We are proud to announce that the IEEE South Africa is 40 years this year, following its foundation on 5 August 1977! We plan to run celebratory events – more information to follow.

 

Awards

• Congratulation to MTT-S South Africa Chapter Officers and volunteers for winning the 2017 MTT Society outstanding chapter award!
  • The Chapter showed an outstanding activity for 2016 and won this very prestigious award. The Chapter receives a plaque, US$1500 and is also recognized at IMS award banquet function of IEEE MTT-S.
• Congratulations to University of Cape Town Student (UCT) Branch Chair Mr Lindokuhle Shongwe on being selected to participate in the 2017 IEEE Sections Congress to be held in Australia in 11-13 August this year
  • The Congress shows a rainbow of opportunities one can make out of IEEE. A nomination and selection processes were run amongst the leading volunteers of the Section. The panel selected Lindokuhle, following his track record of IEEE activities which included co-organization of/support for 4 IEEE Section/SAIEE sponsored talks, #BreakingTheStereotype Women in Engineering, Hackathon 2016 & 2017, IEEE UAE Student Branch Visit) and membership development (2 sessions with over 130 people).

 

Activities (co-)funded by Section

• The UCT IEEE Student Branch hosted a Hackathon on the 20th May 2017.
  • The event had 17 participants, with the bulk being High School students from Thandokhulu High School, Rondebosch Boys High as well as Electrical Engineering students in UCT. The main event took place in UCT, where a quick crash course on Arduino programming, motor control, soldering and how to use a breadboard was given by Jonathan Whitaker. The students where then split into 4 groups of 4/5 people and given the task to build an autonomous line-following robot.
• Dr Seyi Olokede, IEEE South Africa Membership Development Chair, attended the IEEE R8 membership development (MD) workshop held in Slovakia on 19-20 May 2017 and will now present local MD workshops in South Africa.
• Darryn Cornish, IEEE South Africa Section Vice-Chair, represented our Section in the Inauguration of the IEEE Botswana Section held at the University of Botswana on 19 May 2017, an event served to both announce the first elected officials of the newly opened IEEE Botswana section and to officially open the section.

 

Notable mention

• Membership renewal is half-price for new (to be) members. Please remember to renew, if you have not yet, and invite colleagues to join (ieee.org/join).
• The cost of membership is effectively recovered when you attend any IEEE conference, thanks to the IEEE membership discounts.
• IEEE Officers need to submit the L31 reports for the activities which have been run.

 

Upcoming research conferences open for paper submissions

• 2017 Global Wireless Summit (GWS), Cape Town, 15-18 Oct 2017. Paper Submission deadline extended until 11 July 2017 (support by SP01/COM19 i.e. Joint Chapter: Signal Processing & Communications)
• 2017 Pattern Recognition Association of South Africa and Robotics and Mechatronics (PRASA-RobMech), Bloemfontein, 30 Nov - 01 Dec 2017. Paper Submission deadline: 31 Aug 2017 (support by the Joint Chapter: Control Systems & Robotics and Automation CSS23/RAS24)
• 2018 Conference on Information Communications Technology and Society (ICTAS), Durban, 8-9 Mar 2018. Paper Submission deadline: 31 Oct 2017 (support by Section)
• 2018 International Conference on Advances in Big Data, Computing and Data Communication Systems (icABCD), Durban, 6-7 Aug 2018. Paper Submission deadline: 31 Jan 2018 (support by Computer Chapter C16)

 

Other upcoming research conferences (submissions already closed)

• 2017 International Conference on the Industrial and Commercial Use of Energy (ICUE), Cape Town, 15-16 Aug 2017 (support by the Joint Chapter: Industrial Electronics, Industry Applications & Power Electronics IE13/IA34/PEL35)
• 2017 Information Security for South Africa (ISSA), Johannesburg, 16-17 Aug 2017 (support by Systems, Man & Cybernetics Chapter SMC28)
• 2017 IEEE AFRICON, Cape Town, 18-20 Sep 2017 (support by Section)
• 2017 IEEE Radio and Antenna Days of the Indian Ocean (RADIO), Cape Town, 25-28 Sep 2017 (support by IEEE AP-S)

