News

Alexandros Osana, Chair – Humanitarian Activities Subcommittee IEEE Region 8, will be one of the three panelists at the plenary session, “Brain Fuel: Issues, opportunities and challenges facing young technology professionals in industry”.

For people attending the IEEE Meetings Week in New Orleans, they can attend the session on Friday, 10 February at 5:30-7:00 PM in the Celestin Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans. For those who cannot attend in-person, they can watch Alex live on ieee.tv and IEEE Collabratec™.

The Brain Fuel web page may be found at www.ieee.org/brainfuel and the registration page for the livestreaming event may be found at http://ieeetv.ieee.org/live_event/brainfuel.

Under the patronage of the IEEE Tunisia section < www.ieee.tn >, the IEEE ULT Student Branch had the honor to organize the 4th IEEE Tunisian Students and Young Professionals Congress (TSYP) on December 18-20, 2016 in the Medina Congress center < www.medinaevents.com >, Yassmine Hammamet, Tunisia.

Website: http://tsyp.ieee.tn

As always, the IEEE Tunisian SYP congress continued to attract more and more IEEE members. During 3 days, about 550 IEEE engineering students from 20 Tunisian public schools and private universities as well as IEEE young professionals gather together to learn further details about the IEEE technical, professional, and education benefits; and to discuss the future engineering challenges. The congress attracts also IEEE members from Algeria, Morocco, and Egypt representing the student branches in their sections.

The purpose of the congress is also to help undergraduate/graduate students and young professionals gain further insight, enabling exchange of knowledge and skills. The congress is the unique event which brings all IEEE student branches in Tunisia to interact, to collaborate, and to increase effective networking.

In the opening ceremony, welcome speeches were addressed by:

• Mr. Habib M. Kammoun, IEEE Tunisia section chair < www.ieee.tn >, who presented the IEEE and the IEEE geographic and technical units, their benefits and especially the student transition & elevation benefits, as well as the main IEEE activities organized at the international level, at the region 8 level, and at the national level.
• Mr. Abdelwaheb Ben Ayed, CEO of Poulina Group Holding < www.poulinagroupholding.com >, who presented the venue (Medina congress center < www.medinaevents.com >) as one of more than 100 national and international companies in different engineering fields. Mr. Abdelwaheb announced that all his companies are open especially to IEEE members for internships and job offers.
• Mr. Sadok Belaid, President of the Private University of Tunis (ULT) < www.ult-tunisie.com >, who presented the university and his active students organizers of the congress.
• Mr. Salmen Ajili, CEO of Primatec < www.primatec.tn >, who presented the company which provides customized, innovative and cost efficient IT solutions to automotive industry around the world; in partnership with Technical Engineering in Germany; for manufacturers like Lear, BMW, Valeo, Continental, Bosh.

The program included the following professional and technical talks presented by highly qualified national and international speakers:

• “Me, my life, and my career”, by Nadhem Bardaa, IEEE R8 Professional Speaker, CEO of NTraining, Tunisia
• “What the CEO want?”, by Hedi Gaaya, CEO of Grands Moulins du Cap Bon, Tunisia
• “Cloud Computing”, by Mohamed Ali Chouchane, CEO of Cloud Temple, Tunisia
• “Laboratory Experimentation and Real-Time Computing: Hands-on Experience”, by Ahmed Rubaai, IEEE Fellow, Prof. at Howard University USA, IAS Publications department chair
• “Who is Who, or Can Be, in “ICT Education”?”, by Edmundo Tovar Caro, IEEE Education Society, Vice President of Educational Activities, Distinguished Lecturer, Spain
• “How can biosensor design be adapted to specific compound detection?”, by Yasmine Soussi, Prof. at ULT, Tunisia
• “Unleashing the power of Internet of Things: challenges and key technology enablers”, by Bechir Hamdaoui, Prof. at Oregon State University USA, IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer
• “Communication process”, by Eya Mahjoubi Chahed, Prof. at Polytech Sousse University, Tunisia
• “Women in Engineering WIE” workshop, by IEEE WIE Tunisia affinity group officers
• “IEEE Humanitarian activities”, by IEEE SIGHT Tunisia group officers < www.sight.ieee.tn >
• “I have a Project”, by the Education foundation for Job EFE-Tunisia officers, entrepreneurship program in partnership with the US Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI)
• “Abweb project”, by Amira Haddad Gharbi, Arab World Internet Institute < www.abweb.ngo >

