The IEEE Leadership Wire

2 August 2004

Index

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The IEEE LEADERSHIP WIRE is a report for top-level IEEE volunteers about IEEE affairs and organizational information. It is intended specifically for members of the IEEE Board of Directors, key Board committees and the six major operating boards. The newsletter is sent on or around the first of the month.
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CONTENTS:
*June Membership Highlights
*Member Services Recovers More Than 2,500 IEEE Memberships
*Call for Speakers at the 2005 IEEE Sections Congress
*IEEE Pubs Receive Editorial, Design and Advertising Awards
*EWEEK Work Garners PR Award for IEEE-USA
*New Online Collection for Small, Mid-Sized Businesses Launches
*IEEE Foundation Approves More Than Us$35k in New Grants
*IEEE Computer Society Awards International Design Competition
*Nominations of Female Engineers Sought for Educational Project
*In the News

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**JUNE MEMBERSHIP HIGHLIGHTS**
IEEE membership totaled 334,478 in June. This is an increase of 1.1 percent over June of last year. For details, read the June Membership Development report at http://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/md/mdprogrpt.html.

**MEMBER SERVICES RECOVERS MORE THAN 2,500 IEEE MEMBERSHIPS**
Member Services recently concluded the annual IEEE arrears telemarketing program. This program was conducted between 8 March and 18 June, and was directed at U.S. and Canadian Higher Grade members who did not renew their IEEE memberships for 2004.

This year's effort resulted in the renewal of 2,505 IEEE memberships -- an improvement of nearly 10 percent over last year, despite starting with fewer members in arrears. The program also generated 2,278 IEEE society membership renewals, recapturing members from all 38 societies as well as from the Women in Engineering affinity group. In total, the program generated US$523,855.57 in dues and related revenues.

This year for the first time, Member Services also contacted society affiliates who did not renew for 2004. A total of 104 society affiliates renewed as a result of this effort, generating additional revenue of US$12,673.51.

For more information, contact Felicia Taylor, IEEE Regional Activities, at mailto:f.taylor@ieee.org.

**CALL FOR SPEAKERS AT THE 2005 IEEE SECTIONS CONGRESS**
The IEEE Sections Congress 2005 Program Committee is accepting nominations for session speakers.

SC 2005 will be held 14-17 Oct. 2005 at the Tampa Marriott Waterside, Tampa, Florida, USA. The theme of the event is “Promoting a World-Class Volunteer Community.” The three program tracks are membership, section operations and relationships. The relationships track is new, and will address the relationships between IEEE sections and internal and external organizations and the community.

To view session descriptions or to nominate a speaker, visit http://www.ieee.org/sc2005. Each nomination form allows for three speaker nominations. Additional nominations may be submitted via a second form.

The deadline is 15 Sept.

Sponsors or funding support should be identified on the nomination form. Nominations that do not designate funding support for a particular speaker may still be submitted as sponsorship may be identified at a later time.

Email sc-coordinator@ieee.org with any questions.

**IEEE PUBS RECEIVE EDITORIAL, DESIGN AND ADVERTISING AWARDS**
IEEE publications recently received the following industry awards for editorial, design and advertising awards.

     - IEEE SPECTRUM won three 2004 Tabbie Awards. The Tabbie Awards, presented by Trade, Association and Business Publications International, was open to English-language publications around the world, published at least quarterly.

          *The article “The Dawn of the E-Bomb” won a Gold award in the Technical Article category.

          *“Irresistible Transistor” won a Silver in the Focus/Profile Article category.

          *“Invention on Demand” received an Honorable Mention in the Focus/Profile Article category.

    - The IEEE also received four 2004 Apex Awards of Excellence. The Apex Awards are an annual competition for writers, editors, publications staff, and business and nonprofit communications.

          *IEEE SPECTRUM won for Best Redesign.

          *The IEEE SPECTRUM EDITORIAL PREVIEW E-NEWSLETTER won in the Newsletters – Email category.

          *The 2004 IEEE SPECTRUM Media Kit won in the Marketing, Brochures, Manuals & Reports category.

          *IEEE POWER & ENERGY MAGAZINE received an award in the New Magazines and Journals category.

     - The editorial "Control Engineering Month" received a Silver SNAP Excel Award in the Magazines, Editorial category. The editorial appeared in the December 2003 issue of IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE. This annual SNAP competition, sponsored by the Society of National Association Publications, recognizes the exemplary work of association publishers.

**EWEEK WORK GARNERS PR AWARD FOR IEEE-USA**
IEEE-USA won first prize in the special event and observance category of the Golden World Awards for excellence in public relations, the International Public Relations Association announced in London on 30 June. Top prizes went to 27 programs from 11 countries, out of 237 entries.

IEEE-USA was recognized by an international jury of 44 senior public-relations practitioners from 25 countries for planning, coordinating and fundraising activities surrounding the IEEE’s lead society participation in National Engineers Week (EWeek) 2004. As the lead society, the IEEE took the first steps with the Engineers Week coalition to celebrate EWeek globally, promoted diverse new roles for engineers, and enhanced the Future City Competition, which the IEEE had launched with EWeek in 1993.

