Open Forum

OPEN FORUM
Sharing "2007/2008 Globalization Leadership Education Mentoring" Experiences in Taiwan
Education challenges in 21st Century are very different from those in the 20th Century. “The world is flat” according to the author Thomas Friedman (ISBN 0-374-29288-4). He emphasizes that competitiveness arises from various regions of the modern world. In addition, increasing out-sourcing of jobs, not only routines ones but also high-skill ones, has complicated the situation further. Thus, Professor Leah Jamieson, Dean of Engineering at Purdue University and 2007 IEEE Institute President, advocates the needs to teach attributes such as creativity, flexibility, leadership, and business acumen, plus the demand for an “experimental” approach to education. In her keynote speech at “Design Con 2007”, she posed the question to the audience: “Are our graduates going to have the skills they need over the next 40 years?" Similarly, Professor Sun-Yuan Kung of Princeton University emphasizes the need to balance among IQ (intelligent Quotient), EQ (Emotional Quotient), and AQ (Adversity Quotient). AQ is an important measure about how a person in a challenging/difficult situation can figure out solutions and solve the complicated problems. He gave a talk at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in 2006. According to our experience, a good way to increase AQ ability is to achieve the following two conditions: (1) To be in a robust environment which is equipped with some reserve (that is to say for a person needs not to worry about the regular income for the next several months), (2) To have some prior experiences in dealing with adversity events (even at a smaller scale).
To increase the awareness of our colleagues on the education challenges in 21st Century, we have launched a series of focused activities in 2007 and 2008, including: (1) An article on “Where is the Golden Key in Engineering Academia?” (in Chinese) by Bing Sheu, published at National Taiwan University Alumni Newsletters, July 2007 Issue-52, http://www.alum.ntu.edu.tw/read.php?num=52&sn=1260&check= (2) An article on “Facing the New Challenges to Young Generations in 21st Century” (in Chinese) by Bing Sheu, published at National Taiwan University, EE Department Newsletters, May 2007 Issue-24 & Aug 2007 Issue-25, http://alumni.ee.ntu.edu.tw/xoops/modules/xoopsgallery/ (3) An edited book on: “Pursuit of the 21st Century Golden Key (Subtitle: Nurturing Young Generation to Grasp Opportunities in 21st Century)” (mixed in Chinese & English), by Bing Sheu, Peter Wu, and Morris Ker, published by National Chiao Tung University Press, ISBN: 9789868299740. Notice that the book includes a comprehensive review chapter regarding “Paradigm shifts in the design of microelectronic systems” by Prof. Don Bouldin (University of Tennessee), Prof. Andrzej Rucinski, and Adjunct Prof. Thaddeus Kockanski (University of New Hampshire). The articles and the edited book are of academic nature. Thus, we welcome any effort to translate the content to Japanese, Korean, English, or another language to inspire similar Education Mentoring efforts in various countries of the world. The permission is granted as long as it is not for profit purpose.
(Left Photo) At the front row (from left to the right): Honorary Prof. Bing Sheu, Prof./President Peter Wu, Prof./Vice Chancellor Jing-Yang Jou. Second row: Prof. Morris Ker, Teacher Chen, Teacher Peng, Teacher C.C. Liang, Prof./Dean Jason Lin

On December 1, 2007, a new Workshop on: “How to be a significant contributor in international academic societies?” was held under the GLPPC-series. Notice that GLPPC stands for “Globalization Leadership Professors/Teachers Promotion Council” and was first introduced to IEEE Circuits and Systems community in Issue-2, April 2007 of IEEE CAS Society Newsletters. This Workshop was financially co-sponsored by National SoC Program Office and by National Chiao Tung University, with technical co-sponsorship from IEEE CAS Society Taipei Chapter. The invited attendees include, but not limited to, young faculty members in SoC (System-on-Chip) area across Taiwan and also young faculty members from various fields in National Chiao Tung University.

(Left Photo) Prof. Bing Sheu at the workshop

Professor Morris Ker (IEEE Fellow) and Chair-Professor Chin-Teng Lin (IEEE Fellow and CASS BoG Member, Dean of Academic Affairs at National Chiao Tung University) serve as co-organizers of the Workshop. Chair-Prof. Peter Wu (IEEE Fellow, President of National Chiao Tung University) is invited to deliver the opening remark. Honorary Professor Bing Sheu (IEEE Fellow) is invited to give the keynote speech, and he is the primary driver for the GLPPC-series of activities to proactively face education challenges in 21st Century and to brainstorm for better solutions. In the morning, two senior researchers share their valuable experiences. Prof. Liang-Gee Chen (IEEE Fellow, Distinguished Professor at National Taiwan University) shares his CAS experience of more than 20 years. In mid-1980’s, he started participation at IEEE ICCD (International Conference on Computer Design) at Boston, Massachusetts, and has maintained friendly interactions with Dr. Bing Sheu since then. Professor Jing-Yang Jou (IEEE Fellow, Vice Chancellor of University System) emphasizes the importance of finding happiness in academic work. He urges the young people to pursue the right things first. After that, do the things right with good timing and with adequate focus. According to him, maintaining superior relationships with colleagues inside the university and across the profession is of paramount importance in academic career. In addition, life is a process and happiness shall be part of it. A person shall try within his/her own ability and also make positive contributions to the mankind.

