Editor: Deepak Mathur
Message from the President IEEE SSIT
This past year, 2013, was a busy year for me, and for SSIT. Some of this activity was highly visible. Our SSIT Facebook group hosted a contest to help design a new Society logo. We held one of the biggest ISTAS conferences ever in Toronto, and we approved three new SSIT chapters.
A great deal of activity wasn’t visible – it was preparation for activities to come in 2014 and beyond. This year, in addition to ISTAS being held as the IEEE Ethics 2014 conference, SSIT is co-sponsoring four other conferences all around the world. These, and other activities to come, are only possible because of the hard work behind the scenes by many SSIT volunteers. This year I have constantly been amazed at what our volunteers can do – people with other full time commitments who make time for SSIT because they believe, as I do, in our mission.
So the question now is, with the wind at our backs, where do we go from here? That’s a question we can only answer together. I’m looking forward to another great year of planning conferences, special events, and of course, Technology and Society Magazine. Do you have a great idea too? Contact us! You can find us at ieeessit.org, or by searching for IEEE SSIT on Facebook.
Laura Jacob
2013 Board of Governors Meeting
Board of Governors meeting was held at room no. 107 Stamford, CT at the University of Connecticut Stamford branch campus Saturday 20 July, 2013 10:00am – 3:00pm. The meeting was presided over by President Laura Jacob. The complete minutes of the meeting will be soon available at http://chortle.ccsu.edu/BOG/BOGindex.html , please visit this URL to find minutes of earlier BoG meetings also.
The SSIT Board of Governors (BoG) also met on 26 October, 2013, at 508 Skirkanich Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. The minutes of these meeting will be publically available after final approval at the next SSIT BoG meeting.
Conferences
ICDP 2013
5th International Conference on Imaging for Crime Prevention and Detection was held at Kingston University’s Penrhyn Road Campus, London, UK on 16-17 December 2013.
The Conference aimed to create an important networking forum in which participants can discuss the present and future of image-based technologies for crime detection and prevention.
For details, please visit: http:dipersec.king.ac.uk/icdp2013
Internet of Things (IOT)
The IEEE World Forum on Internet of Things 2014 will be held at the Seoul Olympic Parktel Hotel in Seoul, Korea on 6-8 March 2014.
This flagship conference will feature a comprehensive technical program including numerous sessions, tutorials, and an industrial exhibition. The program will feature prominent keynote speakers and vendor exhibits.
The theme of WF-IoT is to investigate how progress in technologies and applications of IoT can be nurtured and cultivated for the benefit of society.
Important dates:
15 January 2014: Papers – Camera-ready Submissions Due
22 January 2014: Author Registration Deadline
31 January 2014: Final Tutorial Material Due
6 February 2014: Participant Panel Call for Presentations Deadline
7 February 2014: Early Registration Due
For details, please visit: http://sites.ieee.org/wf-iot/
SIPC ’14
The Third IEEE International Workshop on the Social Implications of Pervasive Computing for Sustainable Living (SIPC ’14) being organized in conjunction with the Twelfth IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications – PerCom 2014 (http//www.percom.org/).
The conference will be held at Budapest, Hungary on 24-28 March 2014.
The workshop aims to discuss the social implications of pervasive technology used to support or facilitate a number of multi-disciplinary areas for sustainable living.
Potential workshop attendees are invited to submit papers of up to 6 pages that address at least one relevant social implication of pervasive computing and discuss how researchers can influence the direction of development. The papers will be peer-reviewed by at least two members of the program committee, and chosen according to their relevance to the scope of the workshop, the quality and originality of the submission, and their ability to stimulate and balance discussions.
The organizers will try to consider as many submissions as possible to help assemble a large community of researchers interested in the social challenges of pervasive computing. Papers will be included and indexed in the IEEE digital libraries (Xplore), showing their affiliation with IEEE PerCom.
For details, please visit:http://www.sipc2014.blogspot.com
ISTAS’14/ETHICS2014
2014 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (ISTAS) and 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Ethics in Engineering, Science, and Technology, Ethics’2014 will be held on May 23-24, 2014 at Chicago Marriott O’Hare, Chicago, IL, USA. The theme is ‘Ethics – A Challenge to the Scientific and Engineering Community’.
ISTAS `14 and the IEEE Ethics 2014 Symposium aim to respond to the needs and aspirations of a rising global professional community and to promote highest standards of ethical conduct among its members.
