The Electronic Newsletter of the IEEE Toronto Section - the latest news
about upcoming events and the people that make them happen - Section and
Chapter meetings, workshops, conferences, and other events of interest
occuring in Toronto and surounding areas. Posted every month.
Now formatted for portrait-orientation printing.
An Engineering Way to Assist in Tsunami Relief
RedR Canada (Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief), is helping the
coastal nations of South Asia struck by the recent tsunami in two ways:
1. Providing engineers and other skilled relief workers to the agencies
operating on the front lines in the affected countries, and 2. Providing
funds where most needed. Click here for
more information or to donate online.
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Profile on Ted Sargent and his most recent research sucess.
Ted was Section Chair in 2000 and 2001.
He is the Nortel Networks "Canada Research Chair in Emerging
Technologies" at U of T's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
In a paper published on the Nature Materials website Jan. 9, senior
author Professor Ted Sargent and his team report on their achievement in
tailoring matter to harvest the sun’s invisible rays.
"We made particles from semiconductor crystals which were exactly two, three
or four nanometres in size. The nanoparticles were so small they
remained dispersed in everyday solvents just like the particles in paint",
explains Sargent. Then, they tuned the tiny nanocrystals to catch
light at very long wavelengths. The result - a sprayable infrared
detector. You can read more about this breakthrough by visiting the
University of Toronto news page.
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Upcoming Chapter/Group Meetings
Feb 10, 2005 at 7:30 p.m. Our Computer Chapter is
cosponsoring a meeting with the Toronto Dufferin and Kingsway PEO Chapters.
Paul Cooper, VP of Business Development and R&D at MD Robotics, will speak
on the topic "Space Robotics in the 21st Century: Canada's Expanding Role"
- this is a facinating topic, likely of interest to most of our members
and a great one to start our new year... hope to see you there!
Click for details.
Feb 17, 2005 at 6:30 p.m. Our Women in Engineering
Affinity Group will hold an Online Chat Event entitled "The View from the Top"
using the facilities of the Toronto Section Online Community
Click for details.
Feb 21, 2005 at 4:00 p.m. Dr. Rajesh Karki of the
University of Saskatchewan will present a seminar entitled "Reliability Impact
of Wind Power on Power Generation Planning", organized by our Power
Engineering Chapter. Click for details.
Feb 25, 2005 at 1:00 p.m. Bill Kennedy, P.Eng., FEIC.,
Principal Engineer with the Alberta Electric System Operator will present a
seminar entitled "Power Systems for the Non-Power System Engineer", organized
by our Power Engineering Chapter. Click for details.
Mar 14, 2005 at 6:30 p.m. Mitchell Shnier, consultant
and embedded system developer, will present a seminar entitled
"Patents: From an Inventor's Viewpoint", organized by our Engineering and
Human Environment Chapter. Click for details.
Mar 23, 2005 at 6:30 p.m. Mary-Frances Fox, President of
Work Creatively, Toronto, will present a seminar entitled "Claim Your
Career Equity ", organized by our Women in Engineering Affinity Group.
Click for details.
March-April 2005 Our Life Members Affinity Group has made
preliminary arrangements for a special visit to the Trillium Hospital
(Mississauga Site) to tour their Cardiac Department to show
us the latest technical equipment for diagnostics and treatment.
Click for details. If you are interested, please call Wallas Khella
(905-279-2976) or Sim Murthy (905-826-2553).
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Upcoming Courses
please note that these dates have been revised
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Apr 9, 2005 1-day course, “Positioned for Success,
Differentiating Yourself”, Celia Desmond & Carolyn Wright, lecturers
Click for details
Apr 23, 2005 1-day course, “Breakthrough Thinking”,
Celia Desmond & Randy Park, lecturers Click for details
May 7, 2005 1-day course, “Networking with Others: The
most important job you will ever have”, Celia Desmond & Carolyn Wright, lecturers
Click for details
May 13 & 14, 2005 2-day course, “Project Management –
Meeting those pesky Requirements”, Celia Desmond, lecturer
Click for details
May 21, 2005 1-day course, “Understanding Personality
Type: Reading Character through TRUE COLORS”, Carolyn Wright, lecturer
Click for details
Jun 4, 2005 1-day course, “Essential Communications for
Engineers”, Celia Desmond, lecturer
Click for details
Upcoming Conferences
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CCECE 05
The 18th Annual Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer
Engineering will be held May 1-4, 2005 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
The deadline for abstract submissions is extended to January 7, 2005.