(Left Photo) Prof. Julia Chung at the workshop

Next, Professor Julia Chung (IEEE Fellow, CASS BoG Member, Distinguished Prof. at National Cheng Kung University) describes how a female researcher can judiciously balance high demands in the job and in family life while having successful participations at IEEE Circuits and Systems Society. Through Dr. Bing Sheu’s introduction a few years ago, Prof. Julia Chung started attending BoG meetings as an observer first. Since then, she gets involved in CAS activities further in each year. She not only serves as a BoG Member, but also is a leader in charge of the new initiative of “Women in CAS”. She serves as a Co-Guest Editor of IEEE Transactions on CAS, part-1 on a special issue related to Life Science Systems and Applications. She suggests CAS members to be honest, sincere, and grateful on one hand, and be responsible, persistent, and enthusiastic on the other. Professor Morris Ker’s technical areas include electro-static discharge (ESD) protection for silicon microchips and also optimization of circuit aging behavior. He was actively involved in IEEE Electron Devices Society, and IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society before. More recently, he shifted the focus to IEEE Circuits and Systems Society. He shares with the Workshop attendees about how to conduct multi-disciplinary research well and how to make contributions to IEEE activities independent of a particular technical area. Sharing successful experiences with needy colleagues belongs to the latter. Teacher Chih-Chien Liang (from Taipei Chien Kuo High School, the best in Taiwan) shares his experience in participating at GLPPC activities as a high-school teacher. He emphasizes the importance of inspiring the young generation to love science and engineering (with analytic ability, reasoning, hand-calculations) at the early stage before the kids are highly induced to play computer games. In the afternoon, many other well-established researchers share their success stories. Prof. Chen-Yi Lee (R&D Dean at National Chiao Tung University) describes a recipe to complete successful research projects. First is to select the most suitable topic that shall catch the pulse of the given time with sound professional judgment. Second, the desired accomplishment goals shall be clearly defined with explicit benchmarking to contemporary scientific/engineering world records. Then, elaborate the accumulated strengthen of one’s research group to conduct the selected research topic. One approach is to leverage on team effort in resource integration and sharing. Another approach is to seek collaboration across university boundary inside the same country or go internationally. Special emphasis is to be placed on return-on-investment (ROI) that maximizes performance at minimized research cost. Prof. Yu-Chee Tseng (Chair of Computer Science and Engineering Department at National Chiao Tung University) addresses the issue of whether a Ph.D. student shall be given great freedom in choosing research topic? He outlines a systematic approach in identifying a subject that is worthy of further investigation. First is to thoroughly study related papers and write down notes of key issues. Do not trust the authority blindly. Borrow ideas/features from one field to another. Even after a standard platform has been defined by the standard organization, there is plenty of room for other researchers to find additional advanced features because a standard is usually the result of compromise among many competing proposals. When the author writes a journal paper, it is the author’s responsibility to explain the content clearly instead of challenging the understanding or wisdom of the readers. In reviewing a technical manuscript, Prof. Yu-Chee Tseng searches for some key items, such as importance, creativity, analytical nature, and amount of simulation data to support the arguments. Next, Prof. Cheng-Wen Wu (IEEE Fellow, Director of ITRI/SoC Center, also former EECS Dean at National Tsing Hua University) describes their approach at Laboratory for Reliable Computing (LARC) which supports about 10 professors and 150 graduate students. Honorary Professor Bing Sheu reviewed 2 important pieces of information. One is on promotion to IEEE Senior Membership. Several salient benefits have been cited for becoming an IEEE Senior Member, including but not limited to: (1) professional recognition of excellence, (2) A senior member plaque to proudly display, (3) up to U.S. $25 gift certificate from IEEE, (4) a letter of commendation, (5) eligibility to hold IEEE executive volunteer positions, (6) can serve as Reference for IEEE senior member applicants, (7) invited to serve on panel to review senior member applications, and (8) pre-requisite to be elected to IEEE Fellow grade. The requirements to become an IEEE Senior Member are: (1) An engineer, educator, technical executive or originator in IEEE-designated fields, (2) in professional practice for at least 10 years, (3) have shown significant performance over a period of at least five of those years. Examples include team leader, task supervisor, engineer performing research with some measure of success (papers), faculty developing and teaching courses with research and publications. Honorary Professor Bing Sheu also reviewed the previous presentation content entitled: “Pursuing high-tech academia leadership excellence, how to proceed?” which was first revealed at Forum-II per invitation of Prof. Mona Zaghloul during ISCAS-2004 in Vancouver, Canada. It highlights the dos and don’ts in successful publications at CAS journals, conference proceedings, including Guest Editor for special issue and/or Organizer of special sessions. A similar Workshop will be jointly organized by Professor Chua-Chin Wang (National Sun Yat-Sen University) and Prof. Julia Chung (National Cheng Kung University) to be held in Kaohsiung city, Taiwan in April 2008. We highly encourage CAS members in other countries/regions also become active in such important endeavor in the 21st Century.
Bing Sheu, Morris (Ming-Dou) Ker, Chin-Teng Lin and Peter (Chung-Yu) Wu, National Chiao-Tung University (NCTU), Taiwan (Email: b.sheu@ieee.org)