commag newsletter-october layout 10/2/15 …hernán samaniego at the conference on wireless sensor...

October 2015 Global Communications Newsletter 1

GLOBALCOMMUNICATIONSNEWSLETTER

As a senior member of IEEE, it has been a great privilege towork with a talented team of officers to serve the chapter profes-sionals and community here in Austin, which has made it arewarding year for all.

As a brief introduction: Austin is the capital of the state ofTexas and home to the University of Texas (UT) and many hightech companies. Austin is known as the Live Music Capital of theWorld, and is one of America’s fastest growing and most desir-able cities. Over the years, the chapter has reached out andstrengthened relationships with UT, as well as several of the localhigh tech companies including AT&T, IBM, NI, Freescale, HP, andothers. As a result, we are grateful to be able to host our regularmeetings at the nice facilities of AT&T. In addition, when thechapter brings a Distinguished Lecturer, it becomes a customarythat not only does the DL addresses the IEEE but also visit andpresent at local companies such as IBM and AT&T.

2014 Planning: It all started with careful planning, articulatingon the mission of delivering quality events to the membership/community and providing opportunities for education and net-working. The theme for 2014 was Wireless & Networking Archi-tectural Evolution and Services. Among the key objectives were:conducting more technical meetings, engaging with DLT/DSP,increasing membership by reaching out and participating in localactivities, collaborating with other societies and young profession-als, supporting GLOBECOM 2014, ensuring the chapter’s financialhealth and ensuring that the chapter’s website is updated

(http://sites.ieee.org/ct-comsp/)promoting meetings and specialevents, and growing socialmedia content such as Twitter,Facebook and LinkedIn.Technical Meetings/Topics:

•In 2014 the Austin chapterconducted 34 meetings, ofwhich 21 were technical meet-ings representing the highest inCTS for 2014. All meetings werereported in vtools and L31.

•Among the key topics cov-ered in 2014 included “Har-nessing Electr ical DemandFlexibility for a Sustainable Ener-gy Future,” “HeterogeneousComputing: Promises and Chal-lenges,” “ZPEG Video Compres-sion,” “Video Survei l lance,”“Geospatial Technologies,” “Traf-fic Forensics,” “Big Data, Cyber-Biological Systems,” “UHD Tech-nology Evaluation at AT&T,” “IOE – Internet of Everything,”“Engineering and Government,” “Aging, Brain Science and theFuture of Healthcare,” among others.

Distinguished Lecturer/Speaker Program: In 2014 the chapterhosted Prof. Ying-Dar Lin, IEEE Fellow, National Chiao Tung Uni-versity, Taiwan. During his visit to Austin, Dr. Lin delivered presen-tations to IBM, AT&T ,and COMSOC/SP and other joint chapters.Dr. Lin spoke on “Traffic Forensics: Capture, Replay, Classification,Detection, and Analysis,” as well as “Software Defined Network-ing: Why, When, Where, and How.”

Speaker Appreciation Award: The chapter values the time andsacrifice put in by the speaker in delivering quality content. As atoken of appreciation, the chapter prepared and delivered a per-sonalized plaque to each speaker.

Membership Development: The chapter took pride in partici-pating in select events that helped recruit new members andgenerate awareness among the community. Among the eventswere National Instrument NI Week, Innotech, Texas WirelessSummit, IEEE Gold Event at SxSW, and IEEE Cybersecurity day.

As a chair of the chapter, I collaborated with the ChineseAmerican Semiconductor Professional Association (CASPA) chap-ter chair in Austin and held a few joint sessions. CASPA hasmore than 100 engineers, most of whom are not IEEE members.Joint sessions provided a forum for a good exchange and to pro-vide information about IEEE membership. Overall, according toSAMIEEE, more than 50 new members were added to the IEEECOMSOC/SP Chapter in Austin in 2014.Collaboration with other societies/MGA/IEEE:

•The Austin COMSOC chapter collaborated with several otherchapters/councils. These included DSP, CS, I&M, TMC, CTCN, andCEDA. Among the examples, COMSOC joined other chapters fora full-day educational program on career development, includinga workshop with more than 65 attendees. The theme was “Skills

October 2015ISSN 2374-1082

IEEE ComSoc Central Texas AustinChapterWinner of the 2015 Chapter AchievementAward, North America Region; Winner of the2015 Chapter of the Year AwardBy Fawzi Behman, Central Texas Austin Chapter Chair, USA

Left to right: DL Dr. Lin, Dr. Bob Dailey, Dr. Jason, Fawzi Behmann.