For details, please visit thesite at:
http://sites.ieee.org/ethics-conference
IEEE Conference on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century creating a real buzz
With just under six months to go until the inaugural IEEE Conference on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century, 24-26 June 2014, we are starting to get some pretty special responses:
A short video about the conference received 130 view in its first three days on YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFFg1ihv-Oo
IEEE Fellow Prof Iven Mareels, Dean of Engineering at the University of Melbourne, has provided an excellent video on the importance of Wiener’s work today, especially to neural engineering, which should be posted by the time this newsletter is released. 18 people have already put their names down to attend from Melbourne, Australia.
Our five keynotes are reminiscent of the breadth of the Macy Conferences that were so important to developing Wiener’s ideas: a sociologist, a cryptographer, a cultural anthropologist, an aeronautical engineer, and a specialist in fuzzy logic, all renowned in their fields. Details athttp://21stcenturywiener.org/
The web site has now gathered a huge amount of information, and is a “must see”.
One early paper proposal looks at cybernetics and Ezra Pound, and promises to describe the link between Wiener and poetry, hinted by his friendship with TS Eliot
Dozens of volunteers are working on making this a very special conference.
Norbert Wiener epitomizes the themes of SSIT, which is one reason that we are sponsoring the conference, along with the Boston Section, Control System Society, and Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society, plus eight other technical sponsors.
Greg Adamson, SSIT Vice-President
SSIT Report – Australia Wide
• ISTAS 2012 IEEE International Conference onTechnology and Society in Asia 2012:http://www.technologyandsocietyinasia.org/– While this conference occurred in 2012, there was still further work to be completed post conference. SSIT held conference wrap up discussion in early 2012 and made notes of any lessons learnt. In addition, members from SSIT organised a special issue in the Technology and Society Magazine based on publications from the conference (Issue 3 Fall 2013) http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/mostRecentIssue.jsp?punumber=44.
• ISTAS 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society:http://veillance.me/focused on themes of smart and wearable technologies, was held June 27-29, 2013, in Toronto, Canada. Held at the University of Toronto campus, this year’s ISTAS was one of the best-attended SSIT conferences ever. Organizers were Steve Mann, General Chair, and Katina Michael (from SSIT Australia), Program Chair.
• Norbert Weiner in the 21st Century 2014: http://21stcenturywiener.org/ – Norbert Wiener made contributions across several disciplines during his lifetime. Many of these were immediately relevant, and influenced theories and production during his day. Others were long-term, and only in recent years has it been possible to test their relevance. For example, Wiener’s most cited work published 75 years ago in October is on Polynomial Chaos Expansion. This has gained popularity in the past decade, due to the growing capacity of modern computers to implement his approach.2013 was consumed by many of the Australia SSIT committee, several of whom are playing leading roles in conference planning. The conference continues to gain momentum with a fantastic conference sitehttp://21stcenturywiener.org/, and regular social networking updates https://www.facebook.com/21stCenturyWiener
SAF05 Workshop
• SSIT Australia was invited to hold a workshop providing input into an Australian Government policy report, Securing Australia’s Future, section 5: “New Technologies and their role in our security, culture, democratic, social and economic systems”.SSIT participated via a roundtable on the 3rd of August, chaired by Dr Greg Adamson for SSIT and NITCA head Prof Rob Evans for the project. Attendees were Assoc. Prof Katina Michael, Technology & Society editor; Dr Lyria Bennett Moses, UNSW (Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre); Dr Martin Gibbs, UMelb CIS; Dr Michael Arnold, UMelb History and Philosophy of Science; Adj Prof Phillip Hall, UWA (technology and climate variability); Adj Prof Marcus Wigan, UMelb (transport policy); Mary Hawkins, former ANZ Head of Technology Sustainability; Rick Noble, NGO IT services specialist; Sophie McKenzie, Deakin (games usage); Paul Siemers, Melbourne Water (technology infrastructure); Dr Greg Adamson, Vice-President IEEE SSIT; ReihanaMohideen, University of Melbourne; Jana Paripovich, media specialist; Dr Jan Newmarch, software specialist; John Lewis, KPMG; Prof Rob Evans, UMelb, SAF05 Expert Working Group Chair; Dr ChelleNicRaghnaill, SAF05 Principle Researcher; Dana Sanchez, SAF05 Project Manager; Rebecca Skinner, ACOLA Project Manager. Details about the SAF report can be found at http://technologyforaustralia.org/
Technical Meetings
Victoria
• Joint talk between IEEE CS and SSIT – Dr AndreOboler and Dr Lito P Cruz presented at Deakin on “The Problem with Big Data”. Friday the 5th of April at 1pm. Event pipelined between the two Deakin campuses.
