Bucharest, Romania

The Polytechnic University of Bucharest IEEE-COMTE Student Branch Chapter has been very active during its three years of existence. The member's efforts in familiarizing students of the Polytechnic University of Bucharest with IEEE CMPT goals and member benefits were recognized and encouraged through receiving the "2003 Best Student Branch Chapter of the Year Award". The prize was officially received by SBC advisor Prof. Paul Svasta at the 53rd Annual ECTC, COMTE Society Awards, on May 29.

Our chapter impressed the evaluation committee by organizing outstanding programs for members through global collaboration and participation in technical conferences, student contests and local meetings:

Collaboration with partner universities such as TU Vienna, TU Dresden, UTE Budapest, UT Cluj
Members' participation at national and international conferences (Romania, Czech Republic, Poland, Egypt, Slovakia);
Involvement in organization of conferences like the ISSE 2001, SIITME (2001, 2002, 2003), TIE student contest and

students' debating society (Student Workshop on Electronics Technology, Reliability and Packaging);
Regular meetings for dissemination of knowledge in electrical engineering.

Further details regarding the SBC activities and events can be found at our home page: www.cetti.ro/sbc/index.html.

To facilitate better transparency of the SBC activities, the student Chapter organized on July 16 a Workshop on "The involvement of students in electronic modules' designing and manufacturing" with the purpose of attracting students towards electronic packaging research activities. In the workshop's opening, Professor Ioan Dumitrache, the Rector of our University, accorded officially the "2003 Best Student Branch Chapter of the Year Award" to the SBC officers [picture 1]. Student members then gave interesting and informative presentations of their research results. At the end of the workshop a discussion forum took place where participants and organizers discussed important topics: updating our learning environment to the actual requests of informational society by including teamwork, and economics lectures in the learning program. More than 40 students attended this event [picture2]. In future we will organize similar workshops every year. These will be in the autumn, after the start of the university lectures, for the newly arrived students and for all students interested in research and development of electronic microsystems packaging.

The Center of Technological Electronics and Interconnection Techniques (CETTI) sustains strongly our activity, offering modern laboratories, technical assistance and the financial support necessary for our research activities.

The Hungarian and Romanian (HU&RO) Joint Chapter is an important promoter of CPMT goals in our countries. Members participate every year in ECTC, ISSE, Polytronic, SIITME and other conferences. For many years the Chapter has been the Technical co-sponsor of SIITME (International Symposium for Design and Technology for Electronic Modules). This symposium promotes electronic packaging in our region and allows researchers from Hungarian and Romanian Universities to exchange ideas and maintain contact with partner Universities from the United States and other European countries.

The HU&RO Joint Chapter also brings a major contribution to the ARIES (Romanian Association for Electric and Software Industry) activity in promoting High Tech industry to interested firms. These issues will be applied at the coming BINARY 2003 (BusIness iNovAtion and gReat qualitY) Fair for the electronic and software industry, in Bucharest 24-26 September, where members of the HU&RO Joint Chapter and IEEE Student Branch Chapter will be present.

And we will not stop here. As soon as the school year begins, student members will participate with papers at the upcoming conference SIITME 2003. Together with students coming from Romania's main universities and from abroad we will participate with papers in the second edition of the Student Forum & Workshop. At the same time, ARIES will support the TIE (Technology for Electronic Interconnection) student contest (www.cetti.ro/sbc). [picture 3]
Next year our student chapter will have the pleasure to be involved in organizing SIITME 2004 in Bucharest, which will be the jubilee edition (10th) of the conference, which you are all invited to participate in between 23 and 26 September, 2004. See you there!

Romina Daniela Macabinski
romina@cetti.ro
Press Officer of IEEE -CPMT SBC
Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Romania

Note:

picture1- Victoras Ene Vice Chair of SBC receives the award from Professor Ioan Dumitrache Rector of the Polytechnic University of Bucharest

picture2- Members of
IEEE-CPMT Student Branch Chapter Polytechnic University of Bucharest and participants at the Workshop on "The involvement of students in electronic modules' designing and manufacturing", Bucharest, July 14, 2003

picture3- Professor Viorel Popescu Dean of Electronic and Telecomunication Departament of Polytechnic University of Timisoara; Alexandru Borcea ARIES President and Professor Paul Svasta Chair of HU&RO IEEE-CPMT Joint Chapter at TIE student contest, Timisoara, May 23, 2003

Professor Paul Svasta
svasta@cetti.ro
Chair of HU&RO IEEE-CPMT Joint Chapter
Advisor of IEEE -CPMT SBC
Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Romania