It is my honor and privilege to serve as the Chair of the IEEE Washington Section for 2012. I am very proud to call to order our AdCom meetings by using Alexander Graham Bell's gavel. The Washington Section has been serving electrical engineers in the Washington DC Metro area for almost 109 years, providing members with opportunities for professional activities and networking, gaining new technical skills through continuing education and, serving the greater Washington community through activities such student competitions, technical meetings and science fairs.

Our section is the most historic one in the nation, and my membership in IEEE is the most enduring affiliation of my professional life. I joined first as a student in the Electrical Engineering Department and later as a faculty member while being active in research and publications in the IEEE Xplore database. It was IEEE conferences and technical publications that kept me coming back. Now, my involvement in IEEE is underpinned by my desire to try to make a difference in our profession by coordinating the activities of our section in 2012. This coming year I am very fortunate to have the support and counsel of Ms. Monica Taysing-Lara (Vice-Chair), Mr. Richard Hill (Treasurer), Mr. Wally Lee (Secretary) and the following Directors: Dr. Mary Tobin, Ms. Varetta Huggins, Dr. Brian Riely, Dr. Min Wu, Dr. Raul Cruz-Cano, Dr. George Simonis, Dr. Raj Madhavan and Past-Chair Mr. Harry Sauberman. I also extend my very best wishes to Mr. Jeff Poston, my counterpart in the Northern Virginia Section. I look forward to working with Jeff as we pursue the idea of holding joint meetings to enable activity sharing, partnering and collaborative efforts. I would like to thank my predecessor Mr. Harry Sauberman for his inspirational leadership during the past year. Our 2012 goals will focus on the areas of professional activities, attracting and supporting our members, and social networking.

We will try to diversify our professional activities by including and encouraging chapter activities of technical presentations on how to reduce the energy consumption in engineering infrastructures and connected devices. We would like to focus on the knowledge of applied sensors networks, and on communications aspects of bioengineering and genomics, which may contribute to solving global issues. Also we would like to provide an open forum for discussion and services for industry in terms of standards development including educational components.

We will focus on reaching young students, especially women and minorities, at the undergraduate level by encouraging and motivating them to pursue the engineering fields. We will continue our efforts to create and to maintain our student activities such as contests and science fairs. We need to develop mechanisms for clustering around hot topics in a fast dynamic way and to capture shifting at the individual level. We need to use our vTools to extend and to seamlessly update interests that are finely tuned to the individuals and the community. We will try to improve the quality of our meetings and inter-member interactions.

The IEEE Washington Section needs to become the network that delivers vital information based on building specific understanding of the needs of individual members. In this context, we will more aggressively adopt social networking tools. This needs to be done while respecting privacy issues, giving each individual the opportunity to either use or not use such tools. This social networking approach will ensure that each member will understand the implications of all issues that are being addressed within our Section. I welcome your input on how we can improve the Section and better serve the interests and needs of IEEE members in the Washington DC Metro area. Of course, we would love your active participation as a volunteer. Please feel free to contact me with your ideas and suggestions. Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.