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Interview with 2013 IEEE President-Elect Candidates - Distinguished IEEE ComSoc Members

IEEE Communications Society congratulates J. Roberto Boisson de Marca and Tariq S. Durrani on being nominated by the IEEE Board of Directors for 2013 President-Elect.

ComSoc staff interviewed both candidates with three questions. Here are their short bios and the Q&A:

Roberto deMarca was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Southern California where he earned his PhD-EE. Since 1978 he has been on the faculty of the Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, having held several leadership/administrative positions including Associate Academic Vice President. Dr. de Marca also held visiting appointments in universities and industrial laboratories in Europe, Asia and North America. Twice he served as Scientific Consultant with AT&T Bell Laboratories.

As National Research Council Scientific Director, he authorized the startup money for the national research network paving the way to the widespread Internet use in Brazil. Dr. de Marca was a delegate to several ITU meetings where the wireless 3G standards were developed. In 2008-2010 he served on Finep’s(the largest Brazilian R&D/Innovation funding agency) presidential advisory board.

Roberto was the Brazilian Telecommunications Society founding President and is a member of the Brazilian National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

Tariq Durrani’s distinguished career includes several positions with Strathclyde in the UK: - lecturer (1976), Professor (1982), Head of the Electronic & Electrical Engineering Department (1990-1994), and Deputy Principal (2000-2006) with university-wide responsibilities for large-scale strategic developments. His research interests cover communications, signal processing, technology management. He has authored over 350 publications; conducted collaborative work with industry; partnered in major European Union Programs; supervised 40 Ph,D.s; and currently holds visiting appointments at Princeton, University of Southern California, Stirling (Scotland), and Chengdu (China).

Tariq has held Directorships of eight organizations, including the Scottish Funding Council (U.S. NSF equivalent); U.K. National Commission for UNESCO. He served as Advisor to the Governments of UK, Portugal, Netherlands, UAE, US, and European Union. He is a Fellow of the: UK Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society of Edinburgh, IET, IEEE. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth conferred on him the Order of the British Empire "for services to electronics research and higher education."

1) How do you view the increased globalization of IEEE?

DE MARCA: IEEE has indeed made important strides toward becoming a truly global organization in recent years. However, there is more to be done. There has been a clear shift in demographics for technology innovation development, and IEEE must be able to engage in its activities technologists dispersed across the world. It is important to give them opportunities to rise within IEEE ranks to leadership positions. IEEE can only thrive in the future if it can embrace this diversified talent. However, to be truly global IEEE must offer a full range of services and benefits to all its members regardless where they live. IEEE must also continue to increase its physical presence in different regions of the world, being sensitive to cultural differences and language barriers, to be successful in a globalization agenda that is essential to its future success.

I must say that the IEEE Communications Society was one of the early leaders in globalization within IEEE. It made concrete steps in this direction as early as 20 years ago. I am very proud to have played a role in these ComSoc early efforts first as Vice President of International Affairs, then as Vice President, Member Activities and later as Society President.

DURRANI: With over 400,000 members in over 160 countries, the IEEE is already a globalized organization. I view this as a very positive development, which brings a richness of diversity, and immense opportunity to "advance technology in the service of humanity" – the IEEE mission.

Establishing IEEE offices in different parts of the world is already paying off in terms of increased member satisfaction, improved support and services, and higher profile for the IEEE with greater engagement with government and industry. As an instance, as a global player IEEE is now working with United Nations Educational Cultural and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) to support engineering capacity building in Africa, as a starting point. I am particularly pleased with this, as I orchestrated this relationship.

I would also advocate publication of multilingual journals, serving members worldwide and opening new markets for IEEE products.

Related to this is the globalization of IEEE conferences. The IEEE sponsors over 1100 conferences and meetings worldwide. In this context the ComSoc initiative of the First International Conference on Communications in China (ICCC) is an important new venture, firmly establishing ComSoc’s global credentials, meeting the needs of engineers in Southeast Asia, and supporting growth and development of this emerging telecommunications market. For Instance, I write this blog while waiting for my flight from Beijing Airport, where I read that China Mobile now has over 672 million subscribers, making it the world’s largest mobile phone operator.

In a similar vein, I see a strong role for the IEEE in developing global Standards, either directly or through strategic alliances. For example, IEEE standards for communications products are well recognized, and I see increasing growth in this activity to support development and adoption of standards across the globe, "in partnership with industry, governments and the public."

