History Activities

History Activities – 2025

 in History Activities

Latest update 18-02-2025

Team

Martin BastiaansMartin

Tony DaviesTony

Antonio SaviniAntonio

Evgen PichkalyovEvgen

Mathini SellathuraiMathini

Sergei ProkhorovSergei

 

The History Activities Committee is looking forward to assist you in your history-related activities. The 2025 committee consists of:

  • Martin Bastiaans, History Activities Coordinator (2021-2025)
  • Tony Davies, Past History Activities Coordinator (2013-2020)
  • Antonio Savini, current IEEE History Committee member (2022-2025)
  • Evgen Pichkalyov, past IEEE History Committee member (2022-2023)
  • Mathini Sellathurai, current IEEE History Committee member (2024-2025)
  • Sergei Prokhorov, current IEEE History Committee member (2022-2025)

Feel free to contact us at [email protected], but include [email protected] in CC, just in case the email alias may not work properly.

IEEE Region 8 History webpage

The Region 8 History webpage is updated whenever new information becomes available.

News

  • [18-02] Recently approved Milestones:
    • Antwerp, Belgium: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) enabling broadband internet, 1993-1997
      In 1997, Alcatel’s A1000 ASAM product revolutionized broadband Internet access by providing multi-megabit per second downstream speeds over ubiquitous but decades-old and ill-conditioned subscriber telephone lines. A team based in Antwerp, Belgium began development of the product in 1993. The combination of ADSL technology, innovative signal processing, cutting-edge silicon integration, and a revolutionary architecture brought affordable broadband Internet to nearly one billion people worldwide.
      Dedication ceremony to be decided – IEEE Benelux Section
    • Heverlee, Belgium: Rijndael and the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), 1995-1998
      In 1995-1998, Rijndael, an innovative and computationally efficient series of secure block ciphers for encrypting data and providing provable security against attacks, was created by Belgian cryptographers Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen. In 2000, their design won an international competition sponsored by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA). Rijndael became the basis of AES in 2001, leading to its worldwide use for data security, encryption, and authentication.
      Dedication ceremony to be decided – IEEE Benelux Section
  • [17-02] The website for HISTELCON 2025, Knowing the past for preparing the future: History of technology for meaningful goals in the age of AI, which will be held in Bonn, Germany, 30 September – 2 October 2025, is live at https://2025.ieee-histelcon.org/. The Call for Papers can be found here (.pdf); instructions regarding paper submission for peer-reviewing can be found under the relevant tab on the website. Note that there are two possible rounds of submission: one with the deadline 14 April 2025 (resulting in an early notification of acceptance, and particularly advised to be used by participants from countries for which a visa is required) and one with the deadline 25 May 2025.
    HISTELCON is a flagship conference series of IEEE Region 8 held every two years and is dedicated to any aspects of the history of electrical engineering, electronics, telecommunications, computing, and their impact on social and economic development.

    Participant Early bird Regular
    IEEE member EUR 340 EUR 380
    Non-member EUR 370 EUR 410
    IEEE (Graduate) Student / Life member EUR 240 EUR 280
    Student EUR 270 EUR 310
  • Recently added Oral Histories:
    The List of Oral Histories related to Region 8 (.xlsx) on the Region 8 History webpage has been updated by adding the transcripts of interviews with

    • Alex Acero, an oral history conducted in June 2023 by Mary Ann Hellrigel, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA,
    • Archie Campbell, an oral history conducted in September 2019 by Mary Ann Hellrigel, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA,
    • John Clarke, an oral history conducted in September 2016 by Mary Ann Hellrigel, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA,
    • Linda Katehi, an oral history conducted in February 2021 by Kate Kuisel and Allison Marsh, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA.
  • IEEE Milestones approved but not yet dedicated:
  • IEEE Milestone proposals under consideration by the IEEE History Committee
  • News Archive — News items about Milestones and Conferences are ordered by year: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2017, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2010.

Highlights from 2024 – see also News Archive: 2024

  • IEEE Milestones dedicated in 2024:
    Birmingham, England: Development of the cavity magnetron, 1939-1941
    Dedication ceremony 4 June 2024 – IEEE UK and Ireland Section
    In this building from 1939 to 1941, University of Birmingham researchers John Randall, Harry Boot, and James Sayers conceived and demonstrated fundamental ways to improve the output power, efficiency, and frequency stability of cavity magnetrons. Further developed and refined by others, these advances facilitated the Allies’ deployment of microwave radar systems in World War II. Cavity magnetrons were later adapted for use in industrial heating and microwave ovens.
  • Proceedings of HISTELCON
    The proceedings of HISTELCON 1 through 7, available at IEEE Xplore, are now freely accessible for everyone without any payment; see also the HISTELCON entry on ETHW.

    1. Paris, France, 11–12 September 2008
    2. Madrid, Spain, 3–5 November 2010
    3. Pavia, Italy, 5–7 September 2012
    4. Tel Aviv, Israel, 16–21 August 2015, held jointly with the 42nd annual meeting of ICOHTEC, the International Committee for the History of Technology: History of High-Technologies and Their Socio-Cultural Contexts
    5. Kobe, Japan, 7–8 August 2017, together with IEEE Region 10
    6. Glasgow, United Kingdom, 18–19 September 2019
    7. Moscow, Russia, 10-12 November 2021
    8. Florence, Italy, 7-9 September 2023 (not yet freely accessible)
  • Minutes of the IEEE Region 8 Committee meetings
    With the exception of four Region 8 Committee meetings – in Geneva (7 September 1965), Leuven (16 September 1966), Tel Aviv (24 October 1968), and Dubrovnik (25-26 October 1974) – we have (scanned) versions of all meeting minutes; and of the above-mentioned meetings in Leuven and Tel Aviv, we have the agendas. The (scanned) versions have been collected in five pdf files, which are available for download:
    1962-1970 (.pdf), 1971-1983 (.pdf), 1984-1993 (.pdf), 1994-2009 (.pdf), and 2010-2022 (.pdf).
  • Old issues of IEEE Region 8 News
    Digital versions of IEEE Region 8 News from 2002 onward can be found in the Region 8 News archive of back issues. All older issues of IEEE Region 8 News and its predecessors — IEEE Region 8 newsletter (1967-1986; issues 1-76) and IEEE Region EIGHT News (1987-1989; issues 77-85) — have now been scanned: 1092 pages with a total size of about 0.7 GB. Note that volume numbers were introduced in Region 8 News in 1998 with the August issue (Volume 1, Number 1); until then, the numbering was consecutively from 1 till 122.
    The scanned versions can be downloaded by clicking on the links in the table that can be found here. In addition to news about the IEEE and the activities that took place on the Region level, these old issues contain lots of information about our Sections and may thus form a valuable source of information, especially for those Sections who want to fill the gaps in their history. To help Sections, an index has been created to direct Section leaders to the relevant pages in the issues 1-122 (December 1967 – May 1998) where news about their Section can be found.

IEEE Milestones

Engineering and Technology History Wiki

Region 8 history book

  • The book A short history of IRE Region 9 / IEEE Region 8 (.pdf) presents a history of IEEE Region 8 spanning its origins from the IRE Region in Europe, through the IRE/AIEE merger forming the IEEE and subsequently to the present day Region 8 consisting of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
    Note that if you click on the link above and open the Document Outline in the left-hand side bar, you can immediately jump to any section of the book and easily navigate through it.
  • More information about the history of Region 8 can be found on ieeer8.org/history/

Documents archive

IEEE History Center – a selection of additional weblinks