• SSIT Technical session in Melbourne on Thursday 1st of Aug 2013.Phil Hall presented on “Water Quality Management: The Case for Real Time Monitoring & Reporting”. Held at University of Melbourne.
• SSIT Technical Workshop in Melbourne on Thursday the 5th of December on “3D Printing: Social and Cultural Trajectories”. This event organised by Angela Daly is sponsored by Swinburne University with the support of IEEE SSIT and occurred from 8:30am – 5:00pm at Swinburne University, Hawthorn Campus.
NSW
• SSIT Technical session in Sydney on Monday the 2nd of September, presented by Greg Adamson. The topic was: ‘Reintroducing Norbert Wiener, inventor of cybernetics’. Great attendance with many names added to the SSIT mailing list, and thanks to KPMG for providing the venue.
Communications
• The ‘Social Interface’ blog continues, thanks to the work of Sarah Lux and Lyria Bennett-Moses – http://www.thesocialinterface.com
• NSW– Dinner on 22nd of June 2013 for Sydney Volunteers
• Annual end of year dinner – Planned for Melbourne in Dec 2013
Sophie McKenzie, Secretary, SSIT Australia
Activities on Social Implications of Technology by IEEE Córdoba Subsection
“Any technology that has existed, exists or will exist, has some impact over the social field, both in comfort, health, education, environment, behavior, habits or communications, to list a few. The study and discussion of this influence over society is not unique a technologists field, but involves varied disciplines, from sociology to law, psychology and medicine, philosophy and information science, and of course all technologies”.
Summary – Organized by IEEE Córdoba Subsection, on Wednesday 20th, November, was carried out the first activity related to the Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT), with the objective of show to all community activities related to this Society, and open a chapter in Argentina Section at the short term.
The activity, panel format, had the participation of five members of the SSIT as speakers, and more than 30 attendees, including people linked to the Social Sciences and other areas not related to engineering. The event also attended Eng. Roberto Terzariol, Dean of the Faculty of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences – National University of Cordoba (FCEFyN – UNC), Argentina.
From a long time ago was in IEEE Córdoba Subsection, and particularly the at the idea of Eng. Ricardo Taborda (past president of IEEE Argentina Section), the intention of organizing activities that go beyond the engineering field, linking and relating to other branches unrelated the hard sciences. For these reason emerged the idea to perform some activity that links other areas, and the Society on Social Implications of Technology, transverse all careers and professions, it was a good opportunity to do it.
Thus, not only was performing an activity of general interest, but also was promoting the creation of a SSIT Chapter at IEEE Argentina Section, which is already launch to be created.
ACTIVITY DEVELOPED
At this case, the activity consisted of five lectures and a panel with five volunteers of IEEE Córdoba Subsection, all members of IEEE and the SSIT.
The first activity was carried out by Eng. Ricardo Taborda, the main organizer of the activity. In his dissertation, Eng Taborda explained briefly about the SSIT Society and what is the idea of opening a Chapter of this Society in Argentina Section, as well as its advantages and future goals.
After that, there was time for a small intervention of Eng. Roberto Terzariol, Dean of FCEFyN – UNC, who highlighted the value of such events at the University, and its benefits to society.
The second lecture, titled “Has connection between recycling of WEEE, the environment and the digital gap?”, was given by Eng. Laura Reyna, who explained about WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) and some activities that are underway in Cordoba aimed at solve this problem.
The following lecture was given by Eng. Diego Beltramone, who in his dissertation on “Rehabilitation Engineering: providing accessibility for all” showed some problems that arise in society to people with certain types of disabilities, and some actions that are being implemented to solve them, as well as some activities that are being developed at the University aimed at solving these problems.
The fourth lecture, led by Eng. Ronald Del Aguila, called “In case of medical emergency, technology help us or complicated us? The case of ground ambulance” focused on show to attendees about safety that should have ambulances and standards that should be met to avoid accidents such as occurred in 2006 .
The fifth and final lecture, titled “Technology and Society”, was conducted by Eng. Susana Drudi, and was focused on the proposition of the conceptions of technology and the implications they have on the actions of technologists, decision makers and users.
