Life Members

IEEE Region 8 LM Coordinator: Victor Fouad Hanna

It is a privilege to be an IEEE Life Member (LM) with so much to contribute back to the engineering community and to the public in general. You are entitled to become a LM when your chronological age is at least 65 and the sum of your age and of your active membership duration reaches 100.  Life Members are exempted of IEEE membership fees and pay lower fees at IEEE Conferences (at most – IEEE Student fees).

Most Life Member activities are performed by Life Member Affinity Groups (LMAG), similar to Chapters, established as part of an IEEE Section.

In summary the mission of Life Members Groups is to:

• Enhance and encourage interest in electrical and electronic engineering at secondary and tertiary (college) levels.
• Utilize the vast experience of LMs to impact the general public’s knowledge of electrical and electronic engineering and increase understanding of the role of engineers.
• Foster collaborations in pre-university education and encourage students to consider taking up engineering as a career.
• Promulgate the history of electrical engineering together with information and related technologies.

There are currently 14 LMAGs in the Region. These, including the contact details for the Chair, are;

1. Benelux: Wim van Etten (etten@ieee.org)
2. Croatia: Ursic Srebrenka. (srebrenka.ursic@systemcom.hr)
3. France: Victor Fouad Hanna (victor.fouad@ieee.org)
4. Germany: Hans Ludwig Hartnagel (hartnagel@mwe.tu-darmstadt.de)
5. Greece: Athanasios Safacas (a.n.safacas@ece.upatras.gr)
6. Hungary: Peter Arato (arato@iit.bme.hu)
7. Israel: Jacob Baal Schem (jacob@qos.net.il)
8. Italy: Antonio Savini (antonio.savini@unipv.it)
9. Lebanon: Usamah Farrukh (uofarrukh@ieee.org)
10. Slovenia: Baldomir Zajc (baldomir.zajc@fe.uni-lj.si)
11. Spain: Jose A Delgado-Penin (ja.delgado-penin@ieee.org)
12. Switzerland: Hugo Wyss (h.wyss@ieee.org)
13. UK and Ireland: Charles Turner (turner@ieee.org)
14. Egypt : Samir Shaheen (sshaheen@ieee.org)

Life Member activities in Region 8 are coordinated by an appointed member of the Region 8 Committee. Actually the Region 8 Life Member coordinator is Victor Fouad Hanna and he can be reached at: victor.fouad@ieee.org. We are encouraging all our Region 8 Sections with Life Members to establish a Life Member (LM) group. Life members are encouraged to make contact with their LMAG Chair to find out about opportunities to participate in Life member activities and to volunteer their services.

According to IEEE Life Member Group Procedures:

A petition to establish a LM Group requires the signature of 6 IEEE Members, including at least 2 Life Members.

In addition to a rebate of $200 to the Section, Life Member Affinity Groups : enable Life Members to retain active IEEE associations, contribute to the social good in their communities, advance the professional interests of IEEE, allow members to enjoy each other’s company.

LMAG Funds :

– All funding of activities provided by LMC/IEEE Foundation,

– A rebate of $200 to the Section is provided annually FROM IEEE Member and Geographic Activities Board

– Groups which report at least two meetings annually, will receive the 200 $ rebate, The rebate is increased to $275 for Groups which report  six  meetings annually,

– Groups are authorized by the IEEE Life Members Committee an annual budget not exceeding $2,000 towards meetings or activities approved in advance by the Regional LM Coordinator. The funding will be provided upon actual expenses. Some LMAGs have already claimed from this grant, but many have not yet taken advantage of the increased funding in 2019 agreed by LMC.

Types of activities of Life Member Affinity Groups:

Technical Lectures, Joint activities with parent Section, Visit to museums and technical sites, Social gathering, luncheons

Using existing groups’ experience, typical activities can range from: invited talks and seminars, technology-oriented meetings, history workshops and conferences, oral histories, and dialogue with other professional institutions, to initiating technical milestones, monitoring outside technical archives, museum projects, and social activities.

