IEEE Canadian Foundation

Summary of All ICF Grants Awarded in 2017

At the Dec. 2017 Board of Directors (BoD) meeting, 10 Special Grants and 9 McNaughton Learning Resource Centre Grants were approved, including a new centre at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, the 41st Centre to be established.

The BoD agreed to establish a Historian and Archivist role within the IEEE Canadian Foundation - if interested, please contact John Mowbray, Nominations and Governance Committee Chair.

New Members appointed are Adam Skorek from St. Maurice Section and Emanuel Istrate from Toronto Section.

Special Grants approved totaling $8,750

• Memorial University IEEE student branch - $1,000 towards the design and build of an automated racing sailboat for international competition.
• St. Joseph's High School in St. Thomas, ON - $1,000 towards hosting an international robotics competition.
• University of Calgary Guatemala Solar Installation Project (a student group) - $1,000 towards the installation of solar panels in Guatemala.
• University of British Columbia student team - $750 towards the design and build of a robotic submarine for international competition.
• Carleton University IEEE student branch - $1,000 towards hosting a Stay Late and Make Makerspace workshops for pre-college students.
• University of Victoria satellite design club - $500 towards the design and build of a cube satellite for international competition.
• University of British Columbia student branch - $750 towards the design and build of a snowbot for international competition.
• Ryerson University student branch - $1,000 towards hosting STEM workshops for pre-college students.
• University of British Columbia student branch - $750 towards the design and build of a rocket avionics package for international competition.
• University of Toronto student branch - $1,000 towards hosting a software technology conference.

McNaughton Learning Resource Centre Grants approved totaling $16,000

• British Columbia Institute of Technology -$5,000 to establish their Centre.
• Ryerson University - $1,500 for their Centre upgrade.
• Queen's University - $1,500 for their Centre upgrade.
• University of Western Ontario - $800 for their Centre upgrade.
• Concordia University - $1,500 for their Centre upgrade.
• McMaster University - $3,250 for their Centre upgrade.
• University of Manitoba - $1,200 for their Centre upgrade.
• University of Victoria - $750 for their Centre upgrade.
• École de technologie supérieure (ETS) - $500 for their Centre upgrade.

2017 was another busy year for the IEEE Canadian Foundation. The following is a list of activities undertaken. The Foundation would like to thank all contributors, participants, and donors for their support. Here is a summary of the grants and awards awarded in 2017.

Nov 2017

Special Grants

A team of Simon Fraser University senior engineering students from various disciplines, which was earlier awarded a Special Grant, reports that they finalized a proof-of-concept model of a dual-source electrical energy generator which harvests energy from photo-voltaic cells and pedestrians walking over floor/path tiles. Their design task was to create a relatively inexpensive and low-maintenance weatherproof energy harvester that can be installed outdoors or indoors in high-traffic pedestrian areas (sidewalks, pathways, staircases, etc.). The prototype generates power at 12 V DC, and can charge a lead-acid battery or supply a nearby load. Its weight support of over 90 kg of continuous or sudden load exceeded the initial expectations. Their professors praised the achievements recommended further refinements, and suggested asking the school for a permanent installation. The team found this very rewarding, in addition to having benefited greatly from working together, learning from each other, and acquiring new skills.

The IEEE Canadian Foundation awarded Centre Wellington District High School in Fergus, Ontario a one-time Special Grant to participate in a Skills Ontario event. The school project was to build a robot that could collect, and assemble a boat as outlined by the Skills Ontario competition. Their larger objective was to lay the foundations and ground work to build a successful robotics program at Centre Wellington District High School. The school team completed a robot and competed regionally against Erin District High School. The robot performed well, but some problems were realized that need more attention in the initial stages of design. The project allowed the participants to get familiar with Arduino, coding and electronics. The students who worked on this project came back and built another robot for the next Skills project. Some of these students went to technology related programs at colleges or universities. Another very important result of this project was the confidence to continue with a robotics program at the school.

Scholarships

IEEE Power & Energy Society Scholarship Plus

Your donations to the IEEE Canadian Foundation allow the new and existing McNaughton centres to support future engineers by providing IEEE Power & Energy Society Scholarship Plus. The goal of the IEEE PES Scholarship Plus Initiative is to encourage undergraduate students to pursue careers in power and energy engineering. The Canadian 2017-18 recipients, all returning, are:

Courtney Harnum, Memorial University, expected graduation in 2019
Alexandre Poersch, University of Manitoba, expected graduation in 2019
Lukas Unruh, University of Manitoba, expected graduation in 2018
Yilin Zhao, University of Calgary, expected graduation in 2018

Donations to the IEEE Canadian Foundation support this program in Canada.