This is an excellent opportunity for authors to publish and
present papers on a wide variety of topics to an international audience.
Please visit their web site for additional information and links to
the Paper Submission System.
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LinuxWorld & NetworkWorld 2005 Conference & Expo, April
18 - 20, 2005, Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
Your Connection to Today's Applications and Solutions
- Linux overview [PDF]
- Network overview [PDF]
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LinuxWorld Conference & Expo Canada & NetworkWorld Conference & Expo
Canada are the #1 Linux/Open Source and Network IT events in the third
largest region in North America, following New York and San Francisco.
Both events are co-located in Toronto, providing a powerful
combination of education and vendors. The conference offers
dynamic keynotes, case studies, tutorials and hands on labs by renowned
industry specialists, while the trade show feature high profile experts
from leading vendor companies. All this under one roof - A Total Linux &
Network Experience! For more information and registration, please
visit the LinuxWorld conference & expo web site and the NetworkWorld conference & expo web site.
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IEEE members - free pre-registration for trade show, 25% discount
on pre-registeration for conference and tutorials - use code A101 when you
pre-register and show your IEEE membership card at the door.
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Section News
Volunteers Invited - volunteering a few hours a month is a
very rewarding experience - we have a great group of about 45 volunteers
who contribute to the smooth running of our Section - by distributing the
workload over many Section members, the individual load is kept small - we
are looking for a few additional members to help out in the following
specific areas:
- Webmaster for an IEEE international conference to be held
in Toronto in September 2006.
If you are interested, please contact
Alex
- Vice Chair & Secretary for our Power Engineering Chapter
If you are interested, please contact
Ron
- Vice Chair & Secretary for our Women In Engineering Group
If you are interested, please contact
Visda
- Vice Chairs for our Engineering and Human Environment Chapter
with specific Society responsibilities - one each for the Education Society,
the Engineering Management Society, the Professional Communication Society,
and the Reliability Society. For descriptions of these positions refer
to this position profile. If you are
interested in volunteering as a chapter Vice Chair please contact chapter
chair Ed
Women in Engineering event at the University of Toronto -- "Getting to
Know You" - submitted by Visda Vokhshoori
With the support of faculty members in Electrical and Computer
Engineering (ECE) and Computer Science (CS) departments at the University
of Toronto (UofT), a "Getting to Know You" panel discussion,
sponsored by IBM, was held on Thursday, January 20th at the Bahen Center
at UofT. This event was aimed at promoting the retention of women in
ECE and computing degree programs by providing a social forum where they can
meet and hear from women who are successful role models.
The event was organized by the Women in Engineering (WIE) affinity group
in the UofT IEEE student branch, along with IEEE and WISE. It was carried
out in a simple but successful format. More than 30 undergraduate female
ECE and CS students came to the event. And each brought home with them
new contacts, ideas and perspectives, which we hope will serve as a key
to open new doors for them in life.
The five-member panel represented women in all phases of their careers.
From the left, Jibsy Jacob is a fourth year computer engineering student and
Cecily Liu is a fourth year electrical engineering student, both have finished
their sixteen-month PEY (industrial) experience.
Dr. Irene Katzela's career includes both being a professor and an owner of a
successful consulting company.
Jenny Choy has worked for
IBM for 20 years and was the first woman elected to the IBM Academy of
Technology.
Rama Natarajan had worked for 2 years after obtaining her
Master's degree and is now a second year Ph.D. student in the CS department.
We also invited professors,
graduate students and representatives from IBM and IEEE.
The panel discussion was composed of three parts: first, short
introductions from each panelist; second, questions and answers between the
audience and panelists; third, networking and dinner. A very open,
direct, instructive and heated discussion followed the introduction of
each panelist.
All audiences are interested in hearing how to achieve success in engineering
while women, being in the minority, want to look at and overcome the
additional problems that most female engineers face.
For example - how to balance personal life and career. With the rich
experience of the panelists, they guided us to see problems through
different angles; through their examples, most of the audience walked
away with a firmer belief that we can do more and better than we
thought we could! The event was planned to be from 6 to 8pm but the
discussion went on until 10pm.
