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.

Report on our Centennial Forum

Our Centennial Forum on Reliable Power Grids in Canada featured four experts; (from the left, sitting, in the photograph) Dan Rochester - the manager of the section responsible for reliability outlooks for the Independent Electricity Market Operator in Ontario, Jim Lee - supervisor of transmission system development at Hydro One Networks in Ontario, Jean-Marie Gagnon - director of interconnection development at Hydro-Québec TransÉnergie, and Prabha Kundur - president of Powertech Labs in British Columbia. Professor Mo El-Hawary of Dalhousie University in Halifax was the moderator (right side), and our own Bob Hanna was the convenor (standing). The room was packed, everyone enjoyed a light supper and heavy networking, a wide ranging set of presentations, stimulating discussions, and a real opportunity to interact. You can see many photographs (full size) taken at this event, and view on-line the speaker presentations by visiting our web pages for this event.

Report on our Centennial Banquet

Honoured Guests. The honoured guests for this event were the past IEEE Toronto Section chairs, many of whom are shown in the photograph. For names, please view the linked set of photographs (this one is # 169). Our Section Secretary, Pelle Westlind, was a splendid master of ceremonies and kept the program of activities reasonably well on track in spite of the tendency of IEEE Canada President Mo ElHawary and IEEE Toronto Chair Bob Hanna to get caught up in the enthousiasm and special nature of this historic event.

IEEE Canada Awards. IEEE Canada presented three awards; a comemorative plaque to Dr. Wallace S. Read recognizing his recent induction as a member of the Order of Canada, the 2002 IEEE Sustained Membership Growth Award to the Toronto Section, and the 2003 McNaughton Medal to Dr. Anastasios Venetsanopoulos, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto - the citation reads "for outstanding contributions to the design and implementation of communication systems, digital filters and multimedia systems; IEEE; the engineering profession and society at large".

Multimedia Presentation. The IEEE Toronto Centennial celebration started with a multimedia presentation featuring an historical perspective of developments in Toronto and the IEEE since the founding of AIEE in the 1880's using a sequence of slides set to appropriate music of the period, decade by decade. The sequence concluded with a series of video clips capturing the thoughts of several IEEE volunteers. Please keep watch on the IEEE Toronto web site for details about downloading or obtaining a copy of this historic record.

Member Recognitions. Section Chair Bob Hanna paid tribute to the various programs offered by the Section and the members and volunteers who contributed in various important ways. He first focused on four categories of IEEE membership by naming those achieving this status in our centennial year and asking those present in that category to stand and be recognized:
- Student Scholarship Winners
- Senior Member Upgrades
- Fellows
- Life Members

Centennial Medals. Section Chair Bob Hanna had arranged a suitable sequence of special recognitions to mark the occasion. Unique IEEE Toronto Section Centennial medals had been designed and struck for this evening's presentations. These medals were awarded in four categories:
- fifteen past Section Chairs
- five IEEE Corporate volunteers
- nine IEEE Toronto volunteers
- three additional IEEE Toronto volunteers (see next paragraph)

Establishment of Scholarships. IEEE Toronto Section wished to recognize in a special way the contributions of three Section volunteers for their outstanding services and dedication. The Section decided to establish scholarships to be named after these volunteers:
- The IEEE Toronto Section Bruno Di Stefano Scholarship
- The IEEE Toronto Section Dr. Wallas H. Khella Scholarship
- The IEEE Canadian Foundation Dr. Robert T.H. Alden Scholarship (to be presented jointly by the IEEE Toronto Section and the IEEE Canadian Foundation)

Many additional photographs (full size) and other information about this historic event are posted on the IEEE Toronto web site.

Profile on Wallas Khella

Wallas Khella was honoured at the recent Centennial Banquet for his sterling efforts as a long time volunteer for the IEEE Toronto Section. Wallas has been one of our most effective volunteers - for three decades. He began his association with the IEEE Toronto Section as Coordinator of Educational Activities in 1973. He not only organized a successful program but also lectured a series of popular courses in electrical power distribution. In 1983, he became Treasurer, then Secretary, Vice-Chair and Chair. While Section Chair he initiated the program of annual scholarships for selected student members at several of our local educational institutions. He has continued this interest as a director of the IEEE Canadian Foundation and is currently the chair of the Student Branch Liaison Committee for the foundation, as well as continuing to serve on the Toronto Section Executive Committee as a member at large. It is therefore most appropriate that a Toronto Section scholarship has been established in his honour. The photograph shows Wallas (right) receiving his award from IEEE Canada Director Emeritus Wally Read.