Nick Cercone Graduate Scholarship in Computer Science

This new Scholarship, first award expected in 2018, recognizes Dr. Nick Cercone (1946-2015) a well-regarded Canadian educator, researcher and IEEE Fellow. The successful candidate will be a computer science PhD student at a Canadian university who shows exceptional promise in making impactful research contributions that will have real-world applications outside Computer Science. Computer Science is a field of studies of interest to IEEE.

Raymond D. Findlay Annual Undergraduate Scholarship

This new scholarship, first annual award in April 2017, recognizes Dr. Raymond D. Findlay, well known as a leader in IEEE (Past President IEEE), IEEE Canada (Past President IEEE Canada), educator and researcher and IEEE Fellow. Criteria include: citizen or permanent resident of Canada, IEEE Student Member, completing penultimate undergrad year, full time, GPA > 80%, females strongly encouraged to apply, judged on merit. The successful candidate will have submitted an original essay of up to 500 words that provides evidence of leadership, creativity and success under adverse conditions. The enthusiasm about being an IEEE student member becoming a professional engineer should radiate through the writing style.

Oct 2017

Special Grants

At its September meeting, the IEEE Canadian Foundation Board of Directors approved the following nine Special Grants, in the total amount of $7,750, to:

• Manitoba Association of Physics Teachers (MAPT) toward the high-school design and construction of Iridium satellite transceivers for high-altitude balloon payload release,
• Strathroy Community Christian School towards entry to a fluid dynamics science fair competition,
• Simon Fraser University Student Branch toward the design and construction of energy harvesting walking tiles,
• University of Toronto Student Branch toward hosting a CASE power competition,
• University of Victoria Student Branch toward the 2018 Canadian Rover Challenge,
• University of Victoria Student Branch toward the 2018 Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition at Spaceport America,
• University of Victoria Student Branch toward the 2018 International Formula Hybrid Competition in New Hampshire,
• University of Waterloo Student Branch toward the design and build of a sailboat in two design competitions,
• Concordia University toward the design and build of a farming robot GPS appliance.

Aug 2017

Special Grant

IEEE Canadian Foundation awarded a one-time Special Grant to the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) Sailbot team, a non-IEEE entity, to complete a new build of their automated boat. The grant helped cover expenses for the boat building and an upgrade of the existing on-board computer equipment, from Beaglebone Black to Beaglebone Black Wireless modules. This multidisciplinary team reports that they completed a new hull and participated in the 11th International Robotic Sailing Competition (IRSC) SailBot 2017, which was organized at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD on June 11-16. The competition is open to students from secondary schools, undergraduate and graduate programs, and its goal is to create an unmanned sailboat up to 2 meters in length that can navigate through a variety of challenges. The competition was held at the Robert Crown Sailing Center, with the very warm weather (36 C) and light winds. The MUN team members gained experience in planning, organizing and executing the project requiring mechanical, electrical, software and engineering management skills, and they represented MUN internationally. This year, the competition included teams from the US, Canada, UK and Brazil. It is interesting to note that the first event, in 2006, was hosted by Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario and was inspired by the success of a senior project at the University of British Columbia to build a robotic sailboat. The Sailbot project has been a mainstay of the MUN Engineering Faculty for close to 10 years, bridging MUN Naval and ECE programs, and providing invaluable training to many students on their path to becoming professional engineers.

June 2017

2016 IEEE Canada WIE Prize - Elena Uchiteleva, IEEE London Section

Elena Uchiteleva of the IEEE London Section was presented with the IEEE Canada Foundation's Women in Engineering (WIE) Prize in the amount of $1,000 at the IEEE Canada Spring Board Meeting in Windsor on April 28, 2017. The purpose of this prize is to recognize excellence in young women engineering professionals and to support the Women In Engineering programme within IEEE in Canada. The prize is sponsored by the Judy Clift Fund which was established to honour Ms. Clift, a special education teacher and administrator, who believed strongly in gender equality.

Elena Uchiteleva received B.Sc. Degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Israel Institute of Technology, Technion, in Haifa, Israel, in 2010, and M.E.Sc. Degree in Electrical Engineering, Wireless Communications, from Western University in London, Ontario, in 2013. She is presently a third-year Ph.D. student and Graduate Research Assistant at Western University in Electrical Engineering. She is working on Security in ZigBee Wireless Sensor Networks and is expected to graduate in 2018. She has published several papers in IEEE and other journals and presented her research work at international conferences. Her recent paper "Virtualization of Wireless Sensor Networks through MAC Layer Resource Scheduling" was published in the IEEE Sensors Journal in Dec. 2016. For her work, Elena received several honors and awards, e.g. Doctoral Excellence Research Award, UWO, in 2016, and NSERC Postgraduate Scholarships-Doctoral (PGS D) Award in 2015.