PANEL
To close the activity, a panel with five speakers was carried out, where speakers discussed with the audience over the issues raised in the lectures, as well as the audience was invited to propose activities to pursue in the future. It is very important to highlight the variety of public attendees at the event, allowing to project a lot activities for next year, trying very different topics, but very interesting.
Please contact Eng. Ricardo Taborda to know more about activities related to SSIT of Argentina Section.
Ricardo Taborda, SSIT Chapter Organizer, rtaborda@ieee.org
Augusto José Herrera, IEEE Córdoba Subsection President, augustojh@ieee.org
SSIT Chapter in Kerala Section
The Society for Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) chapter of IEEE Kerala Section was formally launched with an inaugural function arranged at Hotel S.P. Grand Days, Thiruvananthapuram on 7 December 2013. The event witnessed a large gathering, including guests from Bombay and Hyderabad Sections, SSIT members of Kerala Section, Executive Committee members of the section and subsections, and Sister Professional Society members. The event included a strategy session by SSIT members followed by the formal meeting, which included a Panel discussion on the topic “The Society-Technology Interface: Emerging Challenges for Humanity”.
Mr. Satish Babu, Interim Chair SSIT Kerala Section Chapter presented a brief overview of the activities of SSIT. He emphasized on the appropriateness of SSIT in sensitizing engineers and educating the public to address issues from an ethical perspective.
Mr. Srinivasan Ravindran, Chair, IEEE, Kerala Section highlighted the significance of increased awareness on Ethics Education in society so as to make the user community vigilant in discerning between the positive and negative aspects of technology.
Mr Anthony Lobo delivered a talk on the topic “Technology and Society”. He opined that any technological innovation should consider and analyze the three aspects namely ‘Intent’,’ Implications’ and ‘Impact’ of the technology on all the stakeholders. Mr Lobo is an active volunteer of IEEE and works with Tata Consultancy Services.
Dr. Atul Negi made a presentation on the topic “Ubiquitous Imaging: Societal Boon or Bane?” Dr. Negi spoke about the evolution and recent advances in electronic surveillance products and underlying technologies and mentioned their merits and demerits, evaluated on the basis of personal and mass surveillance. Dr Negi is Chair of IEEE Hyderabad Section.
Mr Amarnath Raja and Mr. J Muraleemohan Lal, former Chairs of IEEE Kerala Section also presented their views on relevance of SSIT in present scenario.
A panel discussion was also organized on the theme “The Society-Technology Interface: Emerging Challenges for Humanity”. . The panelists included Dr. Atul Negi, Mr. Anthony Lobo, Ms. Sarada Jayakrishnan, Coordinator, IEEE WIE, Kerala Section and Mr. Ranjit R Nair, Chair, IEEE GOLD, Kerala Section. The session was moderated by Mr Amarnath Raja. Mr. Anthony Lobo made the critical observed that sustainability needs to be defined and understood in the broader perspective for any advent on technological innovation. Dr. Atul Negi observed that rationality should be brought in with proper design principles that should govern technology implementation. Ms. Sarada Jayakrishnan expressed the view that system should be able to inculcate a sense of discrimination for decision making among the general public, learnt through proper awareness on the rules and regulations enforced. Mr. Ranjit R Nair noted that given the rate and order at which innovations take birth and perish in the technology space, it will be impractical to aim for very long term solutions and encouraged promoting the course of ‘demonstrative anthropology’ among the young professionals to adapt themselves better to changing scenarios.
(Inputs from Mr Satish Babu)
Global Forum welcomes new era of open innovation
Innovation in information and communication technologies drives global economic development
Network World – Trieste, Italy — The historic industrial port city of Trieste hosted the 22nd Global Forum conference last week, where the focus was on innovation in information and communication technologies as catalysts for economic and community development. Invitation-only delegates this year came from 36 countries and international organizations such as the European Commission and the U.S. government, augmented by delegates from corporations and global government agencies.
Prosperous and picturesque, Trieste has long been a center of science and culture, frequented by writers such as Mark Twain and Rainer Maria Rilke. The 19th century explorer Richard Burton wrote The Arabian Nights here and it’s also the place where James Joyce produced his novels Ulysses and Dubliners. Global Forum often forecasts world trends in the information and communication industries and Trieste was chosen to highlight the transforming strategies of the information economy.
