IEEE Day was celebrated in Spain on Friday 22 October in Madrid, at the UNED’s Education Faculty. The event was conducted in a semi-presential format, with participants attending presentially and virtually.
Enrique Romero, President of the Spain Section, inaugurated the meeting with a brief description of the Section’s current situation. Jesús Fraile, the former President, honored the memory of Julia Merino, Section treasurer who passed away this year.
The program continued with a global presentation of IEEE by Antonio Luque, current Region 8 President, who highlighted the social impact of IEEE’s activities. Then Manuel Castro presented the case of IEEE-HKN (Eta Kappa Nu), the IEEE excellence and honor society, of which a Chapter had been formed in UNED in 2020.
The traditional Technical Section of the Spanish IEEE Day was given by Agustín Delgado, Director of Innovation and Sustainability at Iberdrola, and Rafael Estévez, Head of Industry Sectors – Utilities & Industria at Telefónica TECH. The main topic discussed by the speakers was the relationship between the energy transition and digitalization, two of the main transformations in current society.
The awards ceremony took place before the break. The Distinction to the Institution 2021 was awarded to the UNED in recognition of its constant cooperation with IEEE in the last 20 years. The Best Chapter award was given to the Spanish Power and Energy Society (PES) for the high number and high-quality activities fostered by the chapter in the last two years. The awards ceremony concluded with the presentation of the medals for the members with 50, 40, 30, 20, and 10 years in IEEE.
After the break, José Antonio Gómez presented SIGHT (Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology), a program launched in 2011 by IEEE HAC (Humanitarian Activities Committee) for fostering development cooperation and humanitarian aid activities within IEEE.
To conclude, Patricia Rodríguez, Student branches representative, summarize their current situation and presented a plan for increasing the presence of IEEE at the universities in the context of a higher number of presential activities in the university, whose reduction impacted negatively in the last academic year.