SPC2017 Results and Winners
This year there were ten valid submissions for SPC2017. The submissions were from KU Leuven (2) (Belgium) Universite Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), East African School of Aviation (Nairobi, Kenya), Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), INPT Rabat (Morocco), King Abdul Aziz University, (Jeddah), Saudi Arabia University of Nis (Serbia), University of Maribor (Slovenia) and University of Valencia, Spain.
The jury members who examined the papers were
- Prof Paul Micallef, Malta – Chair
- Prof Samir Shaheen, Egypt
- Prof Mohamad Awad, Lebanon.
- Prof Christos Schizas, Cyprus
- Prof Anastas Mishev, Macedonia
The five students chosen by the jury members after the first stage in this year’s SPC competition attended MELECON 2017 at Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia, where they presented their papers in front of the jury members and other interested listeners who were attending the conference.
The five finalists were
- Ely De Pelecijn from KU Leuven
- Gautier Tihon from the Universite Catholique de Louvain
- Istvan Taczi from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics
- Lucija Brezočnik from the University of Maribor
- Tim Thielemans from KU Leuven.
The organizers of Melecon 2017 hosted the five students at the conference, in a beautiful location on Lake Ohrid, giving them free registration and participation at the conference functions. IEEE R8 paid for the travel and accommodation.
From these five, the jury chose the best three. These were
FIRST Lucija Brezočnik from the University of Maribor
Paper Title: Feature selection for classification using particle swarm optimization
SECOND Tim Thielemans from KU Leuven
Paper Title: A Capacitive Gearbox DC/DC Converter enabling Skyscraper CMOS with Dynamic Voltage Scaling
THIRD Ely De Pelecijn from KU Leuven
Paper Title: High Speed Time-multiplexed Continuous Time Sigma-Delta Converters
Since there are some missing entries in the history of SPC in R8, it is difficult to establish definitely when there were other female winners. There is only one other recorded instance of a female winner and she was a co-author in SPC 1988. So this year’s winner is the first female author to win the SPC over a period of nearly thirty years, and the first leading female author.
The certificates to the finalists were presented by Region 8 Director Margaretha Eriksson during the gala dinner on July 7.
The winning papers also have an award of $800, $500 and $200 dollars respectively given by the IEEE Life Member Fund. Further, the Student Branch of the first classified receives $250 as the Dick Poortvliet Award from Region 8.
Director R8 with FIRST PRIZE Winner Lucija Brezočnik
Director R8 with SECOND PRIZE WinnerTim Thielemans
Director R8 with THIRD PRIZE Winner Ely De Pelecijn
Three Jury Members R8 Director and five finalists at the award ceremony