December 12, 2014: DL Prof. Lin presentingto ComSoc/SP Austin Chapter and meetingwith AT&T technical staff.

(Continued on Newsletter page 5)

CHAPTER NEWS

COMMAG_NEWSLETTER-October_Layout 10/2/15 11:30 AM 7

2 Global Communications Newsletter October 2015

The Ecuador Chapter of the IEEE Communications Society has147 active members (as of Sept. 2015) between professionals andstudents in the area of telecommunications. The objective of theComSoc Ecuador Chapter is to strengthen the professional growthof its members, creating spaces for sharing knowledge and techno-logical advances in the area of communications. ComSoc Ecuadorhas four technical student chapters at the Technical University ofLoja – UTPL, the Polytechnic School of the Coast – ESPOL, theNational Polytechnic School – EPN, and the Technical University ofthe North – UTN.

The executive committee is composed of:Chair: Hernán Samaniego Armijos, Master in telematics and

telecommunication networks, Manager of the NationalTelecommunications Corporation CNT-EP in Loja, and VisitingProfessor at the Technical University of Loja – UTPL.

Vice-Chair: Vanessa Cuesta, Engineer in Electronics andTelecommunications, works for the Bank of Loja as atelecommunications technician.

Treasurer–Secretary: Eduardo Suarez, Engineer in Electronics andTelecommunications, works as an independent professional.Organized Events: ComSoc Ecuador participated as the modera-

tor in a workshop about Basic Infrastructure in the Plan of Territori-alization and Innovation, integrating university, government, andindustry, in the city of Loja in the south of Ecuador, proposing sev-eral projects taking advantage of Loja is an IEEE Smart City Affiliate.In addition, ComSoc Ecuador participated with a lecture on SmartCities by Hernán Samaniego Armijos.

ComSoc Ecuador participated in the International Smart Gridand Smart Cities International Seminar in the city of Cuenca,Ecuador, where experts from prestigious appointments, profession-als, and renowned companies in the field of Smart Grid and SmartCities, are gathered to show expertise, practical experience and theprogress that has been achieved so far in these fields. HernánSamaniego Armijos gave a conference about wireless sensor net-works for smart cities.

In Ibarra City in the north of Ecuador ComSoc participated inthe High Tech–Smart Cities: New Opportunities for Telecommuni-cations Professionals in Ecuador, an event that had the participationof CNT EP, the Ecuador telecom company, and ARCOTEL, thetelecommunications regulatory entity. Hernán Samaniego participat-ed with a lecture on Sensor Networks for Smart Cities.

In addition, we took this opportunity to encourage the creationof the ComSoc technical chapter in the Northern Technical Univer-sity – UTN Student Branch.

Summer Course on IP Telephony Systems: In order to preparethe professionals in communication multimedia services, ComSocEcuador made two webinars. “Introduction to the IP Telephony Sys-tems” reviewed aspects related to the systems of traditional tele-

phony, voice over IP and operating platforms for IP telephony sys-tems, dictated by Daniel Guevara, who has several years of experi-ence in this type of communications systems. “Protocols of VoIP”reviewed the protocols used in VoIP systems such as SIP/SDP/RTP/RTCP/IAX, and was dictated by Hernán Samaniego Armijos, Masterin telematics and telecommunication networks.

Chaskieee Project: Chasqui is the term used at the time of theIncas to identify the person responsible for the comunicationbetween different tribes, and likewise a project called Chaskieeehas been initiated. Professionals in ComSoc travel through differentcities of Ecuador, giving lectures at the universities where ComSoctechnical chapters have assets. This project is managed by EduardoSuarez, Treasurer–Secretary of ComSoc Ecuador.

