student news
Bath University, United Kingdom
UK&RI SBC looks at volunteering,
standards and world of academia
IEEE Student Branch of Bath University organised the 3rd IEEE UK&RI Section Student
Branch Congress from 6–8 September.
More than 80 participants came from
UK&RI section, 14 Student Branches and 20
universities in UK and Ireland. A welcome
from the Vice Chancellor informed us that
Bath was formerly the centre of ship design
in the UK, and now the university is in the
forefront of electrical machines, power engineering and ground-penetrating radar.
Ali El-Mousa, Region 8 secretary,
brought two issues to our attention: the
value of interconnection with elder mentors to give students their experience and
advice and the value of volunteering – an
invitation to discover things about yours elf
that you didn’t know.
Adrian Stephens gave an informed lecture about standards development and the
difference between process/specification
development and de facto standards, such
as USB. Politics, economics and technology
are all involved. He said a standard is complete when all are equally unhappy with the
outcome.
Rui Costa from Region 8’s Educational
Activities committee presented the IEEE-X
Academic project, a useful educational resource. IEEE Academic is an international
project, with college students and professors creating free educational materials
together. It gathers multimedia content created by several local initiatives into an online
educational resource focused on students’
needs at their universities and colleges, in
their own languages. It began at the Student
Branch in Lisbon, Portugal, and a workshop
at the SBC marked the beginning of the work
towards developing the IEEE-X Academic in
UK&RI Section. Visit academic.ieee.org for
more information.
A presentation by Prof James Davenport
gave a clear description of the differences in
career titles for academics – the progression
from ‘lecturer’ to ‘professor’ with the ‘old’
and ‘new’ styles in the UK, and the North
American and European systems. In many
systems, only professors are ‘real people’.
It was an excellent SBC, well organised,
informative and enjoyable.
Rui Costa
Blekinge College of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden
Thesis poster competition
draws in plenty of entries
IEEE Sweden Section, BTH Student
Branch organised its 2nd IEEE Thesis
Poster Competition on 3 June with
a promising number of participants
at Blekinge Institute of Technology.
Graduating students from the
electrical, mechanical, software
engineering and computer science
departments presented their thesis
and research works in the form of
posters. A qualified jury of experts
judged the quality. Cash prizes for
the winners, certificates for all the
participants, and surprise gifts were
offered.
There were many opportunities
for interaction with representatives
from some of the large companies.
Also seminars on career development were offered from both perspectives of academia and industry.
BTH Student Branch also organised events such as a Matlab
workshop in April, at which more
than 75 students learned the basic
concepts and functions of one of
the most widely used modelling
tools. In addition, an IEEE Officers/
Volunteers Training Workshop and
IEEE Motivational Workshop were
held which gave us an overview of
IEEE’s structure and advice on how
to turn a Student Branch into a welloiled machine.
Caledonian College of Engineering, Seeb, Oman
Workshop explores safety
issues in power distribution
IEEE Oman Section, Caledonian
College of Engineering Student
Chapter organised a workshop on
‘Distribution and Electrical Safety
Regulations in Oman’ for electrical
power students on 16 March.
Abdul Rehman welcomed the
guest speakers: Abdul Hameed
Farag Guname of the Majan Electricity Company, Prof Vallavaraj of
ADUGS, Mansoor Ali of CCE and
Dr Dharmasa, the CCE-IEEE Branch
Counselor.
Dr Dharmasa reported on vari-
12
IEEE Region 8 News December 2013
ous activities organised by the CCE
Student Chapter.
Some 40 students attended in
two sessions. Abdul Hameed covered the role of the Majan Electricity
Company, the power network and
its control, connections, billing and
payment in Sultanate of Oman. In
the afternoon session, the speakers
covered topics on electrical safety,
standards and Regulations in Oman.
Pawar Dharmasa
CCE-IEEE Branch Counsellor
Sultanate of Oman
Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
JKU Linz Student Branch invites fellow
SBs on Ars Electronica Center visit
ON 20 June, Johannes Kepler University
Student Branch held an event for which 21
guests from Student Branches at Ljubljana,
Graz, Klagenfurt and our twin, Passau, had
been invited to Linz to visit the AEC, Ars
Electronica Center.
We all met at the AEC for a guided tour.
The exhibition themes change each year to
keep up-to-date. One was called ‘Out Of
Control – What the web knows about you’.
It attempts to sum up which data is collected
and stored about us in a global scale.
At the end we watched the ‘Deep Space’
presentation in their unusual cinema. This
has a huge 16x9-metre screen, where the
floor is used to extend the screen, and
every hing in stereoscopic 3D. We travelled
t
through our solar system and watched the
milky way from outside – virtual, of course.
Back to the KHG student dormitory near
the Johannes Kepler University, we integrated our traditional ‘stammtisch’ with the KHG
summer party and had a great BBQ grill. This
gave us the opportunity to plan some future activities with our neighboring Student
Branches and build stronger connections in
a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
www.ieee.jku.at