Region 10 GOLD Committee 1

Minutes Template:

Region 10 GOLD Committee

MEETING SUMMARY [ONLINE: WebEx]

Meeting Details

Nature of Meeting (Exe-Com / General Body) Region 10 GOLD Exe - Com

Date 26 January, 2013

Time 2000 Hrs IST

Venue Online : WebEx

Members Present:

No. Executive Committee

Positions

Name Association Attendance

1 Region 10 GOLD Coordinator Rayees Nishad Present

2 Secretary Neha Tyagi Present

3 Webmaster Ajin Baby Present

4 Member Noel Gomes New Zealand/Australia

GOLD Coordinator

Absent

5 Member Deepu John South East Asia GOLD

Coordinator

Present

6 Member Maroof Raza South Asia GOLD

Coordinator

Absent

Agenda:

No Item Responsibility Time

1 Self Introduction of the Members 5 min

2 Overview of R10 GOLD Activities Rayees Nishad 5 min

3 Brief Overview of the Practices to be adopted for

2013

Neha Tyagi 5 min

4 R10 GOLD Activities 2012 at a glance Rayees Nishad 3 min

5 Activity Planner Presentation and Discussion Presentation

:

5 min each

Discussion :

5 min each

TOTAL :

10 min each

South Asia Maroof Raza

South East Asia Deepu John

New Zealand/Australia Noel Gomes

R10 GOLD Website Committee Ajin Baby

6 R10 GOLD Clustering Program : A Discussion Rayees Nishad 15 min

7 R10 GOLD/WIE/Student Congress, Hyderabad :

Discussion

10 min

8 R10 Web and Social Media Presence : A Discussion 5 min

9 Any other points approved by Chair 2 min

Region 10 GOLD Committee 2

Minutes Template:

Region 10 GOLD Committee

Minutes of Meeting:

Starting Time: 2000 Hrs IST

Ending Time: 2130 Hrs IST

Proceedings:

1. The meeting started with a brief self introduction of the members present.

Ajin Baby introduced himself, followed by Deepu John and Neha Tyagi, and finally the R10 GOLD Coordinator -

Rayees Nishad.

2. After the introduction, Rayees kick started the meeting by giving a brief overview of R10 GOLD to the members

present, by telling them about “What R10 GOLD does? ; What R10 GOLD is supposed to do? ; What R10 GOLD can

do?”

3. He pointed out that Region10 GOLD is one of the most active and vibrant group relatively, in terms of its activities,

results and awards and laurels won in the past few years.

He supplemented his point by giving the example of MGA GOLD Hall of Fame Awards,2012 (One of the most

prestigious awards given to top 3 GOLD Groups in the IEEE Global Community), 2 out of 3 awards were bagged by

Region 10 GOLD Groups : New Zealand GOLD and Kerala GOLD!

4. He raised the concern of the activities and awards not being publicized adequately, owing to which the best group

in the IEEE Global community, in terms of its activities and awards, does not get its due share of recognition.

The need of the hour is to integrate the activities on a common platform, the best one being the social and web

media platform with its maximum reach and impact.

5. Rayees concluded by saying that we need to sustain the existing GOLD groups, revamp the dormant ones and

monitor the entire system efficiently through proper documentation and ensure that the global GOLD community

acknowledges R10 GOLD’s presence, through web and social media.

6. The next item was taken up by Neha Tyagi, Secretary of the R10 GOLD Committee, briefing about the practices to

be adopted for the year 2013.

She pointed out that since R10 GOLD Committee didn’t have a Secretary the year before, there is no proper

documentation in place as far as the Committee’s proceedings and activities/events are concerned. She requested

everybody’s help and support in maintaining adequate documentation, which she’ll be taking care of.

7. Neha informed the members about a few new practices that they would adopt in the year 2103, which would help

them in getting more efficient and organized in their work :

- A Spreadsheet Template will be introduced. (A practice adopted by the South Asia GOLD Committee also)

The spreadsheet would serve as the common platform where all the members will be updating the IEEE GOLD

Activities/Events that they are getting involved in.

This would serve two purposes:

One, it would help the members in getting more organized by keeping a track of the activities/events they

have been a part of ;

Second, it would be an opportunity for all the members to see the activities/events that their fellow members

have been involved in and would act as a motivation factor.

Also a support system will be build, in case any other member plans to conduct a similar activity/event in their

respective cluster they know who to contact and gain a better insight into the various aspects of the

activity/event.

Region 10 GOLD Committee 3

Minutes Template:

Region 10 GOLD Committee

- The Committee would switch from Skype to WebEx for conducting its meetings. The prime reason being the

voice quality, WebEx offers much better voice quality and less distortions/noise during the meeting as

compared to Skype (based on past experience). The other advantages that WebEx has are the availability of

features like recording the meeting, Sharing of Files, Presentations, etc.

She informed that, if the meeting concluded successfully, then with everybody’s consent all future meetings

would be conducted on WebEx.