Internet Day: With the purpose of commemorating the Inter-national Day of Telecommunications and Information Society,ComSoc Ecuador organized an event named Internet Day, withjoint activities in Ibarra and Loja in collaboration with the UTPLand UTN ComSoc student technical chapters. Vanessa Cuesta,ComSoc Ecuador Vice-Chair, participated with a lecture about cor-porate social networks.

DLT Program: We are expecting the visit of ComSoc Distin-guished Lectrurer Sonia Aissa in October 2015 in the cities ofGuayaquil and Ibarra, discussing the topics: “Cognitive Radio” and“Energy Harvesting Communication Networks.”

IEEE ComSoc Ecuador ChapterWinner of the 2015 Chapter AchievementAward, Latin America RegionBy Hernán A. Samaniego Armijos, Ecuador Chapter Chair

Hernán Samaniego moderating workshop.

Participants in the International Smart Grid and Smart Cities International Seminar.

Hernán Samaniego at the conference on Wireless Sensor Networks for Smart Cities.

ComSoc Ecuador recognition by the UTN for the conference.

CHAPTER NEWS

COMMAG_NEWSLETTER-October_Layout 10/2/15 11:30 AM Page 18

Chapters are important activity centers within the IEEE. It is inthe chapters where the technical and scientific daily life takesplace for our members. To this end, on the IEEE ComSoc Swe-den VT/COM/IT joint chapter board, we have focused on creat-ing value for our members via networking opportunities inSweden in conjunction with high quality technical/scientific semi-nars and workshops, and by catalyzing important informationflows from IEEE to our members. There are only about 9.6 mil-lion people in Sweden, so we are proud of our 599 uniqueVT/COM/IT members (797 memberships: VTS-117, Comsoc-583, ITS-97).

In 2014 we organized 13 IEEE Technical seminars by distin-guished speakers: Dr. Nicola Marchetti (Trinity College Dublin);Prof. Linda Doyle (Trinity College Dublin); Prof. John Thompson(The University of Edinburgh); Prof. Ali H. Sayed (University ofCalifornia); Prof. Maïté Brandt-Pearce (University of Virginia); Dr.Matthieu Bloch (Georgia Institute of Technology); Prof . JoãoHespanha (University of California–Santa Barbara); Assoc. Prof.Serdar Yuksel (Queens University); Prof. Virgil Gligor (CarnegieMellon Universi ty); Prof . Gene Tsudik (Universi ty ofCalifornia–Irvine); Prof. Ness Shroff (The Ohio State University);Prof. Merouane Debbah (Supelec); and Dr. Laurent Schmalen(Alcatel-Lucent Stuttgart). The seminars were hosted by the KTHRoyal Institute of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology,and Linköping University.

We have init iated two annual Swedish workshops. TheSwedish Communication Technologies Workshop (Swe-CTW)was first organized in 2011; the Workshop on Wireless VehicularCommunications was first organized in 2010. The Swe-CTWbrings together researchers and research students in the general

area of communication technologiesand related areas. It is a three dayworkshop that provides an opportu-nity for researchers and researchstudents in Sweden to gather in alargely informal sett ing to shareideas, make contacts, and fosternew col laborat ive l inks for theirfuture careers. The 2014 edition ofSwe-CTW was organized June 2-52014 in Västerås in collaborationwith Mälardalen University. In addi-tion to the poster presentations byyoung researchers, there were twotutorials: “Sparse Systems” present-ed by Dr. Saikat Chatterjee (KTHRoyal Institute of Technology), and“An Introduction to Wireless SensorNetworks,” presented by Dr. Carlo Fischione (KTH Royal Instituteof Technology). Swe-CTW’2014 attracted 62 attendees. The2014 edition of the Workshop on Wireless Vehicular Communi-cations was organized, as traditionally, in Halmstad, this year onNov 11 2014. There were 40 participants listening to seven pre-sentations, including the invited speech on “Dependable Vehicu-lar Communications in Non-Stationary Propagation Conditions,”given by Thomas Zemen, FTW Telecommunications ResearchCenter, Vienna.

