October 2020 Issue
Announcements
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Region 7 Director-Elect candidates for the 2021 IEEE Election
The call for nominations of the Region 7 Director-Elect candidates is due on Nov. 1.
- Candidates for the 2021 Election for the IEEE Canada President-Elect / Region 7 Director – Elect / Region 7 Delegate – Elect, 2022-2023,
- IEEE Canada President / Region 7 Director / Region 7 Delegate, 2024-2025,
- IEEE Canada / Region 7 Past President, 2026-2017
Please note that the candidates for the IEEE Canada President-Elect rotate through the 3 IEEE Canada Areas: EAST, CENTRAL, and WEST. Candidates for the 2021 Election are to be from the IEEE Canada Area Central
Articles and Resources
IEEE educational activities continue to offer online instruction and IEEE's pre-university educational resources may be of assistance to families of students whose classroom activities have been disrupted. Home-schooling parents and students can explore the IEEE TryEngineering database to learn about a wide variety of concepts.
Helping Students Learn via Online Delivery: Considerations for Pandemic Pedagogy
Online Networking 101: Five Etiquette Tips for Successful Engagement
Scholarships, Awards, and Prizes
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Call for Nominations - IEEE Canada Major Awards
You can help recognize the efforts of outstanding volunteers by nominating individuals for one of the prestigious IEEE Canada Major Awards. Each award has a unique mission and criteria and offers the opportunity to honor distinguished colleagues, inspiring teachers, and corporate leaders. Help us to recognize the best and brightest engineers across all IEEE technical areas. If you know someone who has made substantial IEEE Canada contributions through innovative projects, exemplary leadership, service, or by contributing to IEEE Canada and engineering in Canada, consider nominating them for one of the following awards:
- A.G.L. McNaughton Gold Medal
- R.A. Fessenden Medal
- P. D. Ziogas Electric Power Medal
- C. C. Gotlieb Computer Medal
- J. M. Ham Outstanding Engineering Educator Medal Outstanding Engineer Medal
- R. H. Tanner Industry Leadership Medal
- W. S. Read Outstanding Service Medal
- E. F. Glass Western Canada Merit Medal
- M. B. Broughton Central Canada Merit Medal
- J. J. Archambault Eastern Canada Merit Medal
Please visit the IEEE Canada Award nomination web page to review the nominator guidelines and eligibility requirements. IEEE Canada awards as most IEEE awards are peer-recognized awards; therefore, self-nomination is not permitted. Nominations can be submitted using the id you have linked with IEEE.
Nominate a colleague at https://ieee.secure-platform.com/a/solicitations/263/home
Please address any questions or issues to Celia Desmond at c.desmond@ieee.orgDeadline: November 30, 2020
- IEEE TFA's, Herz Staff Award, and Medals & Recognitions
The IEEE Awards Board (AB) administers the highest medals, awards, and recognitions presented by IEEE. The IEEE Technical Field Awards are awarded for contributions or leadership in specific fields of interest of the IEEE. IEEE Medals embrace significant and broad IEEE interests and purposes.
Nominations are due January 15 annually for the IEEE Technical Field Awards.
All are encouraged to submit a nomination for a worthy candidate within their technical fields. Nomination guidelines, award-specific criteria, and components of a nomination form can be downloaded from https://www.ieee.org/about/awards/information.html and http://www.ieee.org/about/awards/recognitions/recognitions_herz.html . All nominations must be submitted through the online nomination portal. For more information visit www.ieee.org/awards or e-mail awards@ieee.org.
- McNaughton Centre Grant
Grant Link: http://www.ieeecanadianfoundation.org/EN/cen_grnt.php
Deadline: November 15, 2020 - Special Grants and Vehicular Technologies Grants
Grant Link: http://www.ieeecanadianfoundation.org/EN/sp_grnts.php
Deadline: November 15, 2020 - Special Grants cover virtual activities and events
Special Grants from the IEEE Canadian Foundation can cover virtual as well as in-person activities and events. Special Grants support new and innovative initiatives of interest to the IEEE Canada community.
By all means, make first use of collaborative tools made available to you from IEEE, such as Collabratec, Webex or Google (Hangouts) Meet, or those from your school/work environment. Beyond those, IEEE Student Branches and other groups are encouraged to apply imagination to what might be possible and achievable in the present COVID-19 situation.
