Chi Kong Tse

IEEE Sections Congress and CASS Workshop Ottawa

Summary: The IEEE Sections Congress is organized every 3 years, with the participation of section chairs from all over the world. The 2023 edition was organized in Ottawa, Canada, and CASS participated with a booth and as a Sponsoring Society. The opportunity was taken to organize a CASS Workshop at the CASS Ottawa Chapter.

I. THE IEEE SECTIONS CONGRESS

The IEEE Sections Congress, the triennial flagship event hosted by IEEE MGA, was organized in Ottawa, Canada, from August 11 to 13, at the Shaw Centre. It was the first IEEE Sections Congress in person since 2017, as the 2020 edition was virtual. Fig. 1 shows the IEEE Sections Congress Exhibition room.

The 2023 IEEE Sections Congress Program is available at https://sections-congress.ieee.org/index.html. The main theme of the event this year was “Enabling Leaders to Build a Sustainable Future” to recognize the global crisis of climate change, as well as IEEE’s commitment to helping alleviate the effects through pragmatic, accessible technical solutions for sustainability, and providing engineers and technologists with a neutral space for discussion and action.

Some key numbers from this year’s Congress were:

• 1,096 of attendees
• 303 sections represented
• 95 countries represented
• 97 speakers, 101 topics

The main outcome of the Congress were these three top recommendations:

1. Provide continuing incentives to volunteers: IEEE needs to provide more incentives to increase the number of volunteers. These incentives would contribute to recognizing volunteers’ value and time investment. Incentive examples: IEEE to send letters to employers recognizing their employees' service to the profession, IEEE to provide free membership for the years of volunteer service, IEEE to provide a plaque stating the IEEE years of service, IEEE Badge for LinkedIn profile, IEEE to provide a swag bag with IEEE items.
2. Continuous Education in the IEEE professional field: Partner with other professional organizations for continuing education. This could include training and courses that lead to credentials such as digital badges, certificates and professional development units or hours.
3. Provide support, education, and processes for working with Student Chapters & building relationships with Sections: The exact relationship between student branches, faculty advisors, and sections is unclear. This has led to some student branches that use the IEEE name but have no official affiliation with the IEEE. Furthermore, the path to officially tie these student branches to the IEEE and local sections is unclear.

II. IEEE CASS IN THE IEEE SECTIONS CONGRESS

IEEE CASS was represented in the IEEE Sections Congress by Manuel Delgado-Restituto (CASS president), Hai (Helen) Li (CASS BoG Member) and Ricardo Reis (CASS BoG Member), see Fig. 2. The banner shows that CASS was the only IEEE Society sponsoring the 2023 IEEE Sections Congress, under the Event Sponsor modality. The full list of sponsors is available at https://sections-congress.ieee.org/our-sponsors.html.

Additionally, CASS was one of the IEEE organizations with a booth in the Congress exhibition room. In total, there were over 50 Exhibit Booths, including 10 booths from IEEE societies, and a Climate Change Pavilion. The full list is available at https://sections-congress.ieee.org/exhibit-booth.html.

The CASS booth was visited by dozens of attendees and, in general, the participation in the IEEE Sections Congress proved to be a great opportunity to meet IEEE Section Chairs from around the world.

III. IEEE CASS WORKSHOP

Following the IEEE Sections Congress, the IEEE CASS Ottawa Chapter, chaired by Professor Ram Achar, organized an IEEE CASS workshop. The workshop was organized at Carleton University on Monday, August 14, with the following program:

• 8:45. Registration (refreshments)
• 9:00. Welcome and Introduction
• 9:05. Presentation of Prof. Manuel Delgado-Restituto, President of IEEE Circuits and Systems, IMSE-Univ. of Sevilla, Spain, entitled A Brief Review of the Circuits and Systems Society.
• 9:45. Presentation of Prof. Hai (Helen) Li, Dept. of ECE, Duke University, USA, entitled Cross-layer Design Optimization for Processing-in-Memory Al Systems.
• 10:30. Break (refreshments)
• 10:45. Presentation of Prof. Ricardo Reis, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Brazil, entitled Physical Design: From Past to Future
• 11:30. Presentation of Prof. Ram Achar, IEEE EPS Distinguished Lecturer, Professor, Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, entitled Emerging Challenges of Signal Integrity Issues and High-Speed Interconnects.
• 12:15. Vote of Thanks
• 12:20. Photos (see Fig.3) and Networking

Figure 3. Photograph with some of the workshop participant

IV. CONCLUSIONS

The IEEE CASS participation in the 2023 IEEE Sections Congress offered an opportunity to promote our Society and interact with IEEE Section Chairs for establishing new CASS chapters in Sections where a chapter does not yet exist. It was also great to take the opportunity to hold a CASS workshop organized by the local CASS Section in Ottawa. Thanks to Prof. Ram Achar for his collaboration.

This reported is written by
Ricardo Reis, CASS BoG Member
Hai Li, CASS BoG Member, and
Manuel Delgado-Restituto, CASS President

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South East Asia Circuits and Systems 2023 (SEACAS 2023)

Photo (above) IEEE CASS Officers and Student Mentors.
Photo (below) student participants during the chipathon on Day 1

The South East Asia Circuits and Systems (SEACAS) 2023 was held in the Philippines on September 18-19, 2023. The event was hosted at the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute of the University of the Philippines in Diliman through the IEEE Circuits and Systems and Signal Processing Society Joint Chapter of the Philippines Section and the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Philippines Chapter. The event was attended by representatives from IEEE CASS Executive and six (6) Chapters from Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines). In total, there were 17 CASS officers and student mentors, and 17 student participants who participated in the first SEACAS Student Chipathon. For Day 1, while the students were busy working on the chip design competition (chipathon), the chapter officers and representatives were also busy presenting and discussing their experience and best practices on managing/organizing a CAS chapter, as well as their research and other activities.

Photo (left): Participants in their safety gear at the UP Diliman Microfabrication Facility. Photo (right): Participants inside the Anechoic Chamber

The second workshop day started with a laboratory tour of the University of the Philippines. Among the facilities visited were the Microelectronics and Microprocessors Laboratory (Microlab), the University Laboratory for Small Satellites and Space Engineering Systems (ULyS3ES) and their Full Anechoic Chamber, and the UP Diliman Microfabrication Laboratory (UP DMF).

Photo (above): Participants and local organizers during the fellowship night

The workshop culminated with a fellowship banquet dinner and prizes awarded to the Chipathon winners.

This report is prepared by: 
Rhandley Cajote and Anastacia Alvarez