We are also acting as technical sponsor for IEEE conferencesand workshops organized by others in Sweden, where we helpto advertise the event in our online media (our IEEE web site,LinkedIn and Facebook, see links below). In 2014 we sponsoredThe 18th International Conference on Optical Networking Designand Modeling (ONDM’2014), and the IEEE International Work-shop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications,(SPAWC) 2015.

To promote the visibility of young talented researchers, wehave init iated two annual best paper awards for youngresearchers in Sweden: the IEEE Sweden VT-COM-IT Joint Chap-ter Best Student Journal Paper Award, and the IEEE Sweden VT-COM-IT Joint Chapter Best Student Conference Paper Award.These awards are given to the winners during the annual Swe-CTW. We are also catalyzing nominations to awards programswithin our societies, such as the ComSoc EMEA Regional YoungResearcher of the Year Award.

It seems that we do a couple of things right. On the boardwe are proud to have received six awards: the IEEE Communica-tions Society Chapter Achievement Award 2011, 2012, 2013,and 2015, and the Chapter of the Year Award 2013 from theIEEE Information Theory Society. In addition, we received theIEEE Communications Society Special recognition award “Forlong-time achievements in chapter activities and ongoing excel-lence serving its members” in December 2013. We think thatthe composition of our board is an important enabler, comprisingvery committed persons who span competencies across ourtechnical/scientific areas within the scope of the Vehicular Tech-nology, Communications and Information Theory Societies;academia and industry; senior and younger professionals; as wellas a geographical span in Sweden. We have been quite efficientin creating activities for our members. We think the key there isto distribute responsibilities among the board members, takingopportunities when they appear, and working with minimaladministrative overhead. For instance, we promote individual ini-tiatives, and we meet using regular telephone conferences(around once per month) where we try to sort out most things,to avoid lengthy email discussions. We also store all our docu-ments on a common server, so that all board members canalways be up-to-date even if they cannot attend a telephonemeeting.

IEEE ComSoc Sweden VehicularTechnology/Communications/InformationTheory Joint ChapterWinner of the 2015 Chapter AchievementAward, Europe, Middle East, Africa RegionBy Tommy Svensson, Sweden Chapter Chair, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden


(Continued on Newsletter page 5)

Swe-CTW’2014, Västerås, June 2-5 2014.

Workshop on Wireless Vehicular Communications 2014, Halmstad, Nov 11, 2014.

Tommy Svensson, Sweden ChapterChair.

CHAPTER NEWS


4 Global Communications Newsletter October 2015

It is our great pleasure to share the ComSoc Kolkata Chapteractivities for the year 2014, which led to our Chapter Achieve-ment Award this year. The Chapter activities start with executivemeetings in the first week of February, when members decidethe next year’s activities and make their commitment to volunteerfor various programs. We the members of Chapter executivecommittee thought of conducting a DLT/DLP event, technicalseminars, student activity programs, technical programs involvingindustry, along with membership development and awarenessgeneration programs. Our chapter hosted an “Algomaniac Stu-dent Contest Event,” one of the major events under Convolution-2014, organized by the students of Electrical Engineering,Jadavpur University, Kolkata, on 14–15 Feb. 2014. Interdepart-mental Engineering students participated the contest to test theirprogramming capability along with algorithmic design.

The next big event was the Distinguished Lecturer Tour: DLT2014. The Chapter organized two DLT tours in the months ofMarch and December involving engineering students fromJadavpur University and the neighboring Institutes, Ph.D. scholars,and young faculty members.

Mobile health care, sensor networks, and automation havebecome very popular areas of research in the recent years. TheKolkata ComSoC Chapter conducted two very successful DLTs onthese areas. One of the DLT programs was on the topic “Towardsan Intelligent and Ubiquitous Healthcare Infrastructure: Challengesand Trends.” The DLT speaker was Prof. Pradeep Kumar Ray,Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on eHealth, Asia PacificUbiquitous Healthcare Research Centre (APuHC), University ofNew South Wales, Australia. It was a very nice experience to

gather 104 participants from Jadavpur University itself and theother Institutions, as well as industry, for this DLT, which includedextensive interaction with the speaker. The Chapter Chairperson,Iti Saha Misra, highlighted the various activities of the KolkataChapter and invited young professionals and students to joinIEEE as part of their career growth path. The second DLT pro-gram was on the topic “Robotics, Automation and MachineLearning,” delivered by Prof. (Dr.) G. Sengupta, Masse University,Newzeland, on 22 Dec. 2014. It was a mesmerizing lectureevent with 70 enthusiastic participants.

