The Young Professionals track for the IEEE Region 10 Conference, TENCON 2015 started with the session on “Rejuvenating Young Professionals” by Mr. Ranjit R. Nair, IEEE Region 10 Young Professionals Coordinator. During his session, Ranjit emphasized the benefits of being a Young Professional in IEEE and how IEEE can be beneficial to them. He cited examples of various young professionals across the globe who have been active IEEE members and benefited very much by contributing to technology and society. Special mention was given to members in academia and how to leverage the benefits from IEEE. There was also a discussion about the need for a Young Professionals Affinity group in each section and how a local affinity group can provide benefit to members.
The Next session was a talk by Dr.S.N.Singh on the topic “Opportunities for Academics in Industry”. With his vast industry experience and then being an academic serving at various institutes, elaborated on the needs of engineers from each area and how Industry Academia linkage can promote research. He cited examples on how we can promote the linkage between academics and industry. During his talk, he elaborated the need for academics to raise up to the current industry standard so as to take part in projects from industry. There was good interaction during the Q&A session on various challenges faced by academics to involve Industry and possible ways to resolve these.
This was followed by a Discussion on “How Academics can leverage benefits of IEEE”. There was a fruitful discussion between the speakers and the delegates. IEEE 2017 President, Ms.Karen Bartleson was also present and contributed significantly to the discussions. Some of the major discussion points and suggestions raised are described in the next paragraph.
Dr.S. N. Singh suggested promoting Young Professionals and spreading more awareness to local sections especially with those who do not have an Affinity Group. Young Professionals awareness has to be made as a main track in the conferences. Mr. MGPL Narayana, R10 Vice Chair, stressed on the need for career opportunities and mentioned about the India strategic initiative programs. Jithin Krishnan, EMBS Young Professional volunteer, suggested having tool based training programs. Karen Bartleson, IEEE President Elect 2016 pointed out that even though technology changes every couple of years, the institutional curriculum changes only once in seven or eight years, she emphasized the need to have a dynamic structure so that the course curriculum come at par with changing technologies. Anil Kumar C. V., PhD resource scholar suggested that increasing the number of free downloads of IEEE papers help students (especially graduate students) in their research work. This will help reduce the economic constraints faced by the members from developing nations.
Mr.Ajin Baby, Chair, IEEE Kerala Young Professionals AG, pointed out that Government and Universities have to be convinced to promote entrepreneurship. Programs like GDP boot and employment opportunities can be conducted to promote this. The units should provide a sandbox environment for interested students to try out entrepreneurship so that they can pursue the same. Ms. Preethy V. Warrier, Secretary WIE Kerala Section, shared her industrial experience, being a Young Professional and also suggested a method to promote women in the field of engineering. Identifying the reasons that are pulling back young girls from entering the world of technology after their graduation, finding out solutions and implementing them will provide more opportunities to them. Dr. Paul Chen, Chair of IEEE Macau Section expressed willingness to start a Young Professionals Affinity group after hearing about the benefits.
The discussion led to opening the doors of opportunities for members as well as other students and professionals. The session came to a close with a group photograph of the attendees and speakers. The event was realized with support from Region 10 and MGA Young Professionals Committee.
Article contributed by Ranjit Nair, IEEE Region 10 Young Professionals Coordinator
Tags:TENCON2015
