R8 WIE News

Call for Proposals: IEEE Region 8 WIE Awards  2020!

Download the Detailed Application Guidelines for the Region 8 Women in Engineering (WIE) awards and the Clementina Saduwa Award for the year 2020 and submit your application now!

Deadline: 1st February 2020
We look forward to receiving your applications!

Congratulations for the R8 WIE Awards 2019 Winners!

(Picture taken at the awards ceremony taking place at the IEEE WIE ILS Portugal 2019)

• Region 8 Women in Engineering Section Affinity Group of the Year Award goes to IEEE WIE UK and Ireland Affinity Group.
• Region 8 Women in Engineering Student Affinity Group of the Year Award goes to IEEE WIE ENIM Student Affinity Group, Tunisia WIE SB AG.
• Region 8 Outstanding Women in Engineering Section Volunteer Award goes to Ms. Randa Hammami from Tunisia.
• Region 8 Outstanding Women in Engineering Student Volunteer Award goes to Mr. Khoubeyb Layouni from Tunisia.
  Please have a look at the awards’ Guidelines and previous Recipients. For more information, please contact us by email ([email protected]), on Facebook, or Instagram!

Did you know that the leading winners of the longest-running Region 8 contest, the Student Paper Contest, were always men until 2016? This year, Lucija Brezočnik is the first ever female SPC winner.
And she has a message, especially for the R8 WIE community. “Do not let a stereotype, that in the STEM fields one gender is better than the other, discourage you from taking this career path. It is easier to give up and convince yourself that STEM is not for you, but if you give it a try and then succeed, you can inspire others, regardless of gender. Therefore, go after your passion, dream big, work hard, learn from your mistakes, do not always take the easiest or safe way, and surround yourself with people who support you. And remember, success is not based on gender, but on your merit!”

After completing primary and secondary school, she enrolled in the university study program titled Informatics and Technologies of Communication, option Information Systems, at the UM FERI. She finished the undergraduate studies in September 2014 with a diploma work titled Development of a decision support system using the non-dominated sorting. Due to her desire to deepen and upgrade knowledge, she continued her studies by enrolling in the master’s study program Informatics and Technology of Communication in the same year. She successfully defended the master’s thesis entitled Particle swarm optimization in feature selection for classification in August 2016. She never used the year off.

During her studies, she was active in many fields. In 2013, she became an online technical editor of the Advances in Production Engineering & Management (APEM) journal, which is abstracted and indexed in the world’s leading bibliographic databases, including Web of Science (Thomson Reuters) and Scopus (Elsevier). A year later, she developed a website for SpinRCP, which is an integrated development environment (IDE) for the Spin model checker, and since then she has been an online editor for this product. At the invitation of the Institute of Informatics at UM FERI, she participated as a developer in the student project “Creative Path to Practical Knowledge,” titled Location-based mobile application testing approach, partially financed by the European Union.

During her master’s study, she received and accepted the offer for a job as a technical assistant at the UM FERI Institute of Informatics. After being elected to the title of an assistant in the subject area of Informatics in 2017, she has an assistant position.

In each academic year of her studies, she was ranked among the top 5% of the most successful students in her generation. In the academic year 2015/2016, she was recognized as the best graduate of second-degree study programs and received the award for outstanding student contribution at UM FERI. She was honoured also by the 2017 University of Maribor rector’s prize.

As a Ph.D. student of Computer Science and Informatics, her research covers the area of computational intelligence, machine learning, data mining, and swarm intelligence. In the past two years, as a young academic, she has prepared and presented seven scientific conference papers, two papers in professional conferences, one scientific conference contribution abstract, and the integral part of a monograph. Currently, one of her scientific articles is in the review process.

More about Lucija can be found on https://ii.feri.um.si/en/person/lucija-brezocnik-2/.

The Central European Student Branch Congress (CEuSBC) took place in Opole, Poland 13-15 May 2013. A few weeks later the Middle East Student Branch congress took place in Lebanon 28 May – 1 June  2013. The IEEE Region 8 WIE committee organized IEEE Women In Engineering (WIE) workshops for students at these congresses. The main objectives of the workshops was to increase the visibility of WIE for IEEE members at universities and student branches.

Simay Akar presented the workshops

• WIE Presentation delivered to attendees
• Importance of WIE discussed
• 2 groups designed WIE SBAG Action Plan based on “Best Practices”
• Some Great Ideas:
• Social Activities based on cultural interest: Talent Shows, Cooking Competitions. Importance of cultural interest in locals highlighted.
• Social Responsibility Campaigns and Projects
• IEEE WIE Day: Specific day all around to celebrate women achievement
• Pre University Activities: High School Visits, Orientation Days
• Professional Activities: Distance Learning for Women in Engineers, especially for those keeping far away her professional life for a while with the reasons like pregnancy

CEuSBC in Pictures:

MESBC in Pictures:

WIE@LYIT presents Selected Topics in Enterprise Applications Development

19^th June  2013, 1-30-4pm in Letterkenny Institute of Technology

Guest speakers include Dr. David Dampier on Security in Large Scale Applications, Ms Mary Tuite on Experiences with Mainframe Application Analysis for the Banking Sector and Ms. Sharon Greene on Quality Assurance in the Enterprise.

The event is free to attend but registration is required to aid with catering. This event provides a forum for discussion and networking on technical topics in enterprise scale networking. As a secondary but essential element the event aims to encourage more women to progress in the field through support and advice from others.

