Report on IEEE R-10 Annual General Meeting held on 4-5th March 2017
1. IEEE R-10 Annual General Meeting was held at Makhuhari Messe International Conference
Hall, Chibu Prefecture, Japan on 4-5th March 2017. On invitation from R-10 Director,
following persons attended the meeting
a) GS Mani, Chair, IEEE Pune Section
b) Rajesh Ingle, Member, R-10 Execom
2. The meeting was held from 0800 hrs to1735 Hrs on 4th March 2017 and from 0830 Hrs to
1300 Hrs on 5th March 2017. On both days Kukjin Chun, R-10 Director chaired various
sessions. There were about 130 delegates for the meeting, which included Section Chairs, R10 Execom members, Former R-10 Directors, and a few distinguished guests.
3. In his opening remarks, Kukjin Chun, R-10 Director gave brief statistics of the growth of the
Region. As on March, 1, 2017, IEEE has a global membership of 4, 23,566, out of which R-10
constituted 1, 25,060 (29.5%). He also briefly touched upon the issues related to
membership Retention, conference Quality and the IEEE core values and Ethics.
4. The distinguished guests who participated in various events included
a) Karen Bartleson, IEEE President and CEO
b) Mary Ellan Randall, MGA Vice President
c) Marina Ruggieri, TAB Vice President
d) Margaretha Eriksson, R-8 Director
e) Bernard Sander, R-4 Director
f) Vincenzo Piuri, IEEE President Elect 2018
g) Jacek M Zurada, IEEE President Elect 2018
Following are some of the highlights of the address from some of the distinguished guests:
a) Karen Bartleson, IEEE President and CEO emphasised the need for openness,
international collaboration, and free flow of ideas and talented individuals across
the Globe. She said that IEEE is committed to the realization and maintenance of an
environment in which scientists and engineers, regardless of ethnicity, religion,
gender, or nationality, have the right to pursue their careers without discrimination.
b) Mary Ellan Randall, MGA Vice President spoke of the retention problem of IEEE.
Every year IEEE loses about 85,000 members and the student member retention
level is less than 28%. She advised that Section Chairs should have senior
experienced members as Student Activity chairs to tackle the issue.
c) Marina Ruggieri, TAB Vice President talked about the four new technical multidisciplinary topics which have been introduced this year through four TAB ad hoc
committees—Food Engineering(preparing a healthy and enjoyable future for
mankind), Dig Once(connect the next billion to the internet by an effective and
holistic digging for the deployment of network infrastructures),IEEE at North and
South Poles (technological and social challenge of the new Arctic shipping routes
and in supporting the enormous multi-continent community there) and Design for
Ethics (Ethics as a basic requirement in the design of all devices, systems and
applications.)
d) Margaretha Eriksson, R-8 Director mentioned that about 135 countries (54 from
Africa, 45 from Europe and 16 from the Middle East) form part of Region-8. Apart
from diverse nature of the region, there are issues due to the General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes into effect from 25, May 2018 in the
European Union. Since the personal Data of all personnel including those on visit
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come under the purview of the regulations, its impact on IEEE activities is not yet
fully understood and hence requires special attention, she said.
e) Bernard Sander, R-4 Director gave details of activities in his Region consisting of
about 20,000 members in Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit areas.
f) Vincenzo Piuri, and Jacek M Zurada, IEEE President Elects for 2018 gave their views
about the future expansion of IEEE. During the Q&A Session, both of them
promised to pay special attention to R-10 region in view of its large membership
and value addition to the organization.