 

 

Recent events and activities

• A call was sent out for nominations for 2017 IEEE and SAIEE Joint Distinguised Award. The award will be handed to the winner at the SAIEE’s Annual Banquet on Friday 13 October 2017

• Conference “2017 IEEE Future of Electronic Power Processing and Conversion (FEPPCON)” held in Kruger National park from 12-16 Jun 2017.
• Talks “Keeping the Lights On! Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow!” at SAIEE, Johannesburg (8 May), UCT, Cape Town (10 May) and  UKZN, Durban (15 May 2017)
• Talk "Optimising practical problems - research and reality" by Dr Irene Moser, UNISA, Gauteng , 04 May 2017;
• “IEEE Summit: 5G in Future Africa: The role of IoT, Cognitive Radio and Cybersecurity in networking the next billion”, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 03 May 2017;
• Talk “ECSA: Road to registration” by Mr J Moloisane, and “Link between IEEE and ECSA” by Dr A Lysko, CSIR, Pretoria, 12 April 2017;
• Talk “Interferometry and Synthesis in Radio Astronomy”, by Prof D Davidson, Rondebosch, 6 Apr 2017;
• Conference “2017 International Conference on the Domestic Use of Energy (DUE)”,  Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 04 Apr - 05 Apr 2017;
• Workshop “Trends in Wireless Networking & Human Factors on Intelligent Systems”, University of Johannesburg (3 and 6 April 2017);
• Conference “2017 Conference on Information Communication Technology and Society (ICTAS)”, Durban, 8-10 Mar 2017;
• Three wireless/information/electromagnetics talks at UCT on February 17, 2017: "Simultaneous Information and Power Transfer in Wireless Systems" by Prof Magdalena Salazar Palma, "The Physics and Mathematics of the Signal Propagation Mechanism in Cellular Wireless Communication Systems" by Prof Tapan K. Sarkar, and "Electromagnetic Simulations of Complex Devices: Uncertainty Quantification" by Prof Vikass Monebhurrun;
• Substrate integrated Waveguide – Base for Leaky Wave Antennas by Prof. Jan Machac, University of Pretoria (13 Feb), University of Cape Town, (16-17 Feb 2017);
• Slow-wave concepts & circuits in RF and mm-waves by Prof P  Ferrari, University of Pretoria (6 Feb), University of Cape Town (9 Feb), Stellenbosch  University (10 Feb 2017);
• IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecture “5G and Future Wireless Internet: Challenges and Emerging Technologies” presented by Dr A. Chan, FIEEE, held at CSIR , Pretoria, 9 February 2017;
• Conference “2017 8th International Conference on Mechanical and Intelligent Manufacturing Technologies (ICMIMT)”, Cape Town, 3-6 Feb 2017.

 

IEEE offers resources including

• New conference organizing guides for conferences wishing for support from South African Section;
• Call for IEEE EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service) Projects, with funding up to US$100k. Call for EPICS-in-IEEE Projects contact person: [email protected];
• Other grants from IEEE Foundation  (US$5k-USD100k; submission deadline 15 July 2017);
• Other means of IEEE funding opportunities (Seed grants, Women in engineering, pre-university …)
• ECSA membership discounts of up to R1110 for South African IEEE members.
• Over 400 technical courses including free tutorials;
• Leadership courses (some may be access restricted to active volunteers);
• Access to the technical leaders in various fields, via the IEEE Distinguished Lecturership programmes and related initiatives (how to do guide available);
• Job search (outside of RSA, at this point).

 

We hope you will find this summary useful. Please do not hesitate to tell us (e.g. via http://www.ieee.org.za/contact-us), should you have any questions/comments.