One of the second year ECE students said "This is not my first time
attending this kind of discussion, but this one really hit at the
problems! And it is really good to know that others are facing the exact
problems that I am dealing with!" Another student, Kathryn, said
"This was the first Women in Engineering-related event I've attended at
university and it definitely made me want to attend more!" Still more
students expressed their willingness to participate in and volunteer for
future WIE events.
This report (with photos) was initially written by; Ms. Daisy Wang,
Frances Lau, Tina Tahmoureszadeh
and Amir Parayandeh.
Member News
Congratulations to two of our members who have been recently elevated to
Senior Member grade; Gianluca Arcari and Ossama Iskandar If you wish to
apply for Senior Member elevation, or nominate someone else, please use this link.
Student News
Student Ethics Competitions are planned for all 10 IEEE Regions - The IEEE
Ethics and Member Conduct Committee wants to raise the ethics awareness of
IEEE members while they're still in school. To this end, the committee
is launching the IEEE Student Ethics Competition, which will provide student
members with experience in applying ethical concepts to situations that might
arise in the workplace. Find out more at this IEEE web site.
IEEE News
IEEE Computer Society Online Bookshelf Expands to 300 Free Titles
24 Jan. -- Members of the IEEE Computer Society now have unlimited online
access to a rotating collection of 300 unabridged technology books. Subjects
include enterprise computing, graphics and multimedia, hardware, networks,
security, software engineering and more. Larger collections also are
available for a fee. For more information, visit the IEEE Computer Society Online Bookshelf.
Papers Sought for IEEE Life Members' Prize 6 Jan. -- The
Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), in consultation with the IEEE
HistoryCenter, is accepting submissions for The IEEE Life Members' Prize in
Electrical History. The award is for the best paper in electrical
history published in 2004. Papers from any learned journal or magazine
are eligible provided they treat the art or engineering aspects of
electrotechnology and its practitioners in historical perspective. The
prize consists of a cash award of US$500 and a certificate. The prize
will be presented at SHOT's annual meeting on 3-6 Nov. in Minneapolis, Minn.,
USA. For more information, visit SHOT.
myIEEE - your personal IEEE web page - click on the myIEEE image
on the left, and login to your unique personalized page. You will need
your IEEE web account to login - if you don't have one yet, get one right now
- its free - click here
This is a new IEEE service - with limited capabilities at present - it is
using the IEEE membership data base to automatically create links to IEEE
services that reflect your geographic and technical choices. Look for
more features in future. As the main IEEE web site becomes more
sophisticated, you will find navigation simpler and tailored to your
personal preferences.
Membership
Time is running out to renew your IEEE Membership for 2005
Renewing on the web is simple and convenient - just grab your credit
card and click here, then
use your IEEE web account for access.
Have you heard about Special Circumstances discounts? IEEE realizes
that economic circumstances may impact some members' ability to pay the full
amount of IEEE membership dues. For this reason, the following special
circumstance categories have been established:
- Minimum Income Provision.
- Retired Provision.
- Unemployed Provision.
If you qualify, you can get a 50% reduction in membership dues. Please
visit IEEE membership page for the details at the bottom of the
linked page.
Associate Members of the IEEE Toronto Section
Section Chair Kostas Plataniotis has extended the deadline to the END OF
FEBRUARY for a special opportunity to each and everyone of you to consider
upgrading to Member or Senior Member grade, and he is offering to help you.
Please click this link for full details.
Senior Member Upgrade
Are you planning to apply for an IEEE Senior Membership grade?
Keep in mind that the next Admission & Advancement (A&A) panel meeting will
be held in February.
Application and reference forms have to be received at the IEEE Operations
Center by February 9.
For details of the IEEE Senior Member Program, please visit the IEEE
web site or the
Toronto Section's web page
Advertising
The IEEE Toronto Section accepts advertising for items deemed to be of
interest to our members. If you would like to advertise in our newsletter,
please contact the editor.
Thanks For Reading
That's all for now, hope to have you visit again next month ..... Bob Alden,
Editor
Please send any news item submissions, comments, suggestions, concerns to the
editor at this email
How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe
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