2008 Activities and Events

Social Talks

Date/Time July 4th, 2008   Title “Work smarter! Not harder!”- How to be “Successful” in Your Engineering Research Career? Speaker Prof. Nam Ling, Department of Computer Engineering, Associate Dean of School of Engineering, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California 95053 USA Abstract “Success” is a really a relative term if one applies to a research career. However, I envision that all of us in pursuing a research career in the IT area have some agreements on what we wish to achieve in our career to be considered “successful”. Making a major technological impact from our research, becoming a fellow in a major professional society, reaching the highest research rank in our organization, or taking major professional leadership – could all be considered as successful by many researchers. If so, how to achieve these goals? Technical contributions in the forms of patents, publications, products, and standards contributions – could all be steps to success, but are these enough? Are we neglecting the other aspects of success such as professional connections, role models, synergy (win/win), and the right way to assess and present our achievements? We will discuss setting short- and long-range career goals, setting strategies to achieve them, and periodically assessing and re-strategizing the stages. On the other hand, we should not be over-obsessed with career success at the expense of our family, health, personal time, as well as mental (and for some, spiritual) aspects of our lives. Managing our time, setting our priorities, not getting over-committed by service requests (we only have 24 hours a day), staying proactive and not reactive – could be important elements to think about. In this talk, I will attempt to share my experience and insight from what I have learned and applied through my own career. We all want to achieve a successful career and yet live joyfully – Work smarter! Not harder! Biography Prof. Nam LING received a B.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Singapore (NUS). He received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, both in Computer Engineering, from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, U.S.A. Prof. Ling is currently a full Professor of Computer Engineering and the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development for the School of Engineering at Santa Clara University (SCU), California, U.S.A. He is also a Consulting Professor for NUS Overseas Colleges and a Guest Professor of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. He has served as Visiting Professor/Consultant/Scientist/Scholar to many institutions and as Collaborator/Consultant to several companies. Prof. Ling is an IEEE Fellow due to his contributions to video coding algorithms and architectures. He has more than 130 publications in the fields of video coding and systolic arrays. He is the primary author of the book entitled Specification and Verification of Systolic Arrays. He and his team’s method on fast motion estimation (SUMH or SFME) was adopted in 2005, and their Lagrange multiplier method (CALM) was adopted in 2006, both now part of the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video coding international standard document and reference software. Prof. Ling received the Arthur Vining Davis Junior Faculty Fellowship (1991), the SCU Outstanding Achievement Award (1992), the SCU Engineering Researcher of the Year Award (2000), the SCU Award for Recent Achievement in Scholarship (2002), the SCU President’s Recognition Award (2005), and the SCU Award for Sustained Excellence in Scholarship (2007). He was named IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for 2002-2003 and 2007-2008. Prof. Ling also received the 2003 IEEE ICCE Best Paper Award (First Place Winner) for the work on MPEG-4 face animation, and part of the work was adopted by broadcasting organizations in the U.S. Prof. Ling will serve as a Keynote Speaker for the 2008 IEEE APCCAS. He was a speaker for the Shannon Lecture Series at Stanford in 2004. He was the General Chair for the IEEE Hot Chips Symposium in 1995 and was a Technical Program Co-Chair for the 2007 IEEE ISCAS. He also served as Technical Program Co-Chair for SiPS 2000, SiPS 2007, and DCV 2002. He was Track Co-Chair for ISCAS 04-06. Prof. Ling served as the Chair of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee (TC) on Microprocessors and Microcomputers in 1993-95, and the Chair of the IEEE Circuits and Systems (CAS) Society Circuits and Systems for Communications TC in 2006-08. He is also a member of the IEEE CAS Society TC on VSPC and a member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society DISPS TC. Prof. Ling served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems - I in 2002-03. He was a Guest Editor for the Journal of VLSI Signal Processing Systems special issue in 2006. Prof. Ling served in program committees, organizing committees, and as session chairs for many IEEE conferences. He also served in the editorial boards of several technical journals. Prof. Ling has delivered more than 90 invited/distinguished/keynote colloquia in eight different countries. Venue Big One, Level 1, Institute for Infocomm Research, 21 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore 119613 Organizers IEEE Singapore Women In Engineering Affinity Group Sponsors   Misc Announcement Presentation materials Photos of the Event Map of Venue

