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IEEE: Demystifying IEEE standards

Written by Louwrence Erasmus
Monday, 25 January 2010 16:09
The IEEE standards Association (IEEE-SA), a major contributor to IEEE, promotes the engineering process by creating, developing, integrating, sharing, and applying knowledge about electro- and information technologies and sciences. For over a century, the cornerstone of the IEEE-SA is its established standards development programme – a programme that offers balance, openness, due process, and consensus. Each year, it conducts over 200 standards ballots, a process by which proposed standards are voted upon for technical reliability and soundness. In addition to producing the prominent standards for local and metropolitan area network ireless, IEEE-SA also develops the standards for intelligent highway systems and vehicular technology; distributed generation renewable energy; voting equipment electronic data interchange; rechargeable batteries for PCs; motor vehicle event data recorder public key infrastructure certificate issuing and management; components architecture for encrypted shared media organic field effect technology. Thanks to a sponsorship from IEEE-SA and IEEE region 8, a workshop was held at the University of Pretoria in October 2009, presented by Dr. Bilel Jamoussi, now an independent consultant, previously with Nortel. The workshop was presented in three parts, where the first part provided a general overview (discipline non-specific) on the IEEE and IEEE-Standards Association. This part provided information on how standards came about, how they are classified, how they impact future development and how they benefit the economy. The second part of the workshop covered the A-Z of developing an IEEE standard. The last part of the workshop covered case-illustrations covering the IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet) and IEEE 802.11 (WLAN). Contact Dr. Louwrence Erasmus, chair: IEEE Industry Relations and Standards, IEEE South Africa Section, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it This article was first published in EngineerIT:
Last Updated on Monday, 25 January 2010 16:23

IEEE International Communications Conference - ICC 2010

Written by Sunil Maharaj

Thursday, 07 January 2010 00:29

The IEEE Communications Society will, in 2010 being holding its flagship International Communications Conference (ICC) in Cape Town, South Africa. This will be the first time that ICC has been held in Africa and with Cape Town being voted one of the most beautiful cities in the World, this promises to to be an exceptional conference. Conference participants will have a wide range of exciting options to add to their conference tour: hikes up the famous Table Mountain; whale watching; tours of the Cape Winelands, Robben Island and even CapePoint where two oceans meet. The FIFA World Cup Soccer tournament, held all around South Africa starts just after the conference ends.

Africa is developing rapidly and the conference theme "Communications: Accelerating Growth and Development" aims to focus on the role that Communications is playing in this development.

The ICC 2010 technical programme will offer eleven different symposia, workshops, tutorials, a business forum, a design and developers forum and some top international speakers in the plenary sessions.

Technical papers will be presented in the following major topics:

General Symposium on Selected Areas in Communications (The General Symposium will only accept papers on topics not covered by other symposia listed below)
Communication Theory Symposium
Signal Processing for Communications Symposium
Wireless Communications Symposium
Wireless & Mobile Networking Symposium
Optical Networks and Systems Symposium
Next-Generation Networking and Internet Symposium
Communication QoS, Reliability and Modelling Symposium
Ad-hoc, Sensor and Mesh Networking Symposium
Multimedia Services, Communication Software and Services Symposium
Communication and Information System Security

We are confident that your participation in this conference will be a rewarding one, both technically from the quality of the presentations that will have gone through the IEEE Communications Societies usual rigorous, peer review process and from the opportunity to visit Cape Town; our friendly people and beautiful city will undoubtedly make your stay a memorable one.

		General Chair Minister Pandor, Minister of the Department of Science and Technology, South Africa
	Vice General Chair Khaled Ben Letaief Hong Kong University of Science and Technology		Vice General Chair Reuben September CEO, Telkom SA

For more information, please click here.

Last Updated on Thursday, 07 January 2010 00:35

IEEE Foundation supports Technology Education in South Africa

Written by Rina Mostert
Friday, 18 December 2009 17:51
The IEEE Foundation cultivates relationships and resources to advance IEEE's core purpose to foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. To fulfil its role, the IEEE Foundation awards grants to new and innovative projects and administers more than 125 donor designated funds that support a variety of educational, humanitarian, historical preservation, and peer recognition programs of IEEE. (Source: IEEE Foundation) The IEEE Teacher in-service programme (TISP), which is a pre-university initiative of the IEEE Educational Activities Committee, IEEE South Africa Section, received support of US $ 15,000 (approx. ZAR 112,500) towards supporting the movement of educators and IEEE volunteers at a Technology Education: IEEE TISP Conference, to be held in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 2010. "Over the past two years, the TISP sub-committee has been developing lesson plans, where some lesson plans are publically released and available via IEEE’s TryEngineering Portal, www.tryengineering.com, and during the Technology Education Conference, we plan to disseminate our work to the facilitators of our Dept. of Education, our IEEE volunteers, educators, and associated parties," said Prof. Nico Beute, the lead champion for the programme. The TISP initiative, which was initiated by the IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB), in Aug. 2006, is locally championed by Prof. Nico Beute, who is also the Assistant Dean: Faculty of Engineering, Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Cape Town. The South Africa Section is privileged to have volunteers such as Prof. Beute, who strive towards not only coordinating our TISP, but also linking the programme with our Ministry of Basic Education. Recently, Dr Dick Gowen, the President of the IEEE Foundation, mentioned: “The support of the ministry is vital to providing the resources for major changes in the schools of South Africa.” Newly appointed Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) CEO Dr Oswald Franks, has also committed towards supporting the TISP initiative. Most recently, Prof. Beute received the IEEE EAB Meritorious Achievement Award in Informal Education for "exceptional leadership in pioneering, organizing and managing the IEEE Teacher In-Service Program in South Africa." A position paper presentation on IEEE TISP in South Africa is provided here (~2 Mb). For more information on sponsorship opportunities for our Technology Education: IEEE TISP Conference or TISP related activities in South Africa, please contact Nico Beute, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Last Updated on Sunday, 03 January 2010 22:59

