Chapters and SIGs

The IEEE Gujarat section is one of the small and most important one in the Asia-Pacific region. If for no other reason than that Mahatma Gandhi was a Gujarati by birth, and had spearheaded the Indian Freedom Struggle from his ashram at Ahmedabad where the IEEE Gujarat Section is headquartered.

IEEE activities in Gujarat first started in 1988 at the city of Vadodara (earlier known as Baroda), when first unit of IEEE student branch was established at the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Technology & Engineering, M.S.University. Dr. A. K. Aggarwal was the first Branch Counselor. Mr. J. S. Negi, the then Chief Executive of M/s Jyoti Ltd, had taken the initiative for submitting the petition for forming the Vadodara Sub-Section under the Bombay Section. IEEE accepted the petition and the Vadodara sub-section was formed with Mr. J. S. Negi as the interim Chair in the year 1988.

Later IEEE agreed to change the name of the entity to Gujarat Sub-section. On 15th August 1990 the Sub-section was upgraded to a full fledged Section to take its place as one among the 300 sections in the world spread out over 150 countries. The IEEE Gujarat University Student Branch was the next student branch unit established in 1994. The IEEE Gujarat Section was carved out from the IEEE Bombay Section mainly for logistic reasons.

Gujarat Section was first brought to international attention in 1997 with the holding a twin conference on’ Internet Security’ and EEE in the petroleum sector both downstream and upstream. This twin conference was held in the premises of the Institute of Reservoir Studies of the ONGC. Prominent IEEE figures who attended included Dr. Charles Rubenstein then the editor of the IEEE Transactions in Engineering Management. The conference was followed by the visit of the Technical Activities Board (TAB) of the IEEE led by President IEEE Dr. Kenneth Laker, President-Elect Dr. Mike Adler, Mr. Pete(Wes) Spencer a Power Utilities owner, Mrs. Mary Ward-Callan the Managing Director of the TAB and Ms. Fanny Su Behn Hoi of the IEEE Region 10 HQ at Singapore. Dr. Vijay Bhargava, the then candidate for the post of the President IEEE Communications Society and Mrs. Laker also accompanied the group. On this occasion, a student branch was inaugurated at the Nirma Institute of Technology.

Gujarat Section has always been pioneer in organizing programs for professional and students. Its annual event ‘Sampark’ gives a platform to student members to design IEEE events of the year as per their own need and requirement. This helps IEEE student members of the Section to be their own leader. ‘Sampark’ had also been featured in one of the issue of ‘The Institute’.

More about IEEE Gujarat Section

WIE is largest international professional group dedicated to promoting women engineers and scientist. The idea is to provide the young women with a platform, encouragement and inspiration to come up with confidence and excellence in the technical career of Engineering.WIE is an effort to motivate the women to be a part of science, Technology and Engineering by bringing all men and women with such ambitions to put a joint effort towards this.

IEEE aims to achieve this by taking following steps: Recognizing their achievements in electrical and electronics engineering through IEEE awards. Promoting WIE at major technical conferences. We have also taken a few initiatives like discounts in membership for girls in order to increase the number of participants. Advocate women in leadership roles in IEEE governance, providing assistance and support to the activities of these groups. Facilitating programs and activities for promoting girls' participation. We are planning to organize an interactive session by two of our seniors who were selected in Google, women of India contest.

Administering the STAR program to mentor young women in junior and high schools. IEEE student branch is looking forward to deliver few lectures to the school students of Gandhinagar and Ahmadabad in order to inspire girls to take up engineering as a career.

WIE at DA-IICT: Journey so far DA-IICT IEEE Student branch too has a "Women in Engineering Affinity Group" which was established in 2009. In its first year of existence, WIE organized a workshop on "Digital Image Processing" offering rebate to girls attending the workshop. The event saw an improved participation of girls not only from DA-IICT but also from other student branches.

