IEEE Canada Board of Directors

Message from the President

Warm welcome to all IEEE Canada members, volunteers, activists, both young and seasoned!

As you know, IEEE Canada (Region 7, or R7) changes its leadership in even years. After two years as President Elect, I will continue working hard to help IEEE Canada grow, working together with the Past President, Amir Aghdam from the Montreal Section, the President Elect, Maike Luiken from the London Section, as well as IEEE Canada's Executive Committee, Steering Committee, Area Chairs, Group Committee Chairs, Committees, and 21 Sections.

I would like to thank Amir Aghdam for his tireless effort to make IEEE Canada a better organization over the previous two years. His accomplishments will have a lasting value. I also wish to recognize the innumerable contributions of Keith Brown, who completed his term as Past President in December. Keith served on the IEEE Canada Board for 10 consecutive years, elected as Chair of Northern Canada Section in 2005. He was appointed Canada Central Area Chair in 2007, and then elected as IEEE Canada Vice-President/President Elect in the fall of 2009.

We are also grateful to Ashfaq (Kash) Husain from the London Section for his excellent service as the Treasurer of the IEEE Canada. He has now taken the position of Administrator, previously carried out very diligently by Cathie Lowell for so many years. Cathie will now be responsible for registration at Region 7 and other conferences in Canada. Rasheek Rifaat from the Southern Alberta Section has been appointed Treasurer of IEEE Canada. Thanks also go to Raman Paranjape from the South Saskatchewan Section who was the IEEE Canada Secretary for the last two years. He was replaced by Scott Melvin from the Canadian Atlantic Section.

IEEE Canada has many important committees, some with newly-appointed Chairs. I will discuss their roles and accomplishments in future notes.

Our current priorities have been set so as to address various challenges, including (i) reconnecting industry to IEEE in a meaningful relationship, (ii) engaging Young Professionals and Women in Engineering at several levels, (iii) engaging pre-university students in Engineering, Technology and Science through humanitarian projects, (iv) developing inter-region useful collaboration, (v) communicating among our academic, industrial and government members through the IEEE Canada Newsletter (ICN), the IEEE Canada Review (ICR) magazine, and local correspondents and media, and (vi) responding effectively to grand challenges.

But IEEE Canada's success is also tied to how well IEEE worldwide is meeting its members' needs. The current IEEE President, Barry Shoop, suggests that to be effective in growing a better IEEE, we must be fiercely loyal, and identify, cultivate, and mentor the next generation of leaders. To do so, we should

• Know the IEEE's mission, core values, policies, programs, services, trends, strengths and needs
• Make knowledge-based/data driven decisions
• Be open to innovative solutions all the time
• Be willing to engage in new levels of collaboration
• Ask yourselves during and after every meeting or activity:
  • How did we help the members today?
  • How did we help the engineering and technology community today?
  • How did we help the public today?

In order to move towards those goals, IEEE has developed and approved (June 2015) a Strategic Plan 2015-2020 which can be found under the About IEEE section at:
http://www.ieee.org/about/ieee_strategic_plan.html

I encourage you to review this plan, particularly noting its goals and supporting initiatives. The priorities we are setting within IEEE Canada are in alignment with IEEE's Strategic Plan. In our activities, we will always seek to "evaluate and adapt organizational structures and processes", one of the initiatives being undertaken by IEEE at the global level. We can and will earn reputation and respect, keep well-seasoned members, and acquire many new members - but only if we manage a transparent, evidence-based organization capable of delivering and reporting meaningful results.

These observations are presented in my first message to indicate that IEEE Canada's strategy and activities will be consistent with the other nine regions of IEEE. I am very excited to work with all of you to make it a reality.

My future notes will focus on the specific challenges and corresponding initiatives.

Respectfully submitted,
Witold Kinsner, PhD, PEng, FEIC, FEC
2016-2017 IEEE Canada President
2016-2017 IEEE Region 7 Director

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