The Golden World Awards, now in its 14th year, rewards excellence in public relations.

**NEW ONLINE COLLECTION FOR SMALL, MID-SIZED BUSINESSES LAUNCHES**
On 30 June, the IEEE launched IEEE Enterprise for small to mid-sized organizations. IEEE Enterprise subscribers may choose one of three levels of instant access to IEEE magazines, journals, transactions and conference proceedings. Each level allows for a specific number of full-text article downloads from the IEEE Xplore(R) online delivery platform. Prospective customers can sign up for a free trial and get more information about IEEE Enterprise at http://www.ieee.org/enterprise.

**IEEE FOUNDATION APPROVES MORE THAN US$35K IN NEW GRANTS**
At its June meeting, the IEEE Foundation Board of Directors awarded US$36,950 in new grants to projects intended to:

        *develop a continuing education resource kit in bioinformatics for engineers worldwide

        *provide resources and learning tools to IEEE student branch leaders in Latin America

        *bring Internet access to engineers and engineering students in Nigeria

To learn more about these and other grants the IEEE Foundation awarded this year, visit http://www.ieee.org/organizations/foundation/html/2004grants.html.

**IEEE COMPUTER SOCIETY AWARDS INTERNATIONAL DESIGN COMPETITION**
A student-design team from PoznanUniversity in Poland won the US$15,000 first-place prize at the IEEE Computer Society International Design Competition (CSIDC). Ten undergraduate teams from around the world had to solve a real-world problem with a marketable solution using the latest software-engineering techniques at the fifth annual CSIDC World Finals, held 25-28 June in Washington, D.C., USA.

The winning prize, “Lifetch,” is a GPS-based wilderness communications system designed to operate over a vast area to improve safety through fast and effective reaction to an emergency situation.

The Politehnica University of Bucharest in Romania placed second and IowaStateUniversity won third place.

For more information, visit http://www.computer.org/csidc/.

**NOMINATIONS OF FEMALE ENGINEERS SOUGHT FOR EDUCATIONAL PROJECT**
The IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) affinity group and IEEE Educational Activities are participating in the Extraordinary Women Engineers Project, which is designed to inspire more young women to enter the field of engineering. The project will launch in October 2005 with a book about women engineers who have made significant contributions to the profession. Nominations for inclusion may be sent to Carrie Loh, IEEE Corporate Activities, at mailto:c.loh@ieee.org, or Doug Gorham, IEEE Educational Activities, at mailto:d.g.gorham@ieee.org. Nominations are due on 20 Aug.

For more information about the project, visit http://www.engineeringwomen.org/index.cfm.

**IN THE NEWS**
The IEEE, its members, and its products and services are mentioned frequently in journalists' reports on technology and the engineering profession. Here are just a few recent references.

• 29 July -- TELECOMS KOREA (http://www.telecomskorea.com/) announced that Korea’s Ministry of Information and Communication has adopted IEEE 802.16 as the country’s broadband wireless access platform due to its service quality and efficiency in spectrum use. The story also appeared in THE KOREA HERALD.
• 28 July -- SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (http://www.sciam.com) reported that research published in the August issue of “IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics – Part B” has improved the performance of alternative speech recognition systems by about 30 percent. Designed to minimize background noise in cellular phone conversations, the technology emphasizes the speaker’s voice and filters out other voices, the article said.
• 21 July -- ABC NEWS ONLINE (http://abcnews.go.com/) and more than 25 other media outlets ran a feature story explaining how the IEEE 802.11 wireless networking standard technology works. The article showed the differences between radios equipped with the standard and simple walkie-talkies, described how the standard is applied to computers and assured readers that IEEE 802.11 is one of the easiest technologies to use.
• 20 July -- THE TELEGRAPH of Calcutta, India (http://www.telegraphindia.com) excerpted Heritage Institute of Technology student Sujoy Mukherjee’s diary he kept during his poster presentation at the IEEE Conference on the History of Electronics. His journal described receiving the first prize in the presentation awards and taking part in the conference as having “lived a dream.” Mukherjee’s paper, “Microwaves – A Journey in Reshaping World Technology,” was co-winner of the IEEE Region 10 Student History Paper Competition.
• 22 June -- THE KANSAS CITY STAR (http://www.kansascity.com) highlighted the annual IEEE Honors Ceremony in a news article featuring 2004 IEEE Medal of Honor recipient Tadahiro Sekimoto, former chair of NEC Corp. Also mentioned in the article were the recipients of the 2004 IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal, IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Technologies and Applications, IEEE Medal for Engineering Excellence, IEEE Simon Ramo Medal, and the IEEE Corporate Recognitions.
• 21 June -- 2004 IEEE Ernst Weber Engineering Leadership Recognition recipient Pasquale Pistorio was the focus of a POPULAR MECHANICS news item. In the article, Dov Jaron, IEEE Awards Board chair, described Pistorio, president and CEO of STMicroelectronics, as a “pioneer in establishing the semiconductor business as a global employer.” Pistorio received the award for revitalizing the semiconductor industry in Europe and increasing its influence worldwide.