As I shared within the March column, my objective as IEEE president is to work with all members—notably college students, younger professionals, and affinity group members—to make IEEE a extra profitable and resilient international technical group. I additionally need the group to be globally acknowledged as a power for change. To succeed in these objectives, I’ve been defining goals that interact our members.
This yr, I chartered 4 advert hoc committees: local weather change, revolutionary funding fashions, president-elect marketing campaign pilot program, and multimedia-based digital actuality applied sciences. These member-led committees are serving to IEEE concentrate on gadgets of concern and create well-coordinated street maps to assist develop packages and positions to hold out its mission of public service.
To make IEEE extra related to younger professionals and ladies technologists, I’ve strived to assist improve participation and engagement inside their affinity teams. In truth, I’m a member of IEEE Girls in Engineering as a result of I consider it is a company for girls, not of ladies. I’ve had the chance to attend and communicate at each WIE and IEEE Younger Professionals conferences, and I encourage fixed contact with the group’s management. These engagements on the grassroots degree present higher insights into understanding the neighborhood’s wants and what sources might assist advance members’ skilled lives.
I wish to see IEEE interact extra broadly with worldwide organizations to supply technologists further alternatives to contribute for the advantage of humanity. For instance, IEEE is now engaged intently with the U.N. Framework Conference on Local weather Change, which is tasked with supporting the worldwide response to the specter of local weather change. I spoke on the UNFCCC Convention of Events (COP27) final yr and might be talking at COP28 within the United Arab Emirates in December. Such engagements spotlight how IEEE’s international neighborhood of engineers and technologists is utilizing its experience to assist develop options to deal with crucial local weather change points.
In July, I spoke at two distinguished sustainability and inexperienced transition–associated occasions in Europe: the EU Inexperienced Week and the European Sustainable Power Week (EUSEW). The occasions, each held in Brussels, targeted on renewable vitality, sustainable growth, and inexperienced abilities, the information, skills, and attitudes wanted to stay in, develop, and help a sustainable and resource-efficient society.
EU Inexperienced Week, which is organized by the European Fee’s Directorate-Normal for Atmosphere, promotes environmental insurance policies on biodiversity, the round financial system, and eliminating air pollution.
EUSEW is the most important annual occasion devoted to renewables and environment friendly vitality use in Europe. It’s organized by the European Local weather, Infrastructure, and Atmosphere Govt Company (CINEA) and the Directorate-Normal for Power.
I additionally participated in discussions on the European Parliament and the European Fee on the skill-sets engineers and technologists must work within the renewable vitality sector and shared examples and use instances from around the globe to focus on methods to deal with the necessity for brand spanking new abilities.
These occasions have been wonderful alternatives to talk with policymakers, main environmentalists, and stakeholders from Europe and past, and to study actions being taken to guard and restore the environment for current and future generations.
I had the chance to have interaction with members of the IEEE European Public Coverage Committee’s Working Group on Power in discussions across the continent’s developments and priorities within the discipline of inexperienced transition and vitality. I additionally held fruitful discussions on the significance of climate-related information and the challenges round accessing, utilizing, and evaluating information with representatives from the European Fee’s Directorate-Generals of Power, Local weather Motion, and Communications Networks, Content material, and Know-how. We explored methods IEEE can collaborate with these teams primarily based on the power of our worldwide community and technical experience.
To help my objective of growing nearer and extra purposeful relationships with trade leaders, I met with representatives from Huawei, Schneider Electrical, and VMWare. I additionally met with UNIDO, the U.N. Industrial Improvement Group that assists international locations in financial and industrial growth, and ICLEI, a world community of greater than 2,500 native and regional governments dedicated to sustainable city growth. Key matters of debate have been the technical {and professional} abilities wanted within the inexperienced digital transition and the significance of constructing a talented workforce required to energy this transition.
IEEE definitely has a task to play in addressing the rising demand for experience in sustainable growth, in addition to coaching engineers and technical professionals to fulfill this want. The inexperienced transition is a cross-cutting coverage subject that requires the inclusion of those that is perhaps excluded from green-growth sectors and inexperienced jobs, reminiscent of younger professionals, ladies, and members of underrepresented communities.
Creating a powerful technique that goals to create a sustainable digital financial system can create new job alternatives and promote financial progress whereas additionally lowering the environmental affect.
Please share your ideas with me: president@ieee.org.
—SAIFUR RAHMAN
IEEE president and CEO