5. There were various presentation sessions, which included the following :
a) Two parallel sessions of Technical Workshops
--- First parallel Workshop Session: Section Management, Educational Activities,
Students Activities and SIG on Humanitarian Technologies
---Second parallel Workshop Session: Section Congress, Member Recruitment and
Retention, Young Professionals and Conference
b) Presentations by Execom Committees : Membership Activities Committee,
Technical Activities Committee, Professional Activities Committee, 50 years
Celebrations Committee, Section Congress Committee, Nominations and Advisory
Committee
c) Presentations by Award winning Sections/ Affinity Groups : Hyderabad ( Large
Section) , Islamabad( Medium Section) and Bangladesh ( WIE Group)
d) Presentations by major R-10 conferences : TENCON 2016( Singapore) , TENCON
2017 ( Malaysia), TENCON 2018 (Seoul), TENSYMP 2016(Indonesia), TENSYMP
2017(Kerala), TENSYMP 2018(New South Wales), HTC 2016 ( Uttar Pradesh), HTC
2017( Bangladesh), and HTC 2018 (Srilanka)
e) Poster Session: There were many Poster sessions on any activities of R-10 Activities
6. Major take away from these presentations included:
a) Educational Activities : Volunteers can participate in TISP / EPICS programs at PreUniversity level , Faculty Curriculum Resources/ Global Accreditation Programs at
University Level and IEEE English for Engineers / IEEE e-learning Library as
Continuing Educational Activities; Other resources available for IEEE members
include IEEE Spark, tryengg.com, trycomputing.com, trynano.com etc
b) Student Activities: Student Activity chairs (SAC) in sections must ensure that student
branches prepare their annual plans, submit to Sections in time and work in total
coordination with sections. No conferences should be conducted without the
knowledge and concurrence of Sections. Role of SACs is also very important in
membership retention.
c) SIGHT Activities: These are community service activities taken up by IEEE volunteers
in coordination with NGOs. These should be long term activities consisting of
number of events such as Awareness Programs, building working prototypes etc.
Seed money of $500-$20,000 can be given for SIGHT activities.
d) IEEE Humanitarian Technology Activities: These are large scale activities with
number of events and capacity building. Support upto $ 100,000 is possible under
this program.
e) Membership Development Activity: R-10 is the only region where there is a positive
growth of membership (about 10%), whereas other Regions have shown negative
growth. However, Student Retention is a major issue. Globally 85% of new members
are lost within the first 5 years after joining IEEE. Emphasis must be given to YP
more effectively.
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f)
Timely submission of Reports: it is essential to submit reports in time to avail
rebate / bonus. This year 290 out of 333 Sections were eligible for bonus since they
had submitted the reports before 17th February 2017. Also reimbursement of
expenses will be done only if claims are received within 1 month after the event.
g) Industry Events Competitions: This is aimed at improving IEEE members’
engagement in industrial theme and activities and provide a way to learn from each
other. The event needs to be done during Sept-Oct 2017 and reported to R-10.
Awards and Certificates will be given to 10 winners
h) VEEP / WIEOGO Program: VEEP is a ‘Visibility Enhancement through Events
Program’ to enhance female engineering and YP / Student visibility, enhancing
networking, and knowledge sharing .WIEOGO is ‘one- get-one’ program of WIE.
i) Other Programs: Technology Awareness Projects, Leadership Summit, Mini-POCO,
Industry Collaboration Projects are some of the events which can be partially funded
by R-10, depending on scale.
j) Commemorative Book: It is proposed to bring out a book in commemoration of R10 completing 50 years. Showcasing special activities of Sections is possible if
information is sent before 20 March, 2017.
k) Participation of IEEE in relief work at Nepal: UP Section along with Kathmandu
Subsection participated in a big way during relief and Rehabilitation work after the
earthquake in Nepal. As a short term measure, Solar Lanterns were distributed to
needy families (Kerala, Bangalore and Delhi Sections also participated). As a long
term measure work is going on integrating Solar with Electric Supply, and on
providing Drinking water.
l) Awards and Rewards: Information about Awards and rewards instituted by R-10 is
available in R-10 website. Members are urged to look and apply for the same in
time.
m) Use of IEEE e-notices: This is for restricted use of IEEE volunteers to give publicity for
events organised by R-10. Otherwise a charge of $ 300 will be levied.
7. As part of the R-10 Annual General Meeting, 60th Anniversary celebrations of IEEE Japan
Section was celebrated on 3rd March from 1830 onwards. Also, Team Bonding Activity was
done from 1330 Hrs to 2030 Hrs on 4th March.
8. Some photos are attached
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SOME PHOTOS:
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