Further more, as a consequence of globalization I see a more balanced international representation of IEEE leadership in the future. A clear signal for this comes from the IEEE Board of Directors, which has nominated Roberto and me as 2013 IEEE President Elect candidates' -- Roberto from IEEE Region 9, and I from Region 8.

2) How do you view the changing role of IEEE Societies in the future?

DURRANI: IEEE Societies are the lifeblood of the IEEE. They bring knowledge, technological leadership, and vitality to the IEEE. Their publications and conferences ensure IEEE as the world’s leading organization of technical professionals, meeting member needs and promoting the advancement of technology.

There are two issues that need to be addressed as we look into the future. How will societies evolve with the march of technologies, which are likely to be interdisciplinary in nature (e.g., life sciences)? IEEE Societies have traditionally grown as discipline oriented entities. Are they fit to meet emerging challenges? IEEE Councils have played the role of fostering topics that do not belong to specific Societies. Perhaps the way forward is to grow more Councils; however Councils do not have members, and are thus not in a position to establish or catalyze a community that is necessary to nurture a new area. Thus, a new model is needed –- one that is multi/interdisciplinary and is home to IEEE members with cognate interests. One such model is that of a ‘Professional Group which is distinct and, through its members, dedicated to interdisciplinary development supported by publications and conferences.

A further aspect of the evolution of Societies is the role of Divisions. While Regions have a key role in oversight and integration of the activities of Sections, it is a moot point whether Divisions have such a role. Fortunately, ComSoc is blessed with having a Division of its own and, as a consequence, its own Director on the IEEE Board.

Currently the IEEE has 38 Societies, of varying sizes and levels of activities; some are discipline-specific and technology-oriented, such as ComSoc, Power Engineering or the Computer Society; others are profession-oriented, such as the Professional Communications Society, Education Society, or the Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT). The latter are of general interest to all IEEE members. Some consideration needs to be given to whether all Societies should belong to same Board (Technical Activities Board), or whether there is another vehicle that would best serve the needs of the Societies and their members. A related issue is whether the Societies and their members could be better served by synergistic alliances across Societies, closer alignment, or, indeed, cohesion through mergers.

Having said this, I see ComSoc as flourishing in the future, with its close alignment to one of the most dynamic and universally rapidly growing industries. I mentioned its conferences earlier; its publications could go multilingual, and its certification programs are bound to expand rapidly world-wide as the demand for professional qualifications in communications grows that carry the imprimatur of ComSoc.

DE MARCA: For many decades the IEEE Societies have been providing exceptional value to the parent organization, to the worldwide technology and scientific community, and to mankind. They foster technical communities that have been able to produce best-in-class publications and conferences where several key concepts and results that allowed technology developments that made our lives better were first seen and heard. These same publications and conferences have been the financial mainstay of IEEE, allowing the organization to invest in other areas that are part of its overall mission such as humanitarian technologies and engineering education. However, IEEE Societies are facing major challenges to continue their path of success. Interestingly some of these challenges result from the technology advances their volunteers helped create. The first one is that several of the important technologies that need to and will be developed in the near future are multidisciplinary in nature. Examples of these future directions are Smart Living, Brain-Machine Interfaces, Green ICT, and Internet of Things. Therefore, IEEE Societies will have to learn how to develop partnerships with each other and possibly with other entities in different fields as well as industry in order to lead and have impact in the new areas. A second challenge comes from the new social networking tools that make community building and professional collaboration easier, dynamic, and without the need of a structured entity. The question then is, how will professional organizations like IEEE Societies continue to be the place of choice for technical communities in the new and evolving social networking world? They will have to devise new services that will offer significant value over what will be possible to obtain from open social networking environments. They will also have to be flexible in structure and nimble in adapting to changes in technology, society, and the evolving makeup of professional communities. As pointed out in ComSoc’s 2020 report produced last year, Societies will also have to be nimble in addressing new hot topics that attract interest and also have the political will to sunset activities in old topics. IEEE and its Societies will have to learn how to make efficient use of existing platforms (such as Facebook today) to improve their reach to the community. On the other hand, professional collaboration tools will have to be developed and adopted to add value to their products using new technologies that are either being developed or envisioned. IEEE will do well if it leverages the creativity and expertise of its corps of volunteers in addressing these challenges.