The year 2014 was the year of industry and R&D interactionin the Kolkata Chapter. Several technical lectures and interactivesession were organized for the academic benefit of the studentcommunity and researchers. The Chapter invited ISRO Senior Sci-entist, Tosicul Wara (Scientist-SF) to deliver the video of the ISROSatellite for Navigation Application in Indian Context on 13 May2014. A series of lectures was organized with industry Interactionin a program involving TCS Innovation Lab of Kolkata Centre,where the current industry research activities were discussed onthe topics of Internet of Things (IOT), Security Aspects and SignalProcessing aspects on 29 Auguat 2014. The one-day seminarprogram was very special to the young professionals and stu-dents of ECE, inspiring them in their research activities. This alsohelped the young students to develop their interest in recentresearch beyond their curricula. A technical training program fromIndustry personnel for PG Communication Specialization studentsheld on April 3, 2014, ETCE Department, Jadavpur University.These types of technical programs help students link their subjectof study with the application domains.

There was a wonderful program for the three-day workshopon the topic “Introduction to Android Operating Systems forTouch Screen Smart Phones” for the undergraduate students ofElectronics and Telecommunication Engineering in the midst ofsummer vacation, under the auspices of TEQIP Phase–II ofJadavpur University on 11-13 June 2014. The Dean of the Engi-neering Faculty and also theTEQIP Coordinator inaugurated theworkshop. CASS Chapter Chair, Prof. S.K. Sanyal, delivered a won-

IEEE ComSoc Kolkata ChapterWinner of the 2015 Chapter AchievementAward, Asia Pacific RegionBy Iti Saha Misra, Kolkata Chapter Chair, India

CHAPTER NEWS

DLT interactive session: Pradeep K. Ray with Iti Saha Misra, ComSoc Kolkata Chapter Chair.

DL speaker Prof. Gourav Sengupta with the audience.

Dr. Arijit Mukherjee of TCS, delivering his lecture on “Grid, Cloud, Fog and Beyond.”

3-day workshop on Android Program, students of ETCE have joined the program. (Continued on Newsletter page 5)



AUSTIN CHAPTER/Continued from page 1

for a Multi-Faceted Career.” Among the speakers were GaryBlack, IEEE-USA 2014 President, Bob Krause, IEEE-USA AICN, andothers.

•Among other activities, the chapter helped Central Texaschapter chairs take advantage of the IEEE PACE Program. As asection PACE chair, I organized several PACE projects, whichincreased from three projects in 2013 to seven projects in 2014.I also led a PACE automation program that is expected benefitRegions 1-6.

•Among the new IEEE initiatives is Collabratec, for which I par-ticipated as a moderator representing the Austin Community inthe pilot study, and engaged in creating messages and discus-sions to bring about building a community of interest for Austin.

Activities with Young Professional/Students:•COMSOC co-sponsored a young professional mixer in Austin

during SxSW in 2014. The event attacted more than 100 atten-dees. The chapter organized an information table. During thatevent, presentations were made by Glenn Zorpette, ExecutiveEditor of IEEE Spectrum, and Dr. Robin Murphy, an expert onsearch and rescue drones.

•The chapter supported GLOBECOM 2014 (Dec. 8-12) andsecured more than 100 students from the University of Texas,San Antonio, State University of San Marcos, and others who vol-unteered as room monitors and at the registration desk. As thechair of marketing and publicity for GLOBECOM, I sent an appre-ciation note to the students for their dedication and exemplaryperformance at the event.

Visibility at the Community Level: As part of our efforts to pro-mote GLOBECOM 2014, we reached out to:

•Austin Chamber of Commerce. We engaged the AustinChamber of Commerce with promotional activities for GLOBE-COM 2014 for several months prior to the event targeting thetechnical community and startups. The Chamber of Commerceprovided $2500 for the Conference.