In their Sections, LM Groups should cooperate with other Society chapters, affinity groups (YP and WIE) as well as with student branches – on common projects.They can work together in IEEE Foundation Grants Program which are supported by MGA Life Members Committee We encourage the forming of “History teams” to preserve the History of technological developments in which people participated through the use of the IEEE Global History Network (www.ieeeghn.org) and Engineering and Technology History Wiki – ethw.org

For any advice or question, please contact victor.fouad@ieee.org

Victor Fouad Hanna,  IEEE Region 8 Life Members Coordinator

Practical Advices in Administration and Holding Meetings (By Victor Fouad Hanna):

• For finding the list of names of your LMAG members , go to :
• https://services10.ieee.org/idp/SSO.saml2
• (login and password of membre IEEE)
• – go on «  Memberships, subscriptions and more »
• – go only on the name of Life Members in « products » and go on « appliqur »
• – go in « detail »

The list of your members appears.

• – For declaring the names of officers of your LMAG :
• Go to :

https://officers.vtools.ieee.org/

• If you are the present chair, you can add or change the officers by going to the concerned position, then go on “Add officer”. A window will be opened to asking you to give your N° of membership IEEE and the date of the start of your function. Go then on “Validate” and “Submit”
• If you are the new elected chair, go on “Chapter chair” and apply the same procedure..
• – For declaring your LMAG activities (event report) :
• – Go to  https://events.vtools.ieee.org/events/search
• and identify yourself by login and password of membre IEEE. Then ,
• – Go on Event/Report Administration
• – go on File  Report for a Past Event
• – OR go on  Create an event
• Two reports at least are required each year from any category (Technical, professional, social, Administrative)

• –For organizing elections, Go on :
• http://sites.ieee.org/vtools/category/vtools-voting/
• – For sending a message by   e-Notice, go on :
• http://sites.ieee.org/vtools/enotice-request/
• –
• – For reserving a teleconference on Webex, go on  :
• http://sites.ieee.org/vtools/tools-ok/webex/webex-registration/
  
• (send your demand at least 5 days before the event )

I. Administrative Status of R8 LMAGs at 2019 :

• No R8 LMAG is recently dissolved
• N° total of meetings for R8 LMAGs (29) at end of 2018,( highest : 7 from France LMAG.
• 25% of total R8 Sections have LMAG

Efforts for increasing the number of LMAGs in R8

• Letters are sent to chairs of the following sections Asking them to create a LMAG in their sections giving them all necessary details ( importance of having it in their sections, rules, petition procedure, ,,,etc) :
• 1- Austria Section, Number of active LMs : 32,
• 2- Finland Section, Number of active LMs : 40,
• 3- Denmark Section, Number of active LMs : 48
• 4- Poland Section, Number of active LMs : 33,
• 5- Portugal Section, Number of active LMs : 30
• 6- Sweden Section, Number of active LMs : 110,
• Petitions can be located online at: http://www.ieee.org/societies_communities/geo_activities/forms_petitions/index.html

II. Milesones Activities in R8 in 2019 :

• Many LMAGs in Sections in R8 participate with the History Committee to propose IEEE Milestones, Examples :
  • A milestone plaque was unveiled at Dundee University in Scotland on Thursday 5 April, 2018 at the university laboratories where Spear and LeComber carried out their experiments which led directly to the world of flat screens and smartphones we live in today
• A dedication ceremony was held on September 6, 2018 to honor an Engineering Milestone: The French Transatlantic Telegraph Cable, 1898. IEEE President James Jefferies unveiled two plaques (English and French versions) honoring the Cable at the French Cable Station Museum (FCSM) in Orleans, MA.
• The LMAG of France Section is working now to propose the Storage Battery (Plante, 1859) and Transformer (Gaulard/Gibb, 1881) as IEEE Milestones.