Finally, the third challenge has to do with financial viability. In the old times Societies had control over revenues derived from the sale of publication subscriptions. In the model where most revenue comes from access to the centralized IEEE Xplore database, not only has the control decreased but the visibility of a particular Society as being the originator of a given article included in the database has eroded. An average user does not care much where the paper was originally “published”; the reader is only concerned with the quality of the article and whether it suits his/her needs. Therefore it is imperative for Societies to explore new revenue streams as well as initiate discussions within IEEE of new business models that are more appropriate to the centralized electronic disseminations and also consider potential threats such as open access and liberal policies for posting of paper final versions on authors' personal websites.

Therefore, Society leaderships have a big job ahead of them meeting these challenges and others. However, in my opinion, unless they are successful in facing the new and foreseen fast changing environments, IEEE will not be able to maintain its current worldwide prominence.

3) What was your key event or challenge that motivated you to run for IEEE President?

DE MARCA: There was no real key event. It is just a natural progression, the culmination of a long and very joyful volunteer career that started in the IEEE ComSoc ranks.

After serving as ComSoc President I moved to the corporate side of the organization serving first as an IEEE Division Director, representing Communications Technology. Throughout the following 10 years I have held leadership positions in every important facet of IEEE’s operations. At the conclusion of my tenure as IEEE Vice President for Technical Activities I felt I had acquired a wealth of experience that uniquely qualified me to seek the top position. I believe I can effect change, as demonstrated recently in my work leading IEEE Future Directions, and provide leadership at a critical time when IEEE is facing challenges from outside (e.g., open access) as well as internal uncertainties due to changing business models. This drive to continue contributing to the success of IEEE, as I have for the past almost 30 years, is what motivates me to run for IEEE President.

DURRANI: I have had a wide-ranging and unique leadership experience within IEEE and outside, which has prepared me to take up the reins and responsibilities at the helm of IEEE. This experience has been gained through detailed working knowledge of most of the main IEEE Boards.

I’ve been the President of not one but two keynote IEEE Societies: the IEEE Signal Processing Society and the IEEE Engineering Management Society. The Signal Processing Society has given me technical depth, and the other, management breadth.

I’ve been Regional Director of the IEEE Communications Society for Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Vice Chair for Technical Activities for Region 8.

I have had the good fortune of serving on the IEEE Technical Activities Board for eight years, the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board for six years, and several years on the IEEE Awards Board and IEEE Medal committees; most recently, I was 2010 - 2011 Vice President of IEEE Educational Activities Board.

I have organized major conferences for the IEEE, including the highly successful ComSoc flagship conference, ICC 2007 in Glasgow, Scotland.

This detailed experience has motivated me to seek the Presidency of the IEEE to serve the IEEE members and the profession to the best of my ability; to make a difference and lead the IEEE to future growth and success.

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Visit candidates websites:

Roberto de Marca: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roberto-de-Marca/118209111648516
Tariq S. Durrani: www.tariqdurrani.org

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Ask the Experts via Twitter during IEEE ICC 2012

Got a technical question? “Ask the Experts!”

"Ask the Experts" will be a unique, educational social media experience during IEEE ICC 2012. It will feature several 90 minute sessions during which, attendees, members, and all who are active in the ComSoc community are welcome to pose questions via Twitter hashtag #ComSocExperts.

Responses will be provided via Twitter by our featured experts. Answers requiring more than 140 characters will be summarized later on the ComSoc Blog , which will also be used to summarize the entire session.

How to start

1) Prepare your questions in less than 140 characters

2) Simply tweet (http://twitter.com/comsoc) your question during session with hashtag #ComSocExperts

3) At start of the question, add #ComSocExperts or (use both hashtags #ComSocExperts #IEEEICC)

Direct your questions according to following topics and time frames:

Network Management

11 June 2012, 3:30-5:00 P.M.

Responses by Raouf Boutaba

Power Line Communications for Smart Grid and In-home Applications

12 June 2012, 4:30-6:00 P.M.

Responses by Stefano Galli

Internet Routing - its stability, growth, IPv6 deployment Network Virtualization - future Internet