In addition to her professional work, Elena has been very active in IEEE. She was key to the growth of the IEEE London Section's WIE Affinity Group and chaired it in 2014-2015. In recognition of her achievements, she was promoted and serves as the IEEE Canada WIE Chair since Jan. 2016. In 2017, she was appointed IEEE Canada Member Services Group Chair, an IEEE Canada Board and Executive Committee role. Elena was also recently granted the prestigious Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation (CEMF) Claudette MacKay-Lassonde Graduate Engineering Ambassador Award for 2017.

Congratulations Elena!

Elena Uchiteleva receiving the IEEE Canada Foundation's Women in Engineering (WIE) Prize at the IEEE Canada Spring Board Meeting in Windsor, Ontario, April 28, 2017. (L-R) Murray Macdonald, IEEE London Section Past Chair; Luc Matteau, IEEE Canadian Foundation Treasurer; Elena Uchiteleva; David Whyte, IEEE Canadian Foundation President

Two IEEE Canadian Foundation Annual Prizes at the Expo-sciences Hydro-Québec

The IEEE Canadian Foundation supports two annual prizes at the Expo-sciences Hydro-Québec, presented this year by Luc Matteau, IEEE Canadian Foundation Treasurer. The prizes honour the memory of two very active and respected members of the Montreal Section.

Prix de la Fondation Canadienne de l'IEEE - Shoaib A. Khan - 750 $
Bilun Sun, Marianopolis College, Cégep 2
Need an amorphous prosthetic robotic hand with that?

Prix de la Fondation Canadienne de l'IEEE - Éloi Ngandui - 750 $
Jérémie Gaudreault, Collège des Compagnons, 2e secondaire
Gaudi 2.0 Logiciel pour la génération en 3D de colonnes d'apparence organique

May 2017

IEEE Canadian Foundation (ICF) held its Annual General Meeting, at the Toronto Airport West Hotel on April 12, 2017. The Board, supported by the external auditors, recognized 2016 as another good year for philanthropic activities, exemplified by prudent financial management, rigorous review of applications and broadening of development activity.

Special Grants

At the Board of Directors Meeting, which followed, the Board approved three one-time Special Grants, in the total amount of $2,000, to:

• University of New Brunswick student group UAV competition project
• Memorial University high school STEM Outreach Program
• Simon Fraser University Student Branch capstone project

Scholarships

The Board approved five Scholarships in the amount of $5,000 each (total $25,000) for:

• Melinda Lu of University Toronto, nominated by Dr. Olivier Trescases, Student Branch Counselor (SBC), this scholarship for the University Toronto is designated as the Dr. Robert T.H. Alden Scholarship
• Emma Wang of Carleton University, nominated by Dr. Calvin Plett, SBC
• Elizabeth Adams of University of Saskatchewan, nominated by Dr. Francis Bui, SBC
• Mohamad Mahamad Deera of University of Alberta, nominated by Dr. Jeremy Sit, SBC
• Danielle Marchand of University of Ottawa, nominated by Mr. Alfredo Herrera, SBC

Endowed Grants

Dr. Raymond D. Findlay scholarship

Dr. Raymond D. Findlay scholarship in the amount of $1,000 was awarded to Logan Markewich of University of Saskatchewan.

WIE

IEEE Canada Women in Engineering Prize for 2016 in the amount of $1,000 was awarded to Elena Uchiteleva of the London Section.

Apr 2017

Special Grant Report

In 2016, the IEEE Canadian Foundation provided a Special Grant to IEEE Student Branch at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) for their Automated Submarine Competition project. The students engaged in building an Automated Submarine for the robosub competition. Their project involved building the whole mechanical part of the submarine, the electronic components for the power supply, the motor control, the camera and the hydrophones. They have most of those subsystems working and are aiming to finalize the rest in the near future. They are planning to have a working submarine before the summer in order to enter the competition. In addition to learning a lot about electronic, mechanical and software engineering, the team members have learned how to work as a team on this exciting project.

IEEE Power & Energy Scholarship Plus Initiative

In Canada, the IEEE Canadian Foundation supports the IEEE Power & Energy Scholarship Plus Initiative. The PES Scholarship Plus Initiative provides scholarships and real world experience to qualified undergraduates who are interested in power and energy engineering careers.

