Dear IEEE members,

Wishing you and your family a safe year ahead!

IEEE is renowned as “the world’s largest technical professional organization for the advancement of technology”. It gives me immense pleasure to represent IEEE Pune Section as a Chairperson-2020. IEEE is dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community to innovate for better tomorrow through its more than 419,000 members in over 160 countries across the globe. Moreover, IEEE is a trusted ‘voice’ for engineering, computing, and technology information around the globe because of its highly sighted publications, enriched conferences, extensive technology standards, as well as professional and educational activities.

We can gauge the glorious history of IEEE from its inception as it grew to more than 419,000 members, consisting of more than 124,000 student members, 342 sections in 10 geographical regions worldwide. It includes 1834 chapters- thus unites ecological members with similar technical interests. Furthermore, it consists of 3,422 student branches in colleges/universities in over 100 countries, along with 2,600 student branch chapters of IEEE technical societies, with 568 affinity groups.

IEEE publication has 39 technical societies and seven technical councils representing a wide range of IEEE technical interests. It includes more than 5 million documents in the IEEE Xplore® digital library, with more than 8 million downloads each month, more than 1,800 conferences in Xplore, over 1,200 active standards and more than 650 standards under development. It publishes approximately 200 transactions, journals, and magazines. It sponsored more than 1,900 conferences in 103 countries while partnering with more than 1,400 non-IEEE entities globally, attracting more than 547,000 conference attendees, publishing more than 1,800 conference proceedings via IEEE Xplore, till 31st December 2019.

To become a part of this glorious journey of IEEE, we at IEEE Pune Section strive to accomplish the goals of IEEE Association through aligning IEEE Pune Section’s vision and mission to IEEE. The Section’s key directions for the year 2020 are:

• Extend the Industry-Academia collaboration.
• Include Research Institutes, STEAM institutes, specialized NGOs, Subject Matter Experts.
• Connecting the dots to form a complete Knowledge Ecosystem.
• Create opportunities to work with adjacent IEEE sections.
• Make PuneCon an IEEE Pune Section’s flagship event with one educational institute and one representative industry as main partners.
• Map each student branch to “Center of Excellence (COE)” in particular areas.

It is very much important to give our legacy to our GEN-Z (Succeeding Cohort Millennials) to build, enjoy, and utilize advanced technology for a better societal and healthy life. To advocate this thought, the Section is planning to put more millennials at work in collaboration, under the guidance of eminent educational and industry epitomes, which also serves one of the facets of sustainable development, that aims to develop Gen-Z to be sustainable in this dawn of new era.

As an old African proverb –  “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”.

And I must thank the IEEE, IEEE R10, and IEEE Pune Section for giving me this opportunity and collaborating through volunteer efforts for the noble cause of ‘Service to Humanity’.

Thank you!