13 June 2012, 2:30-4:00 P.M.

Responses by Deep Medhi

Wireless Physical Layer Communications

TBD

Ted Rappaport

Our Experts

Raouf Boutaba is a professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo (Canada) and a distinguished visiting professor at POSTECH (South Korea). He is the founding Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management (2007-2010), on the advisory editorial board of the Journal of Network and Systems Management (Springer), the editorial board of the International Journal on Network Management (ACM/Wiley), and on the board of other IEEE journals. He is the founding chair of the Technical Committee on Autonomic Communications and served as chair of other ComSoc technical committes in the past. He also served as the chair of the IFIP Working Group on Networks and Distributed Systems Management. He served as the steering committee, general and program chair of ComSoc flagship conferences in the area of network management (IM and NOMS). His research interests focus on network, and service management and has published extensively in these areas and received several journal and conference Best Paper Awards such as the IEEE 2008 Fred W. Ellersick Prize Paper Award, The 2001 KICS/IEEE Journal on Communications and Networks Best Paper Award, the IM 2007 and 2009 Conference Best Paper Awards, the CNSM 2010 Best Paper Award among others. He also received several other recognitions such as the Premier's Research Excellence Award, two Industry research excellence Awards, a fellowship of the Faculty of Mathematics, a David R. Cheriton faculty fellowship and 2 outstanding performance awards at the University of Waterloo. He has also received the IEEE Communications Society Hal Sobol Award and the IFIP Silver Core in 2007, the IEEE Communications Society Joe LociCero award in 2009. He severed as a distinguished speaker of the IEEE Communications Society and the IEEE Computer Society. For his contributions to the Network Management field and community, he received the Dan Stokesbury award in 2009 and the Salah Aidarous award in 2012. Raouf is a Fellow of the IEEE with the citation "for contributions to automated network management methodologies and applications.

Deep Medhi is Curators' Professor in the Department of Computer Science and ElectricalEngineering at the University of Missouri- Kansas City, USA. He received B.Sc. in Mathematics from Cotton College, Gauhati University, India, M.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of Delhi, India, and his Ph.D. in Computer Sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. Prior to joining UMKC in 1989, he was a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories. He was an invited visiting professor at the Technical University of Denmark, a visiting research fellow at Lund Institute of Technology, Sweden, and a Fulbright Senior Specialist. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Springer's Journal of Network and Systems Management, and is on the editorial board of IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, and IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials. He has published over a hundred papers, and is co-author of the books, Routing, Flow, and Capacity Design in Communicationand Computer Networks (2004) and Network Routing: Algorithms, Protocols, and Architectures (2007), both published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Dr. Stefano Galli (S'95, M'98, SM'05, F’12) graduated in Electrical Engineering at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” (Italy). Currently, he is the Director of Technology Strategy at ASSIA, the leading developer of automated management and diagnostics tools for broadband networks. Prior to this position, he held the role of Director of Energy Solutions R&D for Panasonic Corporation and Senior Scientist at Bellcore.

Dr. Galli is serving as elected Member-at-Large of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Board of Governors, chair of the IEEE ComSoc Ad-Hoc Committee on Smart Grid Communications, director of Smart Grid activities for the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on PLC, member of the Energy and Policy Committee of IEEE-USA, Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communications, and ITU-T Rapporteur for “Communications for Smart Grid” projects. He is the first chair and founder of the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on PLC.

He is a Fellow of the IEEE, holds several issued and pending patents, has published over 90 peer-reviewed papers, has co-authored two book chapters on PLC, and has made numerous standards contributions.

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IEEE ComSoc President-Elect Debate

Thanks to everyone who participated in our first-ever President-Elect Debate Blog! We appreciate your active interest in our ComSoc election process and hope it was helpful to you in making an informed decision as you prepared to vote. We were fortunate to have two extremely well qualified candidates for your consideration (and both from Torino, Italy!). 17.5% of our membership voted in this year’s election, up 2% over last year.

Sincere thanks to both candidates, Sergio Benedetto and Roberto Saracco, for their willingness to help us develop this new debate format and for responding to the many questions posed to them.

Hearty congratulations to Sergio, our new President-Elect!!

As we prepare for future elections, please provide feedback on how we can continue to improve the election process. This blog will be left active for these final comments and then it will be archived. Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts with us.

Best regards,

Doug Zuckerman, Chair - Nominations and Elections Committee

Merrily Hartmann, Debate Moderator

IEEE ComSoc President-Elect Debate

Candidates: Sergio Benedetto, Roberto Saracco

Moderator: Merrily Hartmann

>> Submit a question for our IEEE ComSoc President-Elect Debate. It's your opportunity to challenge the candidates!

The annual IEEE Communications Society election process has begun. The result of this year's elections will fill the 2013 President-Elect position (as well as four Members-at-Large) on the Board of Governors. We encourage you to use this blog to submit questions to the two President-Elect (P-E) candidates providing them the opportunity to better amplify their positions.

The process is simple: submit your question (50 words or less) in the comment box below. Our candidates will reply/rebut accordingly.

