UCLA Award Showcase

An active IEEE Student Branch like UCLA can amass an impressive record of accomplishment. Hard to know until you see it laid out in a list.

They need to add a few, including a third place showing at the recent California Micromouse Competition.  Here, team UCLA's team "In Green We Trust" admires their award.

"There's a Mouse in the Maze"

UCSD Jacob's Engineering profiled the recent California Micromouse competition hosted by the IEEE Student Branch.  Read for inspiration: "There's a Mouse in the Maze."   Here's a link to my photos of the competition on Flickr.

Tough act to follow:  UCSD Branch Chairs Minji Kim 2010-11;

Jordan Rhee, 2008-10; and David Jackson, 2007-08.

http://ieee.ucsd.edu/

UPP (and UPP Contacts) Around the World

IEEE University Program Expands to China

Student Branch Chairs Meet to Exchange Ideas

Robots at Peking University Strengthens IEEE – Student Ties

A Week in the Life of a Student Branch Chair

Organizing an IEEE Student Professional Awareness Conference 

New Mobile Video Apps Innovation Challenge - $10,000 Prize!

Learned about this from an engineer I met at the Formula Hybrid competition in May:

Dialogic Corporation is calling upon mobile application developers to participate in the Second Annual Dialogic Innovator Challenge. The theme of this year’s Innovator Challenge is to create the ultimate sports application based on video. The grand prize winner of the Challenge will receive a cash prize of US$10,000, while the first runner up will receive a cash prize of US$5,000 and the second runner up will receive a cash prize of US$2,500. More details are available at: www.dialogic.com/innovator. Submissions for the contest will be accepted from April 21st through August 31st. Winners will be announced at the end of September.

Applicants are also invited to download software from the Innovator Challenge portal to develop their video applications. The developer platforms include Dialogic IP Media Server, Dialogic Host Media Processing Software and the DiaStar Server, as well as to use the Dialogic® Vision™ Servers and Gateways. Dialogic is also offering access to a developer network that will allow developers to use and test Dialogic products for the development of trial applications. Additionally, in-person or online training courses are available to help developers gain proficiency in evaluating, developing and deploying solutions based on Dialogic products.

All entries will be featured on the Innovator Challenge web site, where the general public will be invited to rate the applications. The winners will be determined by online rating in conjunction with a global judging panel of independent representatives from telecoms, media, analysts and industry institutions.

IEEE Participates in Cloud Computing Discussion at U.S. White House

On 20 May, IEEE Chief Information Officer Alexander Pasik joined United States Deputy Secretary of Commerce Dennis Hightower and key U.S. administration officials to discuss the creation and adoption of national standards for cloud computing. Among other participants were Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, the Administration’s Cyber Security Coordinator Howard Schmidt, and other industry leaders.
IEEE was specifically asked to provide input on how the federal government can collaborate with different organizations to establish security standards for cloud computing so that they could be integrated into the commercial sector. Read more here:

"Cloud computing" has been appearing in the IEEE Xplore "most popular" search terms statistics for some months now, and there are several hundred journal and conference articles since 2008. This technology has been on my radar since Ken Elkabany, a former IEEE Student Branch Chair at Berkeley, and some fellow alums started PiCloud. (I confess to vicarious pride in the accomplishments of the students I've met through IEEE.) Ken was one of those undergrads who knew his way around research literature....

Microsoft and IEEE Join Forces

From a February 17 press release:
REDMOND, Wash. — Feb. 17, 2010 — Today, Microsoft Corp. and IEEE announced a collaboration to empower students to reach their professional aspirations. The goal of the Microsoft-IEEE collaboration is to increase the number of students engaged in technical pursuits with the long-term benefit of strengthening business and society through the use of technology.

Read more, here.

New Face of Engineering 2010

Pittsburgh biomedical engineering researcher, entrepreneur selected as an Engineers Week "New Face of Engineering."

IEEE-USA reports that "Biomedical engineer Sanna Gaspard is researching ways to improve the survival rate of premature babies. For this and other work she was chosen as a 2010 Engineers Week "New Face of Engineering."

Gaspard, a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University, was one of 13 engineers recognized for this international honor and featured in a full-page ad that ran in USA Today on 16 February: http://www.eweek.org/Site/pdfs/USA_Today_Ad.pdf

"What does a CPU have in common with a fast food restaurant?"

Twenty years earlier on 31 January, Russia opened its first McDonald's, in Moscow. What does fast food have to do with engineering? Check out the above-referenced article one of many presented at the 2005 Frontiers in Education conference or read "The Evaluation of Service Quality in Fast Food Industry" by authors from Beijing JiaoTong Univ., Beijing. Reliable colleagues say McD's food in Beijing is far superior to the US; I missed that experience in September.

Serial killers? Ten years ago, on the same day, the most prolific serial killer in Britain was jailed. Read the 2006 IT Professional article, "Data Mining and Predictive Analytics in Public Safety and Security" on how "crime and criminal behavior, including the most aberrant or heinous crimes, frequently can be categorized and modeled," aiding apprehension.

Thirty years ago today, American comedian Jimmy Durante died. He's quoted in IEEE Computer Applications in Power, "Interchange scheduling: discipline or disorder?" 10/96.

My favorite Durante quote? “Be kind to people on the way up - you'll meet them again on your way down.”

Can you change the world?

Of course you can!

Show us how and you could win US$10,000. The IEEE Presidents’ Change the World competition recognizes students who develop unique solutions to real-world problems using engineering, science, computing and leadership skills to benefit their community or humanity.

Tell us how you have made a positive impact in the world and you could win US$10,000 and the title “IEEE Student Humanitarian Supreme,” plus a free trip to the 2010 IEEE Honors Ceremony in Montreal, Canada.

Registration closes 31 January. Submit your entry today. (http://www.ieee.org/changetheworld)

The Week in IEEE Xplore: Jan 9-15

Jan 15, 1885: First known photograph of a snowflake taken by American Farmer Wilson A. Bentley
Shape classification of snow particle into snowflake and graupel using image processing,
ICROS-SICE International Joint Conference, August, 2009 -- I have added a new word to my vocabulary: graupel (granular snow pellets) . I also wasn't aware that IEEE Standards are used to define cameras, hence "A side view of natural falling snow particles was photographed by IEEE1394 camera..."

Jan 16, 1970 - Architect Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal Award from American insitute of Architects
Design and Control of Tensegrity Robots for Locomotion, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, Oct. 2006, "Tensegrity structures were first invented by Snelson in 1948 and formally patented by Buckminster Fuller in 1962 [16], who coined theword tensegrity as an abbreviation of tensile integrity." P. 994

Jan 17, 1985 -British Telecom retires famous red telephone boxes
Over 1,600 articles by BT authors -- have fun!