The Chair of Global Forum’s 2013 Innovation panel, Bror Salmelin, of the European Union’s Directorate General CONNECT organization, outlined the differences between the old days of corporate-government research being the dominant model, to a new era of user-centric innovation, open innovation, systemic innovation and experimental mash-ups.
“Sustainable innovation is full of disruptions,” he said. “Science-based linear innovation is not mainstream anymore. Success probability and success speed are critical.”
During a question-and-answer session, Finland native Salmelin was asked about the future of the once-leading mobile device company Nokia. He noted that before it got into telephony, Nokia was a manufacturer of rubber boots and paper products. The company will have to innovate once again to meet the challenges of the new era it’s entered, he said. He is confident that Nokia will rise to the challenges, but it will be a different Nokia than it is today.
Enrico Fiore, CEO of Truyoins Ventures (a neologism based on the slogan “Trust Your Instincts” he said), said the essence of innovating in the global environment is to follow the slogan (originated by an Italian fashion company) “No Fear.”
Innovation requires the ability to be fault-tolerant, to see yourself making mistakes and learning fast from them; improve and move on. Fiore said this is why corporate managers often are unable to be innovative, because they fear making mistakes. Fiore advised: “Listen. Try. Act. Remember.”
A change this new era requires is for governments to stop protecting status-quo businesses, said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, which sponsors the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Shapiro said, “Innovation is a belief system. It’s not just Silicon Valley. It’s regional. It relies on risk-taking and investment. It benefits from diversity, culture and reward systems. It is enhanced by a higher mission, goals, measurements and passion. It needs leaders/doers.”
Professor Yoshio Tanaka of Tokyo University offered some technology design suggestions. He said it is difficult to sell hardware by differentiation. What is required is service design with value-added. For example, two key drivers of satisfaction in the modern era are: to be stress-free by having less responsibility for outcomes, and to belong to a community. Technology can be built to deliver on both these drivers of user satisfaction.
“Open data is the raw material for innovation,” said Ann-Marie Fineman of VINNOVA, Sweden’s government agency for innovation systems. “Collaboration is key,” she said, and recommended Hackathons and Make-athons, which they have sponsored as “coworking spaces.”
Regional development
Regional development was emphasized. No longer are separate nation-states driving innovation, but regional partnerships, and innovative city states. One of the most intriguing approaches is “Danubio,” a trans-national approach linking the countries and regions of the Danube River drainage, which crosses most of southern Europe.
This is an approach forecast by the American nature writer Gary Snyder. Observing that many political borders are based on abstract surveyor’s boundaries like the Mason-Dixon line, or historical precedent based on wars and treaties, Snyder recommends building identity based on the naturally-occurring river basins worldwide. Such identity anchors the population in the natural environment it’s in, and in fact begins to reinforce what was most often the historic movement of peoples, trade and information until the industrial era.
Taking such an approach, new configurations emerge. Antoine-Tristan Mocilnikar, a French government ministerial “Delegate to the Mediterranean,” says the south and western parts of that region have 290 million people, almost the population of the United States. There is a 100% rate of mobile adoption, along with 100 million people sharing Internet access. The region has 50 million Facebook accounts already.
Global Forum 2013 was led by Dr. Sylviane Toporkoff, president of Global Forum, and a founding partner of sponsor ITEMS International. The next Global Forum will be held in fall 2014, at a European venue to be announced early next year.
Jay Gillette
Gillette is professor of information and communication sciences at Ball State University, director of its Human Factors Institute, and a senior research fellow and officer at the Digital Policy Institute.
A simple plan to limit global warming
Let us assume that there were a worldwide outbreak of the plague and all the governments did were to hand out aspirin to its citizens: “It does not solve the problem but it is something we can easily afford doing”. Most of us would not be happy with this response. Yet, it is exactly the kind of approach we seem to prefer when dealing with global warming. Whatever actions the governments are discussing, we all know that it is too little too late: the annual emissions of CO2 are still increasing globally, even though they need to drop significantly.
The reason for this is simple. Fossil fuel is still abundant and therefore quite cheap. According to the International Energy Agency (World Energy Outlook 2012), the energy source of the future is coal unless significant political measures are taken to change this.
This is all very worrying. If we assume that the climate scientists are right – and there is absolutely no reason to assume otherwise – our reliance on fossil fuel will lead to a hotter climate and rising sea levels, with a huge impact on our society. Arguably, we are already seeing the first consequences with extreme weather phenomena, increasing food prices, and a large number of climate refugees.