Complimenting his outstanding volunteer activities, Wallas has had a distinguished career as an electric power engineer. Wallas graduated from Cairo University (Egypt) in 1955 and obtained his Ph.D. from Dresden University (Germany) in 1962. After emigrating to Canada in 1968, he joined the Municipal Hydro Utilities working in the area of Distribution System Planning and Design. In 1994 he retired from Etobicoke Hydro and established W. H. Khella Enterprises providing engineering services to the Hydro Electrical Industry. Wallas is a Senior Member of IEEE, a fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada and a PEO member.

Upcoming Chapter Activities

November 4 Professor Aria Nosratinia of the University of Texas at Dallas will present a seminar on "Cooperative Communication in Wireless Networks" organized by our Communications chapter . Click for details.

November 6 Professor Lisimachos Konti of the State University of New York at Buffalo will present a lecture on "Scalable Video Transmission over DS-CDMA Wireless Systems", organized by our Signals and Applications chapter in cooperation with the Communications Group of the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the University of Toronto . Click for details.

November 7 Dr. Thomas J. Glynn, Director of the National Centre for Laser Applications at the National University of Ireland in Galway will present a lecture on "Engineering with Lasers" organized by our Circuits and Devices chapter (IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society). Click for details.

November 12 Denis Carlos, P.Eng, M.B.A., a forensic scientist with the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto will present a seminar on "Forensic Recovery of Digital Evidence" organized by our Computer and Communications chapters in cooperation with the PEO Scarborough Chapter. Click for details.

November 13 Paul Wing will present a lecture on "Public Key Infrastructure: The Long, Meandering Adoption Curve" organized by our Computer chapter. Click for details.

November 20 Mary Ann Baynton, R.S.W. of the Canadian Mental Health Association will present a lecture organized by our Engineering and Human Environment Chapter entitled "Mental Health in the High-Tech Workplace". Click for details.

November 27 Dr. Aleksandar Jeremic will present a seminar organized by our GOLD and Computer chapters on "Get the Penguin -- Linux -- How-To ". Click for details.

Recent Chapter Activities

The above photograph was taken on October 29 at the seminar "End of Life for Power Transformers" - which was very well attended and appreciated. It was jointly sponsored by three of our chapters; Dielectrics & Electrical Insulation, Industry Applications, and Power Engineering. It was also the first event of our newly reconstituted Industry Applications Chapter.

Upcoming Conferences

The 2004 Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering, May 2 - 5, 2004, Niagara Falls, Ontario.   It is time to submit papers! Planning is well underway for IEEE Canada's annual conference and awards banquet. The location is fantastic, the hotel is great, the program is being developed with interesting and informative guest speakers, and we expect the usual submissions of papers from across Canada, the United States, and around the world. If you have not yet done so, Conference Chair Bob Hanna, and Technical Programme Co-Chairs Kostas Plataniotis (U of T) and Alagan Anpalagan (Ryerson) invite you to submit your paper abstracts now. The on-line submission process for abstracts in the form of PDF files is now available, as is the hotel registration process. For more information, please visit the conference web site.

A New Service - Careers

IEEE Toronto is introducing a new service for its members - information about careers and career opportunities. We invite employers to provide us with information about their organization and specific job openings. We will be pleased to provide space on our website for logos, text, and links, so that we may use the high quality networking capability of our Section and its membership of about three thousand engineering professionals, to link potential employees with potential employers. Our Careers website will be developed over time at toronto.ieee.ca/careers

Report on Elections

Our 2004/2005 IEEE Toronto Section Officers are; Chair - Kostas Plataniotis (shown in photo), Vice Chair - Dennis Cecic, Secretary - Pelle Westlind, Treasurer - Al Wallis.

The outcome of our biannual election process was announced at the Section's brief business meeting held at the end of the Centennial program as previously publicized.

We welcome Kostas and Dennis in their new roles, as well as Pelle and Al as they continue in their current positions.

Member News

We were saddened to learn that Ted Millen (1950-51 AIEE Toronto Section Chair) passed away about the time of our Centennial. Ted and his wife were residing in Peterborough, Ontario, and had made plans to attend our Banquet. Luc Matteau of the Peterborough Section visited Ted's wife to present her with his Centennial medal - presented to all former Toronto Section Chairs. We offer his family our condolences. Click to view his obituary.

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 newsletter.toronto@ieee.org.

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