2009: forecasting new changes [president's message]
TRANSCRIPT
pres ident ’ s message ı mark halpin
2009: Forecasting New Changes
Our Society’s AnnualMeeting is our flagshipconference. Althoughwe sponsor numerousother conferences of
equal magnitude, no other conferencecomes close to the breadth of activitiesat the Annual Meeting. In 2009, ourflagship conference will experience asignificant change. This column willdescribe those changes and some ofthe rationale behind them. First, letme describe some of the regular func-tions conducted at the Annual Meet-ing for the members who do notnormally attend.
The Annual Meeting has tradi-tionally been home to technical pa-pers presented by our technicalcommittees. The topics covered rangefrom power electronics, electric ma-chines, and controls to manufactur-ing, power systems, lighting, andmining and metal working. In addi-tion to the technical sessions, a signif-icant activity at the Annual Meetingis related to the development of IEEEstandards. We also traditionally offertechnology development-themed con-tinuing education programs and con-duct official Society business at themeetings of the IEEE Industry Appli-cations Society (IAS) Executive Boardand the IAS Council (which is thegoverning body of our Society). Fur-thermore, many of our technical com-mittees hold business meetings inwhich they consider matters such asfuture conferences, paper reviews, andofficer elections. In addition to thisplethora of activity, and quite possiblyour most important functions at theAnnual Meeting, are the awards pro-grams where we recognize outstandingmembers with Committee, Department,
Society, and IEEE awards. Amongthe awards presented during our An-nual Meeting are IEEE Fellow certifi-cates, Chapter awards, and our highestSociety-level awards(the Andrew W.Smith Outstand-ing Young MemberAward, the SocietyDistinguished Ser-vice Award, and theSociety Outstand-ing AchievementAward). It is, by allaccounts, a verybusy week duringour five-day-longmeeting.
Starting in 2009,the Annual Meetingwill change so as toaccomplish two keygoals of our Society:continued growthand improved mem-ber benefit. Perhapsthe most significanttechnological ad-vance within thescope of our Societywithin the last 25years has beenrelated to the broadfield of power electronics and itsmany applications. Our AnnualMeeting has traditionally been hometo our technical committees workingin these areas, and we have routinelyhad 250 or more technical papers inthis general subject area presentedeach year. With a greater inter-national focus on increasing energyefficiency and management, powerelectronics development and appli-cation has continued to grow. How-ever, with this growth, our AnnualMeeting has encountered logistical
problems associated with meetingvenues and hotels. Many of you havelet me know that the cost of partici-pating in the Annual Meeting has
become prohibitive.A major reason isthe size of the con-ference and thelogistical issues wemust face in plan-ning for more than400 technical paperpresentations. Al-though the confer-ence organizers havemade valiant efforts,the Annual Meetinghas become very dif-ficult to manage in acost-effective manner.
Three years ago,the leadership of ourSociety and the IEEEPower Electronics So-ciety envisioned anew conference thatcould become thepremier power elec-tronics conferenceand exhibition inthe world. In 2009,that vision will be-come a reality, and
the technical and business functionsof the technical committees of ourSociety dealing with power electron-ics and electric machines will occurat this new conference, called the2009 Energy Conversion Congressand Exposition (ECCE 2009). Ofcourse, all technical committees in-volved in ECCE 2009 will continueto be an integral part of our Society—paper sessions and business meetingswill simply be held at other conferen-ces in much the same way as our Petro-leum and Chemical, Pulp and Paper,Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MIAS.2008.923591
IN 2009,THE ANNUAL
MEETING WILLCHANGESO AS TO
ACCOMPLISHTWO KEY
GOALS OF OURSOCIETY:
CONTINUEDGROWTH AND
IMPROVEDMEMBERBENEFIT.
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Cement, and Rural Electric PowerCommittees do today. Holding thesessions of our Power Electronics andElectric Machines Committees at a spe-cialized conference allows the 2009Annual Meeting to accomplish itsother key goal—added member value.
Many of our members have repeat-edly stressed the need for our Societyto provide targeted continuing edu-cation opportunities in application-specific disciplines such as electricpower. The conference organizers forthe 2009 Annual Meeting, led bySociety Vice-President Bruno Lequesne,have made continuing education amajor focus in 2009. Working closelywith the Education Department,chaired by Donald Dunn, the Meet-ings Department, chaired by MarkNelms, and the Houston Section ofthe IEEE (the 2009 Annual Meetingwill be in Houston), Vice-PresidentLequesne has assembled a unique planfor the 2009 Annual Meeting, which
allows our Society to continue to meetthe needs of many of our technicalcommittees as well as fulfill the manyother functions thatare part of ourAnnual Meeting,all while dramati-cally increasing theavailable continu-ing education offer-ings. Because of thereduction in thenumber of techni-cal sessions madepossible by relocat-ing the Power Elec-tronic and ElectricMachines technicaland business meet-ings to ECCE in2009 and futureyears, we anticipatesmaller venues inthe future and an associated reductionin costs. In my opinion, this is a rare
situation where all of our membersstand to benefit.
The detailed descriptions, calls forpapers, and numer-ous other details onthe two conferencesin 2009 will beincluded in the nextedition of IEEEIndustry ApplicationsSociety Magazine. Ihope that you willfind these new offer-ings to be attractiveand that you areable to get involvedand participate insome way. As al-ways, I am willingto hear any sugges-tions you have forfurther improve-ments in anything
we do. Feel free to contact me atany time. IAS
f rom the edi to r ’ s desk(continued from p. 2)
increasing steadily throughout the previous 75years, the efficiency of conversion of electric energyinto visible light by commercial light sourcesappears to have reached a plateau of about 33% ofthe theoretical maximum. Currently, the next revo-lution in lighting is taking place: solid-state light-ing (SSL). In the long term, SSL, inorganic LEDsand OLEDs, as well as lasers, will become the next-generation light sources.
In the future, lighting systems will likely beused for illumination purposes as well as detector orcommunication tools. The synergy between light-ing and displays is evident here because long-lifematerials for light-emission (OLED) and switchingtransistors or transparent transistors for see-throughlighting and displays are important goals. Indeed,higher-performance displays and lighting willrequire similar technological advances in flexiblesubstrates, encapsulation, packaging, interconnects,and more. When the borders between lighting anddisplays will be abolished? It is probably a questionof less than two decades.
Lighting and display are drivers for technologi-cal innovation and two of the most important keytechnologies for markets in the 21st century. Thearticles in this issue will illustrate some key issuesin this domain. IAS
THECONFERENCEORGANIZERSHAVE MADECONTINUINGEDUCATION
A MAJORFOCUS IN 2009.
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