Or perhaps there are initiatives that could start early as virtual then reasonably anticipate developing into hybrid or in-person, hands-on activities when the time is right.
Projects that benefit or engage more people or have a broader impact on society will normally be given preference. Projects that are part of student’s normal course requirements (e.g. capstone design projects) will not normally be funded.
Submissions for the next round of Special Grants are due Nov. 15, 2020.
Learn more here: http://www.ieeecanadianfoundation.org/EN/sp_grnts.php
Apply here: http://www.ieeecanadianfoundation.org/EN/forms/sp_gr_app_e.php Deadline extensions for Scholarship Applications
Below scholarships have deadline extensions until November 15, 2020- RTH Alden Scholarship
Link: http://www.ieeecanadianfoundation.org/EN/alden_scholarship.php - Garganni-Strybosch Scholarship
Link: https://ewh.ieee.org/r7/cafoundation/EN/gs_scholarship.php
- RTH Alden Scholarship
IEEE Canadian Foundation
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IEEE Canadian Foundation Special Grant Report
University of British Columbia (UBC) IEEE Student Branch was awarded a one-time Special Grant earlier this year in support of their AgroBot project. The UBC AgroBot team entailed 32 students from various disciplines gathered to design, build and test a prototype of a fully autonomous agricultural robot. The team built an AgroBot mobile chassis, omnidirectional nozzle, and a weed recognition and navigation system, and tested them on a grassy terrain. They planned to compete in the AgGrowBOT Competition at Purdue University in May this year, but the competition was unfortunately canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Throughout this project, the students used and developed further their teamwork and engineering skills, including mechanical and electrical design, programming and machine learning. They have also actively promoted sustainable farming at UBC events and on social media. Due to their successful work on this project, UBC has approached the AgroBot team regarding a separate aquaponics project.
Two below pictures show the Agrobot test runs on a grassy terrain.
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IEEE Canadian Foundation – Giving Through IEEE Dues Renewal
Each year, at dues renewal time, IEEE Canada members have the opportunity to transform the lives of students and enhance the future of electrical and computer engineering in Canada. Be sure to look for the option to donate to the IEEE Canadian Foundation.
The full value of donations made this way is received by the IEEE Canadian Foundation, for the General Fund which supports national scholarships, grants and McNaughton Learning Resource Centres. You will be billed in the same currency as your renewal, with tax receipts suitable for Canadian tax purposes issued early in the new year by the IEEE Canadian Foundation, for gifts of $25 CDN or more.
Life Members enjoy membership renewal at no cost – you have enjoyed your career, why not support the next generation by donating the equivalent of your dues to support the IEEE Canadian Foundation.
IEEE Canadian Foundation 25/25 Campaign
2020 is IEEE Canada 25th Anniversary! IEEE Canadian Foundation 25/25 Campaign invites a first-time or incremental $25 gift to celebrate 25 years of IEEE Canada – IEEE Canadian Foundation successful work that benefited many IEEE members and nonmembers.
Double Your Gift to the IEEE Canadian Foundation
Your employer may have a charitable gift matching program. Typically, these programs match your personal contribution to registered Canadian charities. Each plan is different, and not always publicized, so please ask your HR department or look into your employee benefits. The IEEE Canadian foundation is a registered charity and operates under Canada Revenue Agency registration number 102450376RR0001.
You may be eligible to participate in your company's charitable gift matching program if you are a:- full time or part time employee,
- pensioner/retiree,
- spouse of an employee,
- widow(er) of someone formerly employed at that company,
- member of the Board of Directors.
If gift matching is available in your workplace, please spread the word with your IEEE colleagues there – and let us know about your experience.
Events
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Webinar: Understanding MV-HV Cables, testing, applications – cable selection and standards
This webinar will cover the basics of medium voltage cables. The CSA standards they are built to will be explained with how they result in cables suited to specific applications. Clarity will be given to which product types are typically commercially available, product types that can be made to order, and which product features can be specified. Each of the construction layers within a medium voltage cable will be shown and their functions defined. The goal is to understand how each construction layer provides benefits for different applications enabling designers to specify cables that best meet their projects’ unique requirements. Finally, a brief overview of factory and field acceptance tests will be covered.
