Chair Report (Thursday, 25 June 2015)
The following is a brief summary of the activities and news related to NZ North Section after the last Section
Committee meeting on 5 March 2015.
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The 10th IEEE ICIEA (International Conference on Industrial Electronics and Applications) 15-17 May 15
has been held successfully in Crowne Plaza Auckland (http://www.ieeeiciea.org/2015/), there were about
300 people who have attended the conference, and 280 were formally registered delegates. To avoid the
risk, we decided not be a financial sponsor. Dr Thrimawithana, the Chair of IES/IEA, applied for $300 to
support the post conference visit/workshop at Univ of Auckland Newmarket campus, but finally this cost
was met by the conference, so we did not need to spend any money in the end, but still get the publicity,
which is a good outcome.
We have approved the request by Dr Donald Bailey as a technical sponsor for 2015 Field-Programmable
Technology Conference (http://fpt.massey.ac.nz).
I attended the R10 annual meeting held 6-8March 15 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. IEEE Dhaka Section has done
an excellent job in hosting the meeting, and I was invited by a local student branch and delivered a seminar
on wireless power transfer technologies after the meeting on 8 March at Dhaka International Univ.
Dr Nirmal Nair of our NZ North Section has been awarded the IEEE R10 Outstanding Volunteer Award
2014 at the dinner of IEEE R10 Annual meeting on 7 March night. Congratulations, Nirmal!
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Membership update:
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IEEE Membership Recruitment and Recovery Committee have awarded the New Zealand North Section a
silver recruitment Banner for meeting the recruitment goal for the 2015 membership year. The membership
development goals were developed based on the Section's three year performance.
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2015_Recognition_Award_Banners_Silver_Recruitment_New Zealand North
(This may be uploaded to the Section website).
Sri Lanka Student branch will host the R10 Student/GOLD/WIE Congress July this year. After
some discussion, NZ North Section executives have approved the applications from Ms Jasleen
Kaur (Univ Student Branch Chair) and Mr Rahul Mehta (YP chair) to attend the congress.
Patrick Hu
New Zealand North Section
Chair Report (Thursday, 25 June 2015)
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One matter we discussed at the past R10 annual meeting, in particular with Prof Elmer P.
Dadios, IEEE R10 Section and Chapter Coordinator, University of De La Salle University,
Philippines, was to form an IEEE sub-section in Fiji under our NZ North. Because there are not
enough members in Fiji to form a full section, they can only establish a subsection (which needs
min 20 members). Now I am pleased to report that all the petition process and approvals by our
Section and R10 have completed, and it is only pending on the final approval by the IEEE MGA
board.
Prof. Maurizio Cirrincione, PhD (Univ. Palermo), Head of the School of Engineering and Physics,
University of the South Pacific (USP), is the founding member, and will serve as the first
subsection chair. It is a good opportunity for us to expand our activities, particularly in initiating
some humanitarian projects in line with our strategic plan.
I am also pleased to report that Prof Hossein Sarrafzadeh, Head of Depart of Computing and
Information Technology, Unitec, has accepted my invitation to serve as the inaugural SIGHT
(Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology) chair of NZ North Section to form a SIGHT
committee. Prof Paul Pang, also from Unitec, will serve as the vice chair on the committee.
http://www.ieee.org/special_interest_group_on_humanitarian_technology.html
Thank you all for all your continued support. A kind reminder to update our NZ North Section
website regularly, and also report the activities online via IEEE vTools using your normal
membership login.
http://www.ieeenorth.org.nz/
https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/main
Patrick Hu
New Zealand North Section