•City of Austin. We engaged with the Mayor’s office in Austinand succeeded in obtaining a Proclamation declaring December8-12 to be IEEE week in Austin. Later, the Mayor’s office issued aquote that was used in a press release issued by COMSOC pro-moting GLOBECOM 2014Collaboration IEEE/Hilton/AT&T for GLOBECOM 2014 IT Infra-structure:

•The chapter successfully led an infrastructure IT project in

GLOBALCOMMUNICATIONSNEWSLETTER

STEFANO BREGNIEditor

Politecnico di Milano — Dept. of Electronics and InformationPiazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 MILANO MI, ItalyTel: +39-02-2399.3503 — Fax: +39-02-2399.3413

Email: [email protected], [email protected]

IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SOCIETY

STEFANO BREGNI, VICE-PRESIDENT MEMBER RELATIONSPEDRO AGUILERA, DIRECTOR OF LA REGION

MERRILY HARTMANN, DIRECTOR OF NA REGIONHANNA BOGUCKA, DIRECTOR OF EAME REGION

WANJIUN LIAO, DIRECTOR OF AP REGIONCURTIS SILLER, DIRECTOR OF SISTER AND RELATED SOCIETIES

www.comsoc.org/gcnISSN 2374-1082®

A publication of the IEEE Communications Society

We are proud of our achievements so far, but there areimportant grand challenges for the future, such as improving thequality of life for all people, sustainability, and maintaining theinterest for engineering among young people. IEEE is a fantasticorganization of talented and knowledgeable people! Together wecan tackle these challenges. In the IEEE Sweden section we arecurrently discussing suitable initiatives that could address theseimportant future challenges.

http://sites.ieee.org/sweden-vtcomit/ http://www.linkedin.com/groups/IEEE-Sweden-VT-COM-IT-5070706

https://www.facebook.com/IeeeSwedenVtcomit http://www.ieee.se/chapterindex.php?code=vt_com_ithttp://www.es.mdh.se/swe-ctw2014/Welcome.htmlhttp://www.hh.se/english/schoolofinformationtechnology/eventsandseminars/workshoponwirelessvehicularcommunications2014.65442012.html

SWEDEN CHAPTER/Continued from page 3

delivering an enhanced WiFi/Cellular signal and coverage thatsupported more than 3300 client devices and 2500 personsattendees. With the upgrade of the Wifi network by Hilton andthe cellular network by AT&T, the peak traffic reached only 30percent of total bandwidth capacity.

•This was the first time ever in COMSOC that a feasibilityassessment followed by implementation of upgrading equipmentwas undertaken for an international event.

Financial Health: The chapter continued enjoying good finan-cial health due to careful budgeting and spending on meetingsand events. Collaborating and joining with other chapters helpedshare expenses, and at the same time enabled us to add moremeetings for the year. We do not charge for meetings. Regardingfood and beverages (F&B), officers helped in ordering cateredfood and carrying them to the meeting facilities. Promotion ofevents, printing of feedback forms and transportation were doneat no cost to the society. The appreciation plaques were typicallypurchased at a 50 percent discount at the beginning of the year,and personalization and execution were typically done by thechapter chair.

derful lecture to the students on how the technology is changingand encouraged the students to adapt in this ever changing envi-ronment of technology. The workshop was a great success withthe fantastic delivery of the speaker, Mr. Dipanjan Biswas from alocal company, SkyBits Kolkata.

The Chapter is also aware of its membership developmentprogram. During each program, the Chairperson, Prof. Iti SahaMisra, addresses the audience, inviting them to be a part of theIEEE programs through their membership, and she discusses thebenefits of IEEE. She encourages young researchers to volunteerfor the organization of the programs as a way to improve theirorganizing capabilities, as well as for the added opportunitiues tonetwork with others in the field. They will be the future torchbearers of IEEE societies. In return, volunteers are given a certifi-cate from the Chapter Chair.

KOLKATA CHAPTER/Continued from page 4


commag newsletter-october layout 10/2/15 …hernán samaniego at the conference on wireless sensor...

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