companies benefit from such standards and can participate to develop and influence new standards
  • IEEE provides technical and business forums through its Conferences and Workshops which industry can participate and its engineers benefit
  • IEEE works with national initiatives, e.g. Renewables, for energy and Smart Cities.

 

The IEEE Student Population

  • The future lifeblood of a company comprises the young engineers recruited to perform the specific functions for a company, starting from the ethos of a company and helping develop its technical operations.
  • The huge global population of IEEE students being trained in diverse engineering disciplines provides a great recruiting base for companies. This is especially so because of the range of languages of the student population and the diverse cultural backgrounds which accompany them.
  • Setting up partnerships with IEEE through the local IEEE Sections and Student Branches will be a major long term opportunity to access a valuable engineering base.

 

First Phase Actions to Benefit Companies:

  • IEEE in Region 8 is establishing:
    • Selection panels to identify able students for Internship placements in companies
    • Senior Members and Fellows as Mentors to junior engineers and interns
  • Companies can access recruitment opportunities from the depth and diversity of IEEE engineers
  • IEEE Student branch and Young Professionals meetings can include recruitment booths for companies
  • The national IEEE Sections are the bridge from Company to IEEE

Internships provide mutual benefits:

Provide Work Experience to Young Engineers and Access by Industry to highly able Young Engineers. IEEE Action for Industry leadership will facilitate the placement process both by obtaining job descriptions from companies and vetting the student base to offer to the companies a selection of able young engineers to be matched by to the roles. When dedicated effort is applied to fit a placement, it makes sense to ensure that the experience pays off. So, the IEEE leadership will seek feedback to help improve and correct the internship procedure.

The first step we are undertaking is dialogue with industry companies to partner with IEEE to provide internships. IEEE for its part undertakes to vet applicants from its base of young engineers, and to submit to the companies a selection of capable and personable undergraduates and postgraduates. IEEE will use its base of industry Seniors and Fellows to work with industry to facilitate the placements – where such support is sought by a company. Where Seniors and Fellows have joined the IEEE Region 8 Mentoring service, suitable Mentors will be offered to support the industry placements if such support is sought by a company.

Call for nominations for the 2016 IEEE Region 8 Awards

 in News

We would like to remind you that the following IEEE Region 8 awards have a submission deadline on 15 February 2016:

Please give your attention to starting the process to prepare a nomination for outstanding individuals and organisational units. Experience shows that it takes longer than you might think to put a strong nomination together.

The submission portal for these awards will be open until 15 February 2016. Please note that the nominations sent before or after those dates will not be considered.

Additional information on IEEE Region 8 Awards can be found here.

 

New Nomination Process and Deadline for R8 Young Professionals Awards 2016

 in Awards / YP News

In an effort to make the awards nomination process in Region 8 more consistent, this year the Region 8 Young Professionals Awards (Region 8 Outstanding Young Professionals Affinity Group Award and Region 8 Young Professionals Exceptional Volunteer Award) have been migrated to the online FluidReview platform, which can be reached via the following link: http://ieee-r8.fluidreview.com/.
Additionally, all awards in the Region have the same nomination deadline. Therefor, the nomination process for the R8 Young Professionals Awards this year is between 30 January and 15 February, and all nominations submitted before or after these dates will not be taken into consideration. We very strongly encourage you to familiarize yourself with the FluidReview platform before the nomination period starts, since you can create an account and access it at any time, so you are ready to fill in the forms and submit the nomination in time. We also advise you to start preparing the required nomination materials as soon as possible, since it usually takes longer than expected. Do not wait until 30 January to start gathering the supporting letters!
There have been some changes in the eligibility criteria as well, namely in order to be considered for the Region 8 Outstanding Young Professionals Award you do not have to submit the annual report to the R8 YP team. Instead vTools activity reports will be required, so make sure all your activities are reported properly to vTools before the nominations deadline. The full eligibility criteria and required documents for the nominations are described below. PLEASE NOTE THAT NO NOMINATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED VIA EMAIL! All nominations must be submitted through the FluidReview platform.

Region 8 Outstanding Young Professionals Affinity Group Award

(nominations opened on FluidReview between 30 January and 15 February)

  • Description:

To recognize Young Professionals Affinity Groups (YP AG) within Region 8 for their efforts, successes and achievements in carrying out the mission of IEEE YP and the aims of IEEE in Region 8 within their Section during the calendar year of 2015. Recognition will be given to the YP AG that displayed the most successful maintenance of ongoing efforts, as well as the development and implementation of new programs. These activities shall leave an important imprint on the Section and on Region 8. The winning AG will receive a certificate providing the citation for the award and a cash prize of $400 granted by the R8 YP Subcommittee to the corresponding YP AG.

