IEEE India Ad Hoc Committee
IEEE 2008 President Dr. Lew M. Terman identified a major IEEE initiative for the year 2008 in name of “Focus on India” seeing the huge potential of India in the emerging world. India has crossed the mark of 20,000 in membership. It has 10 sections against 57 in R10 and 324 global, 369 Student Branches against 524 in R10 and 1600 global. India has the second largest IEEE membership after the US. It accounts for 20% of world student membership. It tops in women in engineering membership. IEEE Bombay section has been among the top 5 Sections in the world. Among the top 5 Sections world over in student membership, 4 sections are under India (based on 2006 statistics). India organizes many IEEE sponsored international conferences year after year.
An India Initiative Team, comprising of Rangachar Kasturi, 2008 President, IEEE Computer Society, Matthew Loeb, IEEE Staff Director, Providence More, Manager for Strategic Planning and Angela Burgess, Executive Director, IEEE Computer Society visited India in May 2008 covering all metros to assess
Better understanding of the needs of the technology community in India
Develop productive relationships with industry
Increase IEEE’s overall presence and impact; more technical activities
Increase the participation of Indian technology professionals in IEEE activities
Increase membership at all levels; more GOLD members; more active sections, chapters, student branches.
After a follow up visit in Nov 2008, this team submitted its recommendation to the IEEE BoG in Dec 2008. Based on this IEEE 2009 President Dr. John Vig constituted an IEEE India Ad Hoc Committee to work on the recommendations to determine the needs and big challenges how can the IEEE help address these challenges, and what can IEEE do to meet the needs of the technology community in India in a more focused way.
It comprises of Rangachar Kasturi and R. Muralidharan as its Co-Chairs along with Anil K. Roy, Balvinder Blah, Janina Mazierska, Matt Loeb, Lewis M. Terman, N.R. Narayana Murthy, N.T. Nair, Peter Sobel, Sourav Dutta, Trish Sgromolo, Vijay Bhargava as members.
It involves exploring opportunities in India as a Model for IEEE's Global Growth. Four key areas for further exploration have been identified Membership Development Technical Activities Partnerships with corporations and standards bodies and Humanitarian/Sustainability activities. The IEEE India Ad Hoc committee will build upon this effort and develop a plan, with well defined targets, in each of these four areas. While this effort's focus is on India, the strategic goal is to develop a plan that could be deployed in other parts of the world with similar characteristics.
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