WIEatLYIT_19June2013

The Iberian Student Branch Congress 2013 (ISBC) took place in Porto, Portugal during 15 – 17 March 2013. The IEEE Region 8 WIE committee participated in organising an IEEE Women In Engineering (WIE) workshop for students at the congress. The main objective of the workshop was to increase the visibility of WIE for IEEE members at universities and student branches.

Simay Akar presented the workshop with great success.

During the workshop, the following activities were carried out:

• WIE Presentation delivered to attendees
• Importance of WIE discussed
• An interactive component of workshop was carried out
  • 2 groups designed WIE Student Branch Affinity Groups  activities based on: Pre-University Educational Outreach & Professional and Career Development topics
  • The Pre-University Educational Outreach group designed a project similar to TISP (IEEE Teacher in-Service Program) , with a focus of parents.  The project was named as “WISP”
  • The Professional and Career Development group designed WIE Student Congress (Global level);  to enable WIE members to develop their career and networking in this WIE Student Congress

Look out for similar workshops at future student events like this in Region 8.

To enhance the role of Saudi young men and women engineers in the community, Women in Engineering Affinity Groups of IEEE West Saudi Arabia Sections organized two activities in Effat University and King Abdulaziz University during February & March 2013. The details of the activities are listed below:

Participation of WiE Western Saudi Arabia Section in”10th Learning & Technology Conference: Cloud Spacing” at Effat University, 25-26 February 2013

  The first activity was participating in:  “10th Learning & Technology Conference: Cloud Spacing” held in Effat University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on 25-26 February 2013, and attended by more than 500 participants. WiE participation aimed to:

• Inspire, engage, encourage, and empower men & women engineers in Saudi Arabia
• Expand their networking encounters
• Lead by example through the women in engineering models’ leadership roles
• Learn to overcome the challenges in career advancement in the engineering and sciences professions
• Review the scientific papers submitted by conference speakers
• Participate in organization

The conference targeted students and professionals from education, engineering and computer sciences departments from various universities in addition to Industry from Saudi Arabia, and all over the world. WiE Western Saudi Arabia Section organized WiE Introductory lecture and Technical Seminar titled: “Using Agile Project Management in Software Projects” at KAU in 13 March 2013

The second activity was Introduction to IEEE and  Women in Engineering AG and how to establish WiE Student Branch at King Abdulaziz University (Female Campus), followed by Technical Seminar “Using Agile Project Management in Software/ I.T. Projects”

      The event has been attended by 30 students and faculty members from different departments: Information technology, Information Systems, and Computer Sciences. The workshop has positively reflected on the membership growth as many non-IEEE students and faculty members showed their interest in joining IEEE membership and establishing IEEE WiE Student branches/chapters at KAU.  The speaker showed the students how to subscribe in WiE membership and they showed their interest in attending future activities of WiE such as Schools visits.

IEEE Women In Engineering, Importance and Challenges

Speakers
Bashayer Ibrahim Al-Awwad and Pilar Molina Gaudó

Date and time
Friday August 6, 9h30-10h45

Abstract

The workshop will have two parts:

• A presentation that covers the aspects about IEEE WIE vision and mission. It is also going to cover the expected benefits of becoming a member in IEEE and WIE specifically.
• A panel discussion on Cross-Cultural Success Stories of Women In Engineering: the idea is to have role models that represent the different parts of Region 8 (Middle East, Africa and Europe) to discuss the challenges and difficulties they faced in their work and volunteering careers along with their success stories in their respective fields.

W(I)E are active!

Speakers
Borbála Hunyadi and Zhanna Khaymedinova

Date and time
Friday August 6, 11h15-12h30

Abstract

The idea of workshop is to interactively discuss how to arrange different activities under the frames of Women In Engineering. The activities must be attractive and interesting. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to be creative, active, enthusiastic. After sharing our experiences about past WIE activities in Leuven, we expect the participants to do the same. Think of a good and a bad example, either as a participant or an organizer! We will investigate both the strengths and drawbacks of these events, and possible ways to improve them. The main aspects of the discussion will be structured around the following questions: How to attract more people, especially women? How to advertise and promote WIE events? How to be successful and interactive? How to keep the participants awake? We are waiting for active collaboration and communication from participants. We are ready to discuss and learn from you!

For more information about the congress Programme click here

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Introduction:

Biannually, the student activities committee of IEEE Region 8 organizes a Student Branch and GOLD (Graduates Of the Last Decade) Congress, where around 300 IEEE student branches members, gold members, women in engineering members and young engineering professionals from all over Region 8 (Europe, Asia and Africa) meet. Traditionally, this event is a melting pot of a variety of cultures and backgrounds, the perfect opportunity to share technical, social and professional experiences.

Previous editions of this congress were held in Istanbul (’98), Eindhoven (’00), Cairo (’02), Passau (’04), Paris (’06) and London (’08) as one of the biggest events in the world for young engineering professionals and students all aged less than 28 years. Region 8 Student Services encourages and supports local student branches to develop these activities, but also provides opportunities for the students branches to collaborate on bigger scale and exchange experience.

WIE is going to participate through the congress program and will have special workshops which are organized in pairs. The first of the paired workshops for WIE will be entitled “IEEE Women In Engineering, Importance and challenges” while the second one will be entitled “W(I)E are active!”.

In parallel to the Student Branch Congress, a Professional activities summit is organized on Saturday, August 7. For more information click here

This is an event that you don’t want to miss.  Different expert speakers will participate. Seize the chance to meet them up.
For more information about the congress speakers click here