Thanks for participating! Voting for this election closes 26 July 2012 at 4:00 p.m. EDT! Please vote!

Sergio Benedetto

Throughout my professional life, I have been an active participant in the IEEE Communications Society, first as a member and then as a young researcher dealing with publications and conferences. Over the years I became more deeply involved as a member and chair of technical committees and finally as an elected officer, including Vice President for Technical Activities, Vice President for Publications, and Vice President for Member Relations. My view of ComSoc has been, and continues to be, a professional Society offering excellent publications and conferences, developing enthusiastic volunteers, and run by capable officers.

Over the past few years, ComSoc has found itself facing a number of major problems: a reduction in membership from over 60,000 to below 45,000, a decline of participation from industry, both as members and as attendees to our major conferences, serious budgetary problems leading to a cut in member services, a geographical representation at all levels of responsibilities that does not match the members’ distribution, and a serious gender issue. If elected, I will identify and put in place appropriate measures to change these imbalances.

Sergio Benedetto is a professor at Politecnico di Torino. He received the “IEEE Communications Society Edwin Howard Armstrong Award” in 2008, and the Communication Theory Technical Achievement Award in 2011. He has been Chair of the Communication Theory Technical Committee, was TP Chair of the Communication Theory Symposium at ICC 2000 and ICC 2006, and General Chair of the Communication Theory Workshop in 2004. An IEEE Fellow, Sergio has been Area Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications and a Distinguished Lecturer of ComSoc. He has been Vice President of Technical Activities of ComSoc in 2006-2007, Vice-President for Publications in 2008-2009, Vice President for Member Relations in 2010-2011. He is currently ComSoc’s Director of Magazines and Director of Online Content.

Roberto Saracco

In the last ten years I have held various leadership roles at ComSoc and, as part of my profession, I have been in touch with many researchers, engineers and enterprises around the world. These relationships have given me a keen understanding of the variety of interests and needs of our potential constituency.

During 2011, I led the work that led to the COMSOC 2020 Vision, a comprehensive scenario for our Society’s future one decade from now. The report contains facts, forecasts and more importantly many action points for the Society leadership aimed at keeping ComSoc as our community’s preeminent professional organization as the world continues to change. If elected I will dedicate my time to serve and to set the stage for our volunteers and staff to build the Society into a main actor in the communications evolution and become our community’s benchmark association by 2020.

During the last ten years, Roberto Saracco has been looking at the economic aspects of telecommunications, particularly as Director of Telecom Italia Future Centre in the impact of technology evolution on the market. He has worked at the European level serving as advisor and expert in the future of services and networks. Most recently, he left Telecom Italia to become the first director of the Italian Node of the European Institute for Innovation and Technology.

He has been an active member of ComSoc, holding various leadership positions, such as CNOM and EntNet Chair, VP of Member Relations, Marketing Director, Online Content Director, and Sister & Related Societies Director. He has served on many ad hoc committees, most recently chairing the COMSOC 2020 Vision. Roberto is the recipient of the ComSoc Salah Aidarous Award and the Donald McLellan Meritorious Service Award.. Roberto participated in the DLT program with 8 tours and is currently participating in the Distinguished Speaker Program with several lectures given.

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IEEE Week Proclaimed from June 10 – 15, 2012 in Ottawa, Canada

New York, NY (May 23, 2012) -- Canada’s beautiful capital city of Ottawa has proclaimed June 10 – 15, 2012 as IEEE Week to coincide with the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2012), which will be held on the same dates at the newly, opened, $170 million Ottawa Convention Centre. Themed “CONNECT – COMMUNICATE – COLLABORATE,” IEEE ICC 2012 is expected to host thousands of industry professionals, scientists, academics and government officials, who will attend nearly 1,500 presentations highlighting the entire range of communications technologies, while touring Canada’s beautiful capital city and participating in wide-ranging local festivities.

“Ottawa offers the perfect venue for celebrating IEEE ComSoc’s 60th anniversary and exploring the newest advances in communications technology research,” says the IEEE ICC 2012 General Chair Ibrahim Gedeon, CTO, Telus. “The City’s history of innovation and accomplishment will certainly provide the ideal motivation for inspiring the development and implementation of the next wave of global interactive applications that will cross every demographic, time zone and geographic boundary.”

According to Invest Ottawa, a not-for-profit organization with the mandate to facilitate the economic development of the region, Ottawa’s knowledge-based sectors employ over 75,000 people within 1,922 companies and also boasts the highest level of research and development spending per capita in the country. In addition, Ottawa is one of North America's fastest growing economies as well as one of the world's most progressive centres of innovation.