DA-IICT WIE group had applied for the above mentioned grants for the year 2010 and had been granted the Sangammam Fund for humanitarian activities. The activities planned on the humanitarian front included a visit to a local school "Kadi School" on 23rd September, 2010 to counsel the senior students on the career opportunities they could consider after finishing secondary school. On the other hand, WIE at DA-IICT organized an invited talk by the members of SEWA ("Self Employed Women's Association", an NGO based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat) on the 25th September, 2010 during "i.fest" (DA-IICT's annual inter-college technical fest organized by the IEEE Student branch). The speakers from SEWA talked about the way rural Indian women are being assisted in learning the applications of ICT in their daily lives to make a living and become independent.

This year, we intend to take WIE at a different platform by targeting national participation and helping other IEEE student branches establish WIE affinity groups. Among the various initiatives that the WIE 2011-2012 executive committee intends to take is that of K-sharing or Knowledge sharing. It is live video conferencing with professors, scientists and researchers from other organizations and institutes. WIE Executive Committee hopes to provide benefits of k-sharing to students in rural setup as well.

Special Interest Group ~ Embedded (hereafter SIG~Embedded) was established in Jan’ 2011 by IEEE Student Branch, DA-IICT. Embedded Systems are the true products and testaments of ICT for which our institute has been the pioneer. Embedded System combines the nitty-gritty of hardware embedded with the functionalities of software which makes it most custom and customizable products. Embedded Systems have always captured the imaginations of students in DA-IICT. IEEE Student Branch, DA-IICT wanted to promote the cult of embedded systems in the student community and thus the concept and subsequently SIG~Embedded was established.

SIG~Embedded has been organizing sessions on theory and practical approaches for embedded systems since. SIG~Embedded plans to improve and diversify its activities by creating a knowledge bank which will last for the future enthusiasts and will be continuously be built and expanded upon. The knowledge and resources gathered over time will serve the enthusiasts in present and future alike, for future enthusiasts the resources will be a part of glorious legacy whose foundation can only be set in present. The efforts of SIG~Embedded subsequently can be helpful in spreading the knowledge gained, to students of other educational institutions be they higher centres of education or senior secondary schooling and thus also inspire and encourage them to start similar SIGs.

SIG Mobile Applications is a group of enthusiasts for developing mobile applications, especially Android apps. SIG Mobile conducts regular sessions every week where we try to cover the basics of Android app development. Apart from that, talks by people working in industry, app competitions, and project mentoring and special talks on Android products are some of the other activities.

This time we plan to have parallel sessions – one for the beginners for learning the basics and another Advanced where students who already know the basics can learn advanced topics like Using APIs, Navigation Drawer, Working with Databases, Fetching Data from/to Server, Material Design etc. Once well versed with such topics, students can pick up projects under the mentoring of SIG Team members. Few upcoming projects include the Webmail app, the Synapse-newsletter, SBG Events Calendar and many more.

Machine Intelligence-SIG aims to build a community of Machine learning and AI enthusiasts who would engage in discussions and collaborative projects and at the same time, foster a healthy environment and support beginners.

Presently, MI-SIG conducts bi-weekly machine learning hands-on sessions for sophomore beginners. Alongside, it also shares all reading materials, video lectures and updates in the field to help the students learn progressively.

MI-SIG plans to begin exciting group projects with a mentor assigned to each group. This will help the students get a hold of the subject matter by putting their theoretical knowledge into practical use.

The IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) promotes the advancement of microwave theory and its applications, including RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, and terahertz technologies. The MTT-S has worked to advance the professional standing of its members and enhance the quality of life for all people through the development and application of microwave technology. MTT-S mission is to continue to understand and influence microwave technology and to provide a forum for all microwave engineers. The activities sponsored by the MTT-S include a broad spectrum of conferences, workshops, tutorials, technical committees, chapter meetings, publications and professional education programs.

Up to 10 Undergraduate Scholarships are offered by MTT society in the amount of $1500 may be granted semi-annually to assist BS and MS students in electrical engineering. For graduate students, 12 fellowships worth $6000 may be granted each year to assist graduate students pursuing a graduate degree in microwave engineering. In addition to undergraduate and graduate scholarships, two more fellowships of $6000 may be granted each year by MTT society. This microwave engineering for medical applications fellowship is to assist graduate students pursuing a graduate degree focused on applying microwave engineering to medical applications.