On the other hand, fossil fuel is only cheap because we choose to ignore the external costs related to pollution and CO2 emissions. As long as it is possible to dump CO2 into the atmosphere for free, it will always be difficult for other sources of energy to compete. This is very frustrating to engineers, as many of technical solutions for improving fuel efficiency and generating renewable energy are be available. The currently suffer from the problem of being slightly more expensive than the carbon-based alternatives. If energy from fossil fuel were more expensive than renewable energy, no company in the world would voluntarily burn coal.
The purpose of GISEco (Global Initiative for a Sustainable Econoly) is to improve the energy efficiency of the world economy through the introduction of Global Sustainability Fee (GSF) in the simplest possible manner:
1. All producers of fossil fuel pay a fee proportional to the amount they produce (in carbon or CO2 equivalent) to a global fund.
2. The money from this fund is distributed evenly among the world’s nations according to the size of their populations.
The system would be easy to set up and administer and would ensure a level playing field. Industrialized countries would have an incentive to reduce their dependence on carbon-based fuel while simultaneously providing poorer countries the necessary resources to deal with the consequences of global warming.
How radical is this idea? Actually, the world’s nations agreed to accomplish exactly what we propose already in1992. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change calls for CO2 concentration in the atmosphere to be stabilized and for richer nations to support the poorer ones in coping with the effects of climate change. Unfortunately, the parties agreed only on what to do and not how to do it. With GISEco, we propose a simple and effective plan to remedy this omission. The idea is not perfect but it is a lot better than doing nothing. With such a plan on the negotiating table, no politician should be able to claim that the problem of global warming is too complex to be solved. The solution is actually quite simple and we all know it.
We have been discussing the problem of global warming for 50 years now. The time has come to focus on solutions. GISEco was started to promote the idea of a Global Sustainability Fee with the aim of putting it on the agenda at the next UN Climate Change Conference. Please join our effort by spreading the word.
http://www.giseco.org
www.facebook.com/giseco.
Henrik Nordborg
IEEE-SSIT on LinkedIn:
IEEE-SSIT is on LinkedIn! Interesting SSIT discussions on the LinkedIn site are on-going and currently there are more than 1200+ SSIT members connected to the LinkedIn site.
It is easy to join our LinkedIn Community – for more information, go to http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1790357&trk=anet_ug_hm
Come and join the online interactions!
IEEE-SSIT on Facebook:
A place to discuss the Social Implications of Technology! See something technology related that poses an ethical dilemma or has unintended consequences? The SSIT Group on Facebook has 4600+ members at http://www.facebook.com/groups/324644704262132
IEEE SSIT Logo Contest was successfully hosted on the Facebook.
Come and join the online interactions!
2013 SSIT Logo Design Contest Yields Major Facebook Impact
Our logo design contest generated a number of impressive results, including an increase in our Facebook group from 200 to 4500 members (and still growing).
We also obtained some really neat designs that we are currently highlighting on our Blog page (http://socialimplicationsoftech.wordpress.com/ ).
So here’s the list of winners, their logos where applicable, and our congratulations and thanks to all who participated.
The “Best in Class” submission, selected by the SSIT panel of judges was submitted by Hiran Venugopalan of Kerala, India.
I’m presenting variants created to combine the submission with acknowledgements in banners for the SSIT Blog page. You can see that Hiran’s submission complements the IEEE logo and colors and can be used as a symbol, or with text in various ways. Hiran is a web designer and entrepreneur, see http://hiran.in/about for more insight.
The second major award was not actually for a logo. We also ran a Facebook “Like” contest, and folks had to join our Facebook group to “like” a submission. If you think about this, it is not a measure of the logo itself, but of the influence and reach of the submitters and their friends. Satya Tazi of Ajmer, India won this contest, attracting over 450 ‘like’ votes. It is interesting to note that the total number of like votes (a bit over 1000) did not come near the total number of new group members.
We also made a special award to Harish Chennamsetty, Karlskrona, Sweden. . Harish created a Youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRatryUtl2s ) describing his submission, as well as a web page (http://p4u.in/ ). Harish obtained the second largest number of “likes”, is a regular contributor to the Facebook group, and (2012/13) web designer for the IEEE BTH Student Branch (http://sites.ieee.org/sb-bth/ ) In addition to a “Neat Idea” he also raised the bar for future contests with incorporation of Youtube and related materials.