- Date: November 10, 2020
- Time: 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM (Mountain time; UTC-7)
- Presented by: Blair Sackney of Texcan
- Registration: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/238123
Registration closes November 8th
Learning Objectives:- Medium Voltage cable CSA Standards
- Understanding MV cable components and their purposes
- MV Cable options
- Testing
Intended Audience
Engineers, Designers, Manufacturer’s, Installers and Inspectors who are responsible for the design, selection and installation of medium voltage cables. -
Webinar: Another Inconvenient Truth: Snails Are More Intelligent Than Us
For decades there has been a new CMOS technology node approximately every two years. Until recently, thanks to scaling, the key feature of every new technology node has been a 100% integration capacity and 40% performance improvement… free-of-charge. The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) has been architected in such a way that this improvement became a self-fulfilling prophecy of the roadmap itself. Everything else has been bent in the attempt to make scaling happen… forever. That has changed as we approach the near end of Moore’s Law.
For eons snails have built the cells of their shell according to the Fibonacci’s numbers – where each cell has a volume that is the sum of the volume of the previous two cells. Snails understand, however, that at a certain point in time growth must stop to prevent the collapse of the shell by making it too big and therefore fragile. When this point is reached, snails do stop adding larger cells, and start improving the robustness of the shell.
Back to us: technology-wise, scaling has rapidly exhausted the resources of CMOS technology, which, by now, struggles to deliver any further improvement. A number of fundamental challenges have emerged, both technical and financial, which force a thorough rethinking of how scaling has been done, and whether scaling continues to be the most appropriate solution to provide the world with the silicon content that it needs.
Like Al Gore’s premise on energy consumption and global warming, there is an inconvenient truth to be acknowledged in our industry: scaling is like fossil fuels – the cheapest and easiest way to go. Unfortunately, also like fossil fuels, it is not sustainable indefinitely. And it becomes more costly and inefficient every day. New avenues, which are available today, are worth exploring and must be undertaken. That is unless snails are more intelligent than us.
In this talk, Dr. Williams will describe the problems with scaling and a number of possible solutions, including the latest alternative paths and their relative merits.
- Date: November 12, 2020
- Time: 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM (Mountain time; UTC-7)
- Presented by: Dr. Thomas W. Williams, retired Synopsys Fellow at Synopsys
- Registration: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/244887
Registration closes November 11th
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Webinar: How being an IEEE volunteer can "transform" your career
Ronnie Minhaz began his journey with IEEE as the GOLD (now Young Professionals) Chair. He then transitioned to Section Chair for the Southern Alberta section. This experience led him to join the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Transformers Committee, which has allowed him to give various technical presentations for PES Chapters around the world.
During this talk, Ronnie will discuss how his involvement in IEEE helped him to grow his transformer consulting business and allowed him to travel around the world for technical seminars, site inspections, and more.
- Date: November 18, 2020
- Time: 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM (Mountain time; UTC-7)
- Presented by: Ronnie Minhaz of Transformer Consulting Services Inc.
- Registration: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/244915
Registration closes November 17th
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Webinar: Medium Voltage Cable Constructability Overview
This webinar will cover the site considerations related to medium voltage and large cables. These cables require additional planning to ensure long lasting and cost-effective installations. At the design phase and specification stage there are several best practices that can be considered that help ensure these critical cables are installed such that the risk of improper handling is minimized. Often poorly handled or improperly pulled medium voltage cables can result in damage that will pass acceptance testing but show up in failures 5 or 6 years later. With a good pull and testing plan, site issues can be better controlled for long lasting cable installations.
- Date: December 1, 2020
- Time: 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM (Mountain time; UTC-7)
- Presented by: Blair Sackney of Texcan
- Registration: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/238121
Registration closes November 29th
Learning Objectives:- Medium voltage cable handling
- Cable pull calculations & pull plans
- Cable routing best practises
- Large cable installations
- Site acceptance and maintenance testing
Intended Audience
Engineers, Designers, Manufacturer’s, Installers and Inspectors who are responsible for the design, selection and installation of medium voltage cables.