  • Eligibility criteria:
    • The Young Professionals AG must have at least 20 YP members;
    • All activities from 2015 must be submitted correctly to vTools activities reporting before the nomination deadline (15 February);
    • The Young Professionals AG must not have received another IEEE award in the past 12 months;
    • The $400 prize must be used to support local Young Professionals activities;
    • Affinity Groups which have been awarded the Outstanding Young Professionals Affinity Group award in the past 5 years are not eligible to participate (Nigeria, Croatia, Egypt, Finland, UAE).
  • Nomination process:

Proposals for nominations of candidate YP AGs for this award will be made by the Section and supported by 1 letter of endorsement by the Section Chair or another member of the Section’s Executive Committee. Alternatively, a YP Chair can also nominate a YP AG, provided that his/her nomination is endorsed by at least 1 other YP member and preferably also by a member of the Executive Committee of the Section. The documents needed to create a nomination are:

  • Nomination letter from Section Chair or another member of the Section’s Executive Committee OR nomination letter from the YP AG chair and another YP AG member and a member of the Section’s Executive Committee; [REQUIRED]
  • Motivation letter from YP AG chair; [REQUIRED]
  • link to YP AG website or Facebook page, or other online platform; [Strongly recommended]
  • Photo report, videos, and other supporting materials to demonstrate the activities and initiatives of the YP AG during 2015 [REQUIRED if no link to website or online platform is provided; it can be submitted as optional extra material even if link to website/online platform is provided]

 

Region 8 Young Professionals Exceptional Volunteer Award

(nominations opened on FluidReview between 30 January and 15 February)

  • Description:

To recognize a volunteer within Region 8 for his/her dedication towards the mission of IEEE Young Professionals. The recognition will be given to a devoted Young Professional member that presents the most successful maintenance of ongoing efforts, leadership skills, and remarkable development and implementation of new ideas and programs within the last year. These activities shall have an important impact on the Section and on Region 8 Young Professional community, and other IEEE members. The winner will receive an award and diploma providing the citation for the award granted by the Region 8 Young Professionals Subcommittee.

  • Eligibility criteria:
    • The volunteer must not have received another IEEE award in the past 12 months;
    • The candidate’s Affinity Group must not have been awarded with the Region 8 Outstanding Young Professionals Affinity Group Award in the past 12 months;
    • You can not nominate a volunteer for the Region 8 Young Professionals Exceptional Volunteer Award if the Affinity Group they belong to is nominated for the Region 8 Outstanding Young Professionals Affinity Group Award in the same year;
    • The volunteer must be a Young Professional member of an active Young Professionals Affinity Group in good standing, which has submitted all activity reports to vTools;
    • Members of Region 8 Young Professionals Subcommittee are not eligible to be nominated;
    • Self nominations are not allowed.
  • Nomination process:
    • endorsement letter from Section Chair or other member of the Section’s Executive Committee or the YP AG chair ;
    • letter containing short summary of the nominee’s efforts and accomplishments, their impact and results in improving the IEEE and YP community in their YP AG and Section.

 

If you have any questions or need help with the nomination profess or reaching your Section’s chair or Executive Committee members, please contact us at [email protected]! We are very happy to help in any way we can. We look forward to all your submissions!

 

 

Committee in 2016

 in History

The IEEE Region 8 Committee consists of:

  • Section representatives
  • Operating Committee
  • Appointed Members

Section Representatives

In the IEEE Region 8 Committee, Sections are represented by their Chairs. Section Chairs may appoint an alternate representative to the Region 8 Committee. The most recent list of Region 8 Sections and their representatives to the Region 8 Committee may be found here.

Operating Committee (OpCom)

Appointed members

Ad-hoc members

Sub Committees

Action for Industry Team

Awards & Recognition Subcommittee

Chapter Coordination Subcommittee

Conference Coordination Subcommittee

Educational Activities Subcommittee

Humanitarian Activities Subcommittee

Membership Development Subcommittee

Nominations and Appointments Subcommittee

Professional Activities Subcommittee

Strategic Planning Subcommittee

Student Activities Subcommittee

Women in Engineering Coordinator

Young Professionals Subcommittee