Held with the support of Invest Ottawa, Ottawa Tourism, Invest Ottawa and IEEE Ottawa Section, IEEE ICC 2012 will commence on Sunday, June 10, IEEE ICC 2012 will open with a special workshop titled “Telecommunications: From Research to Standards.” Over the next five days, the conference will then feature a full agenda of keynotes, panel discussions and technical symposia offered by leading industry experts representing nearly every field of communications.

Key to this year’s event are also the 18 Industry Forums featuring topics related to “Social Networks: Impact on Quality of Life,” “India’s eGovernance,” “Cloud Communications Security & Networking,” “End-to-end Ethernet Management,” “Heterogeneous (HeNet) Network Deployment,” “Multi-screen IPTV,” “Future Home Gateway Services,” “True Green Data Centers” and “Enabling Your Cloud.”

From Tuesday through Thursday, IEEE ICC 2012 will also punctuate its high-level schedule with the keynotes of noted experts like Matt Bross, CTO & Vice Chairman at Huawei, and Marcus Weldon, CTO at Alcatel-Lucent. Additional renown scientists and industry professionals expected to speak at the event are Lucy Hood, Executive Director at Communication Technology Management (CTM); Mike Hill, Vice President of Enterprise Initiatives at IBM; Ian Akyildiz, Professor at Georgia Tech; Victor Bahl, Director, MCRC at Microsoft; Vincent Poor, Professor at Princeton University; Raj Jain, Professor at Washington University, St-Louis; and P. R. Kumar, Professor at Texas A&M University.

Another highlight for local attendees will be the presentations of numerous Canadian authorities such as:

- Rodney G. Wilson, Senior Director External Research Ciena, who will talk about “Wired Broadband & Optical Fibre Network Advancements”

- Matt Christensen of TELUS, who will discuss the “Future of In-home Networking”

- Malcolm Vant, Special Officer, DRDC Ottawa; Guy Vezina, Director General, Defence R&D Canada; and Albert J. Simard, Knowledge Manager, Defence Research & Development Canada, who will speak on various government and defense issues including “NATO Cyber Defence Policy”

- Eros Spadotto, Executive Vice President, Technology Strategy at TELUS, who will deliver the conference’s opening keynote on Tuesday morning

- Chris Bachalo, CTO of Juniper Networks Canada, who will address the latest breakthroughs in “Home Programmable Networks”

- Marc Blanchet, President & CEO of Viagenie, Canada; Yves Poppe, Director of Business Development IP Strategy at Tata Communications, Canada; and Serge Caron, Senior Director of Information Service and Technology, ITD, CIOB, Treasury Board Secretariat, who will all speak at the conference’s IPv6 Industry Forum and address topics like “IPv6’s Impact on the Enterprise” and “The Impact of IPv6 on Large ISPs”

As part of this year’s registration package, all full, limited & one-day registrants will also receive a Blackberry Playbook 16GB upon arrival. In the desire to actively promote conservationism, efficiency and environmentalism, the conference will then update each tablet daily with all standard program and presentation information including the exhibition guide, news and updates.

For more information on IEEE ICC 2012 please visit www.ieee-icc.org/2012 or feel free to contact Heather Ann Sweeney of IEEE ComSoc at h [dot] sweeney [at] comsoc [dot] org. Furthermore, this includes details on the numerous local tours and events designed to help conference attendees experience the city’s natural beauty and urban amenities. Among these are a wide selection of cultural orientation packages as well as natural activities like white water rafting on the Ottawa River, spelunking in the Lafleche Caves and cycling in the Gattineau Hills.

In addition, all www.ieee-icc.org/2012 website visitors are invited to network with colleagues and peers, share their professional experiences or address IEEE ICC 2012 issues through the conference’s Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter pages.

The IEEE Communications Society has over 50,000 members and is the second largest of IEEE’s 38 technical societies. Founded in 1952, IEEE ComSoc is recognized as a major international forum for the exchange of ideas on communications and information networking. The society is also an international sponsor of global publications, conferences, certification and educational programs, local activities, technical committees and standardization projects.

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Interview with 2013 IEEE President-Elect Candidates - Distinguished IEEE ComSoc Members

Ask the Experts via Twitter during IEEE ICC 2012

IEEE ComSoc President-Elect Debate

IEEE Week Proclaimed from June 10 – 15, 2012 in Ottawa, Canada

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