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Date/Time October 3rd, 2008   Title Transition Speaker Ms Rose  Tan, Former Director - Business Process Integration, Polo Ralph Lauren Sourcing (S) Pte Ltd Abstract Be a winner in life by knowing ourselves better and learn how to embrace life’s changes and challenges positively. Mdm Rose Tan will share with us her success story on surmounting life transitions and juggling between work and family. All of us possess within ourselves, the power to transform the quality of our lives at every moment and any circumstances. In this talk, you will learn about: Types of transition Challenges in choice we made vs % time allocation for family, workplace and community Embracing the realities of life What are the true success values in life Knowing who we are through character check list What are the negative characters in workplace Building trust and communication Biography Mdm Rose Tan was a Director in Business Process Integration of Polo Ralph Lauren Sourcing (S) Pte Ltd). She had been with Polo Ralph Lauren for 18 years, the first 8 years as Regional Merchandising Manager and the balance 10 years as Director in Business Process Integration and Merchandise Training. She is experienced both regionally and globally in transition/restructure management and implementation of worldwide Enterprise Resource Planning System. In 2008, she opted for the retrenchment package as the Company relocated back to Hong Kong. She decided to spend more time with her family especially with her 4 lovely daughters (23, 19 & 17x2) in Melbourne and with her husband and mother in Singapore. Venue Franklin, #08-13, Institute Infocomm Research, Connexis South Tower, 1 Fusionopolis Way, Singapore 138632 Organizers IEEE Singapore Women In Engineering Affinity Group Sponsors   Misc Announcement Presentation materials Photos of the Event Map of Venue

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Date/Time October 3rd, 2008   Title Communication (Skill) Speaker Dr Lekha Chaisorn, Chair, IEEE Singapore Section Women In Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group (AG); Group Leader, Signal processing Dept., Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R), A*STAR Abstract Ever feel frustrated because your colleagues and family members often misunderstand what you are saying? Or is poor communication affecting the effectiveness in your workplace? Dr Lekha Chaisorn will share her personal experiences gleaned from her interactions with colleagues (including bosses), friends and family, and provide practical tips on how to improve our communication skills. Biography Dr Chaisorn is the 2008 Chair of the IEEE SG WIE AG . Currently she is working as a group leader of Interactive Media Processing, Signal Processing Dept, at the Institute for Infocomm Research, A*STAR. She was the Assistant Director of Media Division for a period in 2006. She also served several roles in professional activities such as the General Co-Chair of Infocomm Horizons 2007, Singapore; Publication Co-Chairs of ACM Multimedia 2005 and ACM CIVR 2005; the editor of LNCS on Image and Video Retrieval, volume 3568; and technical program committee of several leading conferences such ACM Multimedia, ACM Multimedia Modelling, IEEE ICME, SAMT, etc. Dr Chaisorn is currently the Publication Chair of ACM SIGGRAPH VRCAI 2008 to be held in Singapore during 8-9 December; She was regularly invited to give talks, the most recent being a keynote speech at Multimedia workshop 2007 held at Prince of Songkla Univ, Thailand. Venue Franklin, #08-13, Institute Infocomm Research, Connexis South Tower, 1 Fusionopolis Way, Singapore 138632 Organizers IEEE Singapore Women In Engineering Affinity Group Sponsors   Misc Announcement Presentation materials Photos of the Event Map of Venue

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Networking Events

Date/Time	November 8th, 2008		16:00-20:00
Title	WIE Family Day BBQ
Description
Venue	East Coast Park BBQ Pit 42-43
Organizers	IEEE Singapore Women In Engineering Affinity Group
Sponsors
Misc	Announcement	Presentation materials	Photos of the Event	Map of Venue

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