- She went on to inform the members about the 3rd

Practice- the system of Bi-Annual Committee Reports.

All the clusters would be required to submit two reports in a year (each at the end of 6 months),

The reports would include information about:

Cluster

Cluster Activities

Achievements/Awards

Plans for the next 6 months

These reports would be published in R10 GOLD Newsletter and will also be sent to IEEE GOLD Rush helping

Region10 GOLD gain more visibility by bringing to light the efforts put in by all the clusters. These reports would

help address the concern raised by Rayees about the activities not being publicized adequately.

8. Rayees took up the next item on the agenda – R10 GOLD Activities 2012 at a glance.

The R10 GOLD Website idea was conceptualized during the tenure of Timothy Wong, the previous R10 GOLD

Coordinator. The website was launched during his tenure itself last year.

However, the new webmaster, Ajin Baby, is enthusiastically working on the website to make it more robust and

dynamic.

9. He went on to tell the members about the MGA GOLD Achievement Award, 2012 (given to the most enterprising

GOLD Volunteer globally). He proudly stated that 4 out of 6 awards were bagged by Region10 GOLD Committee.

Besides this, the MGA GOLD Hall of Fame Award, 2012, two out of three awards were bagged by New Zealand

GOLD and Kerala GOLD, both belonging to Region 10 GOLD.

10. He mentioned about Maroof Raza and Ranjit Nair jointly bagging the Region 10 GOLD Award, 2012, which will be

presented to them in the upcoming R10 Meeting in Chiang Mai.

Adding on, the R10 GOLD Initiatives Funding was granted to Kerala GOLD for South Asia GOLD Officers’ Meet in

Cochin, Kerala ; the Pathfinder Workshop by Madras Section.

11. He informed the members that from this year onwards we’ll have the new R10 GOLD Affinity Group presented to

the best GOLD AG in the cluster. The winner will be presented with a certificate and a cash prize of 500 USD.

The Committee has to work together on the guidelines criteria for the award along with the Call for Proposals. A

separate Evaluation committee will be formed to evaluate the Proposals submitted.

12. The next item on the agenda was the Cluster Presentation Planners and Discussion.

Deepu John, Co-ordinator of South East Asia GOLD Cluster, presented his planner and pointed out the following

major points:

- Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and Hong Kong are the relatively active GOLD groups

- Reviving Dormant Groups by planning joint events and activities

- Forming new GOLD AGs in Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand

- Focus on China by conducting events and activities there

- Identify 3-5 leaders from the cluster to attend R10 GOLD/WIE/Student Congress in Hyderabad, so that they

can take back some relevant value addition from the congress and implement it in their respective regions,

thereby boosting South East Asia Cluster and reviving it.

Region 10 GOLD Committee 4

Minutes Template:

Region 10 GOLD Committee

13. Rayees asked Deepu to submit an approximation of the funding that he would need from R10 GOLD for

supporting activities in the cluster and revamping it.

14. Ajin Baby, Webmaster of R10 GOLD was up next with his Planner Presentation. The major points pointed out by

him were:

- Change of Host and URL with the aim of directly updating the activities/events/contents on the website

without any lag in reporting and providing more visibility to the sections

- Starting LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook pages

- Update the current website so that more people visit and there is more communication via website

- Integrate all the Section’s GOLD website on the main R10 Website by creating alias of the Section’s websites

15. Rayees briefly discussed the South Asia Cluster Planner and New Zealand/Australia Cluster Planner and invited

questions, if any, from the members as the Coordinators of the respective clusters couldn’t make it to the meeting.

The major points pointed out by him were:

- Revive Bangladesh GOLD AG

- Sri Lanka GOLD Group is doing well and has formed a new Exe-Com

- Forming new GOLD AGs in Islamabad, Nepal

- New collaborative ventures planned by Maroof Raza, South Asia GOLD Co-ordinator

- New Zealand GOLD Group doing great winning many accolades

- New South Wales GOLD AG appointed Balakrishna Sharma as the new Chairperson. He is the previous Sri

Lanka GOLD Chair and a member of the South Asia GOLD Committee.

- Noel Gomes, New Zealand/Australia GOLD Co-coordinator plans to revive the dormant GOLD AGs.

16. Rayees took up the next item on agenda : R10 GOLD Clustering Program, and told about the 3 important projects,

namely –

- R10 GOLD Clustering Project;

- R10 GOLD Initiatives Grant;

- R10 GOLD Web and Social Media Presence.

17. The meeting concluded with Rayees answering the queries of the members regarding the R10 GOLD/WIE/Student

Congress 2013 in Hyderabad.

Action Items decided in the Meeting:

No Item Responsibility Open

Since

Deadline

1 Spreadsheet Template Neha Tyagi 26 Jan’13 16 Feb’13

2 R10 GOLD Website Ajin Baby 26 Jan’13

3 Revive South East Asia Cluster Deepu John 26 Jan’13

Minutes Prepared by:

Neha Tyagi