III. Meeting of LMAG Chairs in Valencia, Spain, October 11th 2019.

A G E N D A

• Welcome, Magdalena Salazar Palma, (R8 Director).
• Why Don’t Sections Give More Support to Life Members and LMAGs?, Charles Turner (Chair LMC)
• Report for R8 LMAGs Activities, Victor Fouad Hanna, R8 LMs Coordinator.
• Benelux LMAG report, Wim van Etten (Chair).
• Egypt LMAG report, Vice Chair.
• Coffee Break.
• Proposal for future, some projects for future implementation, Hugo Wyss, Switzerland LMAG Chair.
• France LMAG report, Jean Gabriel Remy, Officer .
• Hungary LMAG report, Imre J. Rudas (Chair).
• Italy LMAG report, Antonio Savini (Chair).
• Lunch (12h30 – 14h00).
• A Possible Development of IEEE Life Membership, Charles Turner (Chair LMC)
• FRANCE contribution to IEEE Milestones : A valuable task for Life Members, Jean Gabriel Remy.
• Lebanon LMAG report, Usamah O. Farrukh, (Chair).
• Slovenia LMAG report, Baldomir Zajc, (Chair).
• Coffee Break.
• Practical Advices in Administration and Holding Meetings, Victor Fouad Hanna, R8 LMs Coordinator.
• Spain LMAG report, Jesús “Fraile Ardanuy, (Spain Section Chair).
• Switzerland LMAG report, Hugo Wyss (Chair).
• United Kingdom and Ireland LMAG report, Charles Turner (Chair).
• Debate and Conclusions.

Notes from the meeting :

Charles Turner raised the question of the lack of support for Life member activities from the Section Committees. The two main problems were the poor state of Section websites and the low level of funding from the Section for LMAG activities. The increase of the Life member Fund budget to $90K this year is a bonus, but it was agreed that the Section Chairs need to be reminded about their responsibilities towards their Life members, especially if they have an LMAG.

Victor Fouad Hanna reviewed the status of LMAGs in Region 8. A new LMAG had been formed in Egypt this year and there were good prospects for more to be formed, especially in Poland and Sweden.

Wim van Etten reported that the Benelux Section had 115 active Life members, based on a recent survey. An EXCOM had been formed to manage the LMAG which had its own website, created using the IEEE template to be found at www.site(s).ieee.org/benelux.

Meetings were split between the Netherlands and Belgium and were open to all IEEE members. The average attendance was around 24.

An e-newsletter was sent to all LMAG members.

A Milestone ceremony to celebrate the first demonstration of WiFi would take place on October 29^th at Nieuwegein, Holland.

Hugo Wyss reviewed the history of the Switzerland LMAG which had to deal with the two languages spoken in the country. He highlighted the production by Robert Weiss of a ‘tapestry’ of the history of computers. The poster would be translated from the German into French and English, and distributed to IEEE entities across the world, if funding could be secured. The LMAG worked closely with the. Section and a new Chair would be appointed shortly.

Jean Gabriel Remy reported on the Life member activities in France. The very successful technical tour held in Paris, Geneva, and Munich in 2015 had boosted LM activities in the France Section. New Milestone projects were being explored, such as the Transatlantic cable from France to Newfoundland, at an event being planned in Orleans.

Imre Rudas mentioned a strong link between the LMAG and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The relatively small number of Life members in the Section was a limiting factor.

Antonio Savini reported on the wide range of topics pursued by the Italy Section LMAG which had about 100 members. These included the history of technology, Milestone, joint meetings with the Switzerland LMAG, and a visit to the Museum of Technology in Pavia. Attracting members to meetings was a priority perhaps by introducing a social dimension, but more Life members were needed.

Usamah Farrukh reported that the Lebanon Section has only a small number of Life members but had managed to organise some successful events, including introducing robotics to schools.

Baldomir Zaic reported that there was a need to get an updated list of Life members and other retired or older members. Holding meetings via Webex would be helpful, as for other small LMAGs.

Conclusions

1. The Life Member Coordinator should write to the Chair of every Section that has an LMAGA, asking them to increase financial support for their LMAG and to provide a webpage for Life member activities and news of events.
2. A top priority is to facilitate the use of Webex for Life member meetings, to reduce the running costs and make it easier to connect members living away from the main urban centres.
3. LMAGs should make greater use of the larger allocations for Life member activities, up to a maximum of $2,000 each year.
4. LMAGs should encourage members to apply for the special projects grants available from the Life Member Fund and the IEEE Foundation.

Outlook:

• Increased collaboration between LMAGs and other IEEE Operation Units in their Sections is very important as the Section can make use of the knowledge and experience of Life Members and also from the more time that they can devote for IEEE Section activities.
• It is agreed that the inclusion of older members approaching LM status, together with retired members, would transform the viability of the smaller LMAGs.
• Resources from MGA (Life Member Committee and R8) are now reasonable to make and expand  LMAGs activities.
• Sponsorship from industry and Government organizations could be available for certain types of projects.