Applications are due June 30th. http://www.ee-scholarship.org/

2016/2017 recipients are:
Jonathan Anderson, University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Lianne de la Salle, University of Ottawa
Courtney Harnum, Memorial University
Nick Pant, McGill University
Alexandre Poersch, University of Manitoba
William Skinner, University of Calgary
Lukas Unruh, University of Manitoba
Yilin Zhao, University of Calgary

40th IEEE McNaughton Learning Resource Centre

A news item on "The Institute" web site recognizes the 40th IEEE McNaughton Learning Resource Centre at Lakehead University, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and the role of the IEEE Canadian Foundation in establishing the Centre:
http://theinstitute.ieee.org/resources/ieee-news/ieee-mcnaughton-learning-resource-centre-opens-its-40th-location

Mar 2017

Special Grant Report

In April 2016, IEEE Canadian Foundation approved a Special Grant to the Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) Student Branch in support of their SpaceX Hyperloop competition project. In the competition, sponsored by the US company SpaceX, a number of teams design and some build a subscale transport vehicle prototype to demonstrate technical feasibility of using linear electric motors for accelerating and decelerating an electromagnetically levitated pod through a low-pressure tube. The goal is commercializing this technology for moving passengers and cargo at airline speeds but at a fraction of the air travel cost. The MUN team is a member of OpenLoop, an alliance of teams from six North American Universities, and it successfully participated in the competition last summer in Hawthorne, California. Having completed all tests to get into the tube. it finished among the top 10 in testing the pod and its functionality. Among other dignitaries at the competition, Elon Musk, the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX, checked out the MUN team's pod and was impressed with it. The pod passed SpaceX control tests and the team's SpaceX technical advisor referred to their pod as "a piece of art" for its appearance and industrial design. The project enhanced the students' engineering skills and innovative thinking.

Feb 2017

ICF Vehicular Technologies Travel Grant Report

In 2016, the IEEE Canadian Foundation (ICF) Board of Directors approved one IEEE Canada Vehicular Technologies Travel Grant in support of a graduate student's participation in the IEEE GLOBECOM 2016 Conference in Washington D.C., held on Dec. 3-6, 2016. It was awarded to Badrun Naher Liya, at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Badrun reports that she attended the conference and successfully presented her technical paper entitled "Characterization of multipath persistence in device-to-device scenarios at 30 GHz" co-authored by her professor Dr. David G. Michelson. She received useful feedback on her work in direct contact with other researchers working in the field, and exchanged with them experiences and ideas on wider topics of mutual interest. In addition to getting informed about the cutting-edge technologies and practical challenges facing the wireless communications industry, this large conference with over 2000 attendees provided an excellent opportunity for Badrun to network with scientists, researchers and industry professionals from all over the world. She appreciated the ICF support and is enthusiastic to spread the message about the ICF work.

ICF Scholarship Report

At the IEEE Winnipeg Section Annual General Meeting held on Jan. 17, 2017, Kevin Lamothe, student at the University of Manitoba, Faculty of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, received a certificate of the IEEE Canadian Foundation Scholarship awarded to him in 2016. A photo from the event (attached) shows Kevin receiving the certificate from Dario Schor, IEEE Winnipeg Section Chair.

ICF links of interest

IEEE McNaughton Learning Resource Centres by Date of Formation

http://ieeecanadianfoundation.org/EN/cnt_yr.php

IEEE Canadian Foundation Special Grants Awarded by Year

http://ieeecanadianfoundation.org/EN/sp_yr.php

IEEE McNaughton Learning Resource Centre Grants Awarded by Year

http://ieeecanadianfoundation.org/EN/lrc_yr.php

IEEE Student Branches at Canadian Universities and Colleges

http://ieeecanadianfoundation.org/EN/branches.php

You Can Make a Difference - Donations to ICF by IEEE annual membership renewal

The IEEE Canadian Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the IEEE in Canada, is ready to accept your contributions when you renew your IEEE membership in the fall each year.

Just select the IEEE Canadian Foundation as your choice when you complete your annual IEEE membership renewal form (paper or web version).

Please note that this method enables you to make a contribution to the IEEE Canadian Foundation General Fund only. To make a contribution to one or more of our other funds, please consider donating online or donating by mail. Charitable tax receipts are issued to Canadians.

If you are a Canadian IEEE Life Member and wish to participate in our Canadian Life Member Fund "Thank You" program, please view this web page.