IEEE Asia Pacific Groups Hold Congress

IEEE Region 10 Student, Young Professionals, Women in Engineering, Life Members (SYWL) Congress 2022 was held at Jeju Island, South Korea, from 11-14 August 2022. The venue for Congress was Shinwha World Marriott Resort, Jeju, South Korea & theme of this year’s Congress was “Sound and Young Influence for World Leading.” The opening ceremony included a welcome address by General Chair & R10 Director, followed by the first plenary session and a welcome dinner.

The meeting continued for three days with relevant talks and learning sessions:

Prof. Hajime Imai, Chair LMAG, Tokyo, talked about IEEE Milestones. IEEE has more than 240 IEEE Milestones, with R10 holding 45 Milestones. Most are in Japan (38), India has four, and Australia has one. This was followed by a session with Mr. Asthana, Chair R10 Life member Committee, who made a presentation on LMAG Management & Procedures.

Several LMAG Chairs made presentations: Dr Naohisa Ohta made a presentation on LMAG, Tokyo; Mr. Koruthu Varghese, Chair LMAG, Kerala, talked about activities by Kerala and how he achieved the highest number of activities in 2021; and Dr. Harbans L Bajaj, Chair LMAG, Delhi talked about his LMAG and strategy to achieve the second highest number of activities in R10. The last presentation was by Mr. Sundaresh Subramaniam, Chair LMAG, Madras.

After deliberations, it emerged that major issues faced by LMAGs are aging and health issues of Life members, and lack of interest of LMs due to various reasons, such as wanting to lead retired life instead of getting engaged in IEEE or other activities. LMAGs also felt that the rebate being offered to LMAGs was meager and needed to be more to organize activities. Most of the LMs are not very conversant with V Tools. It was felt that LMAGs need support in the above areas to record better activities.

Several awards were given out during the congress:

The 2022 R10 Outstanding LM Volunteer award was presented to Dr. Harbans L Bajaj, Chair LMAG, Delhi.
Certificate presentations to LMAGs who carried out six or more activities during 2021
- Kerala LMAG carried out the highest (70)
- Delhi LMAG for the second-highest (44)
- Tokyo LMAG had the third-highest (24)
Others presented certificates were Hyderabad LMAG, South Australia LMAG, Sapporo LMAG, Singapore LMAG, and Nagoya LMAG.

Dr. Harbans L Bajaj, Chair LMAG, Delhi, led a talk on Climate Change. He described various natural happenings causing climate change. He introduced the concept of Net Zero emission as a catchphrase in a global attempt to stop climate change. This was followed by another technical talk Video Coding of Machines, by Mr. Ambarish Natu, Australian Capital Territory Section. He started with traditional Coding methods and, with the rise of machine learning applications, derived the concept of Video Coding of Machines. The talk covered architecture, use cases, and current work being progressed.

The next talk, on Industry & Technology, Spin-off Technologies Research in India, was delivered by Mr. Sundaresh Subramaniam, Chair LMAG, Madras. He talked about some technologies developed by the armed forces in defense research in India for social benefits. Some of the technologies he mentioned are “STENTS” used in heart surgeries at affordable prices, technologies adopted for developing artificial limbs, and human disposal systems designed for high-altitude military camps. The last talk, on Industry & Technology, Space Travel, was delivered by Dr. Tadashi Takano, Past LMAG Chair, Tokyo. He talked about the history of semiconductors and state-of-the-art technologies for the future.

SYWL Congress also included Team Bonding activities, such as lunch or dinner, a visit to the beach, and dancing.