The program also included the annual award ceremony gala dinner of the IEEE Tunisia section. The A&R committee presented the following winners:

• Outstanding Student Branch Award: ISSAT Sousse Student Branch
• Outstanding Student Branch Chapter Award: PES Student chapter in ENIM
• Outstanding WIE Student Affinity Group Award: ISSAT Sousse WIE student affinity group
• Outstanding IEEE Student Publication Award:
  • Randa Hammami for her paper “A Novel Approach for Semantic Web Service Discovery” published in the 2016 IEEE 25th International Conference on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises (WETICE); and
  • Naima Chouikhi for her paper “A Hybrid Approach Based on Particle Swarm Optimization for Echo State Network Initialization” published in the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC)
• Outstanding IEEE Publication Award: Prof. Farouk Kamoun for his paper “Analysis of Shared Finite Storage in a Computer Network Node Environment Under General Traffic Conditions” published in the IEEE Transactions on Communications on 1980

The awards ceremony was also an occasion to present the IEEE loyal pins and certificates to recognize our members who have over 20 years of IEEE memberships. < www.ieee.tn/loyal-members/ >

Furthermore, an SB contest was organized to select the SB organizer of the next edition: In the first day, 18 student branches organized booths to present their activities to the participants as well as the invited speakers and to the section officers. In the second day, the SB prepared and presented their first drafts of projects to be improved and submitted later to the IEEE Foundation. Based on the SB activities and the proposed projects, the IEEE Tunisia section officers selected 3 SB finalists (ENIT, INSAT, ENIS) in order to present in the 3rd day their plan to organize the 5th TSYP on 17-19 December 2017. After the presentations of the SB finalists, a debate was organized and the participants were able to ask several questions to the finalists. Then, each SB vote for one of the SB finalists and the winner was the SB of the National Engineering School of Sfax (ENIS). Congratulations!

We trust all speakers and participants had an amazing time! Gratitude was expressed to our IEEE partners: Region 8, Industry Applications Society, Computer Society, Communications Society, Education Society, the IEEE Tunisian subunits (chapters, YP and WIE affinity groups); and our main partners: Private University of Tunis (ULT) and Primatec; and our venue: Medina congress center.

Photos:

Photos 1-2: Welcome Speech by Mr. Abdelwaheb Ben Ayed during the opening session

Photo 3: Welcome Speech by Habib M. Kammoun, IEEE Tunisia section chair

Photos 4-6: Participants in the opening session

Photos 7-9: IEEE Tunisia section Awards ceremony gala dinner with Tunisian show

Photo 10: INSAT student branch presenting the next 2017 IEEE ME-SYP

Photos 11-12: SB student branches presenting their IEEE activities

Photo 13: Participants enjoying one of the professional session

Photo 14: Networking of participants during the coffee break

Photo 15: A certificate of appreciation to the congress’ organizers “ULT Student Branch”

Photo 16: Group photo of participants

Photo 17: The SB finalists during the debate

Photos 18-19: Announcement of the vote results and the SB organizer of the next edition

Photo 20: IEEE WIE members enjoying the congress

Photos 21-22: Networking between the Egyptian, Algerian, Moroccan, and Tunisian participants

Call for Papers

Aug 7—8, 2017, Kobe, Japan

The 5 th IEEE HISTELCON 2017 will be held on August 7 and 8 in 2017 at Graduate School of Applied Informatics, University of Hyogo, Kobe, Japan. Although this HISTELCON is a flagship biennial-conference of the IEEE Region 8, this time the IEEE Japan Council History Committee will host it, cosponsored by all of nine IEEE Sections in Japan as well as technically cosponsored by the IEEE Region 8.

The campus of Graduate School of Applied Informatics, University of Hyogo, and the surrounding Kobe Port-Island Area, with their intensive high-tech activities including the RIKEN’s K computer, one of the highest caliber of supercomputers in the world, will offer an excellent venue for this meeting.

It should be added that as most people may know, on January 17 in 1995 the Great Hanshin Earthquake of M 7.3 struck Kobe city and the surrounding areas, causing the catastrophic damage of more than 6,000 deaths, more than 150,000 collapsed homes, and over 300,000 people evacuated to more than 1,000 shelters. Therefore, we hope that HISTELCON 2017 will bring significant benefits to the attendees in terms of not only acquiring technical expertise but also observing miraculous post-quake recovery of Kobe.

