4th IEEE Tunisian Students and Young Professionals Congress (TSYP) 2016: The biggest SYP attracting 550 IEEE members!

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.