IEEE EPICS-High and the Western Cape Breeze

Written by Nana-Ampofo Ampofo-Anti
Saturday, 19 December 2009 01:31
Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) (http://epics.ecn.purdue.edu) is a program that organizes university and high-school / secondary school students to work on engineering-related projects for local area humanitarian organizations. An IEEE New Initiatives Committee (NIC) pilot project has successfully shown how EPICS can be integrated with IEEE in the Philadelphia Section and South Africa Section. The purpose of this new initiative was to further incorporate EPICS into IEEE by empowering student branches to work with high school students on EPICS community service-related engineering projects. The IEEE Student Branch, University of Cape Town (UCT), was one such student branch that participated in the pilot project in South Africa. Wind speed varies between 20 and 30 m/s in the Western Cape and therefore enables this South African province to be classified as a wind power density class 2 or class 3 region (150 to 200 W/m²). Over the past decade, wind power has generated significant research and development interest in the Western Cape, and the interest also exists at both high schools as well as higher education institutes, such as UCT. It was for this reason that the IEEE UCT student branch proposed an EPICS-High project, which aimed at developing a wind power turbine out of scrap material. A prototype was constructed, which delivered some 50 W of power. The technical work for the project was lead by Justin Alvey. The project was aligned to Justin's final year undergraduate project, and the technical intellectual property belongs to the creator, in this case, the UCT. Two schools participated in the project: Thandokhulu Secondary School and Westerford Secondary School. While the two schools are nearby, the two schools have quite a different background. In South African terms, Thandokhulu Secondary School is classified as a previously disadvantaged school, but has made considerable progresses over the past few years, recognized by a Ministerial award in 2002. Westerford Secondary School ranks in one of the top secondary schools in South Africa, 2009. The EPICS-High project enabled, not only for a scientific and technical bond, but also to develop a cultural synergy. As the academic year (2009) came to an end, the IEEE EPICS-High initiative also came to an end at the Student Branch, UCT, however plans for 2010 were also documented in a report, compiled by a team lead by Nana-Ampofo Ampofo-Anti. The report indicates a potential interest to install the developed turbine in a rural South African community, and also an interest towards registering as an "EPICS University" (as proposed by Purdue University), in 2010. Nana is a Master's student of Electrical Engineering, and also an IEEE Graduate Student Member. Nana also chairs the Projects Committee: IEEE Student Branch, UCT. In this capacity, Nana successfully lead the EPICS-High project at UCT. The project enabled for a fresh and new appreciation of the Western Cape breeze, as a source of renewable energy. The IEEE South Africa Section appreciates the grant (US $12,500) from the IEEE NIC, which enabled for this first phase of the IEEE EPICS-High project in South Africa. Contact: Dr Saurabh Sinha, Co-Principal Investigator, IEEE EPICS-High, IEEE South Africa Section E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Contact: Dr Kapil R. Dandekar, Principal Investigator, IEEE EPICS-High, IEEE Philadelphia Section E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Last Updated on Thursday, 07 January 2010 01:39

IEEE Senior Member Elevation Workshop

Written by Gerhard Hancke
Tuesday, 08 December 2009 11:46
Senior Member is the highest grade for which IEEE members can apply. To be eligible for application, candidates must: be engineers, scientists, educators, technical executives, or originators in IEEE-designated fields; have experience reflecting professional maturity; have been in professional practice for at least ten years; show "significant performance" over a period of at least five of their years in professional practice. Review complete Senior Member requirements. The South Africa Section is keen to assist you towards your membership elevation. This event is registered as an ECSA CPD event (Category 1 / 0.5 credits) -- PA-CPD-2009-014 (Pretoria) & PA-CPD-2010-002 (Cape Town). To facilitate the above, we are hosting a workshop at the CSIR (Pretoria Campus): Date: 14 Jan. 2010 Time (ZA): 10h00 to 14h00 Venue: Defence, Peace, Safety and Security (DPSS), CSIR [Room Number: 44-A214] [ GPS: Latitude: 25°45'24.09"S & Longitude: 28°16'49.63"E ] This workshop will be repeated in Cape Town: Date: 5 Mar. 2010 Time (ZA): 10h00 to 14h00 Venue: Seminar room 2, Second floor, Administration Building, Cape Peninsula University of Technology Seminar room 2, Second floor Website with more information: Pretoria: http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/1403 Cape Town: http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_view/list_meeting/1553 Registration website: Pretoria: http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_registration/register/1403 Cape Town: http://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/meeting_registration/register/1553 Please register on or before 11 Jan. 2010 (Pretoria) and 3 Mar. 2010 (Cape Town)
Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 January 2010 13:38

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