Conference theme

History and milestones in electro-technology innovation

The main objective of this HISTELCON is to increase the understanding of the origins as well as the early developments in the field of electrical engineering and computing. As always, HISTELCON 2017 welcomes all papers on the history of high-tech within IEEE’s areas of interest, featuring the historic expertise of any scientific and technological achievement, which has already been approved as an IEEE Milestone or may be a possible candidate for the IEEE Milestone. The conference program will also feature high-profile keynote presentations, oral sessions, and exhibitions of IEEE Milestones attained by Japanese companies.

The conference theme is including, but not limited to;

• Origins and early developments of high-tech in electrical engineering and computing.
• The cultural/social/economical drivers for the development of high-tech within IEEE’s areas of interest.
• The impact of electro-technologies on culture/society/economics.
• Governmental policies to foster high-tech of IEEE’s areas in different cultures/ societies.

Abstract submission

Interested participants are invited to submit their abstracts for oral presentations to the conference committee by EDAS, https://edas.info/N23135, sending a 500-word abstract, written in English, with the title, name(s) and affiliation(s) of author(s) within 2-page in MS Word or Adobe PDF format. All abstracts will be reviewed by the Technical Program Committee. Authors of the accepted abstracts are expected to submit full-length 6-page papers that will appear in the Conference proceedings within the dedicated USB and also in IEEE Xplore. It should be noticed that for each presented paper, one presenter will have to register for the Conference.

Remarks for the submission: The Program Committee expects you to utilize your own EDAS account for the conference submission. EDAS is a conference managing service offered by EDAS Conference Service. Please check the way of getting EDAS account at the URL: https://edas.info/

More details including paper submission instruction will be announced at a later time on the conference web page: http://www.ieee-jp.org/section/kansai/histelcon2017/

Important dates

500-word abstract

• Submission opens: Dec 1, 2016.
• Submission deadline: Jan 31, 2017.
• Acceptance notification: Feb 10, 2017.

Full-paper of 6-pages.

• Submission opens: Feb 10, 2017.
• Submission deadline: Mar 24, 2017.

Register to Participate

• Registration opens: May 7, 2017.
• Authors’ deadline: Jun 15, 2017

Information

Event Secretariat: The Conference Secretariat, [email protected].

Chairs:

• General chair: Prof. Isao Shirakawa.
• TPC co-chair: Prof. Kazunori Shimamura and Prof. Hironori Yamauchi.
• Local committee chair: Prof. Miki Yamamoto.

IEEE Region 8 Education Activities Committee is organizing the  ‘IEEE Region 8 Teacher In-Service Program (TISP) Week’ from 8-16 October, 2016. The event will have multiple IEEE Sections organizing TISP teacher training workshops in their Sections. TISP workshops have IEEE-trained volunteers providing inquiry based science education training to school teachers based on the lesson plans provided on tryengineering.org and trycomputing.org. They’ll follow up the workshops with regular contact with the school teachers to evaluate impact.

The aim of the event is to

1. train school teachers to conduct inquiry based science education (IBSE) hands-on activities in the classroom;
2. train teachers on how to motivate students in the classroom toward a better understanding of engineering;
3. highlight the excellent work being done by our Sections to promote TISP in their localities;
4. re-energize the inactive TISP volunteers into organizing a TISP teacher training workshops in the Section;
5. gather data from school teachers about the impact of the TISP program in their classroom.

The following Sections are organizing a workshop as part of TISP Week with about 600 teachers being planned to be trained – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Iran, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Malta, Palestine (sub-Section), Spain, Tunisia, UAE and Uganda.

For more information, please visit http://tisp.ieeer8.org

Registration is now open for IEEE Smart Tech Birmingham, UK, 21-22 October, 2016. Early-bird pricing ends August 31! 

Workshop Topics Include: 

• LiFi: LED-Based Network Communication
• Industry Applications of Robotics
• Introduction to ARM Architecture Fundamentals
• Multi-Core CPU/GPU System and Software Development
• Professional and Business Development: Confident Networking
• Business Strategy for Consultants and Entrepreneurs
• Software Defined Radio: Implementation, Design and Real-Time Operation

Evening Reception and Keynote Address by Sir Robin Saxby, former CEO and chairman of ARM Holdings, PLC.

Learn more and register at http://bit.ly/29RLXeP

#SmartTech