In addition to the banner format, Harish also included smaller logo formats and black and white format.
A number of the submissions were not quite the right format for a “logo” but make really neat banner presentations.
Our participants here span from Africa to Malaysia.
One last Neat Idea was submitted by Piyush Bang, but I’ve not yet received his “ok” to use it as part of our banner presentations . The SSIT Board of Governors will be considering what changes, if any, to make to our current Logo. One of our lessons learned is we should have “entered” the current logo so some feedback and comparison could have been obtained from this process.
Jim Isaak, Logo Contest ad hoc chair
NEW FELLOWS DIRECTORY
New to the Fellow Web Site is the redesigned Fellows Directory. It is the most comprehensive online search and networking tool available to members. If you need to complete an IEEE Fellow Nomination, gather information for a region, section, or society, it’s now easy to accomplish.
The information in the directory can be accessed by six categories: alphabetical by last name, year elevated, gender, IEEE region, IEEE society, and deceased. Within these categories, members can search, sort, or run a filter. For example, a report can be compiled on all Fellows within a specific region elevated in a particular year. The directory allows members to view the profiles of Fellows plus the ability to network with the Fellows. If you are not an IEEE member, you will have limited access to certain information.
Check it out today. The directory works on handheld devices and computers. To access the directory, go to www.ieee.org/fellows, then click the Fellow Directory icon.
Rosann Marosy
APPLAUDING 50 YEARS OF FELLOWS
In 2014, IEEE will mark its 50th Fellow Class. It represents decades of honoring IEEE Fellows whose extraordinary accomplishments have changed the world.
The IEEE grade of Fellow was born in 1964 out of the merge of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) and the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE). The emphasis on the elevation was and still is reserved for select IEEE members who have contributed importantly to the advancement of engineering, science, and technology, bringing the realization of significant value to society.
Only one-tenth of one percent of the total voting membership can be elevated in any one year. Over the last fifty years, IEEE has elevated roughly 10,000 members to this honor. This is a very small percentage compared to the total membership. Unquestionably, Fellows are the crown jewels of the organization. One can only imagine what the next fifty years will bring, and the new technology that will be developed, discovered, or taught, and what new IEEE Fellows will be recognized for their achievements.
Throughout the year, various celebrations will take place to honor those who have achieved this distinction. If you know an IEEE Fellow, congratulate him/her again for receiving this honor. You can recognize them personally, or you can acknowledge them publicly at region meetings, society meetings, section meetings, and/or conferences.
Rosann Marosy
2013 IEEE-SSIT Board of Governors:
President: Laura Jacob; laura.jacob@gmail.com
Vice-President: Greg Adamson; g.adamson@ieee.org
Secretary: Lew Terman; l.terman@ieee.org
Treasurer: Kenneth R. Foster; kfoster@seas.upenn.edu
Past President: Gerald Engel; gengel64@aol.com
Elected Members-at-Large: (3 year terms, last year date)
2013 Greg Adamson, Joe R Herkert, Bradley P Kjell
2014 Emily Anesta, Jim Isaak, Laura Jacob
2015 Elya Joffe, Deepak Mathur, Lew Terman
Online Resources:
- SSIT Website
- How to Join SSIT
http://ieeessit.org//about.asp?Level2ItemID=2
- IEEE Technology and Society Magazine
http://ieeessit.org/technology_and_society/
- Conferences
ISTAS: the annual International Symposium on Technology and Society
http://www.ieeessit.org/conferences.asp?Level2ItemID=18
- IEEE SSIT blog
http://socialimplicationsoftech.wordpress.com/
- SSIT Chapters
Australia:
http://ssit.ieeevic.org/
Switzerland:
http://www.teeschmid.ch/ieeessit/
Toronto: (joint with other ieee society chapters)
http://toronto.ieee.ca/chapters/humanenv.htm
Japan:
http://www.ieee-jp.org/japancouncil/chapter/SIT-30/sit_e.htm
Boston:
http://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/ssit/
Next issue of SSIT newsletter (Spring 2014) will be published and emailed in the month of May 2014. SSIT brings 3 issues of SSIT newsletter in a year – Winter Issue in January, Spring issue in May and Fall issue in September every year.
SSIT invites news, articles, reports etc. for the next issue of the newsletter.
Please offer your comments, suggestions and feedback to make SSIT newsletter more effective and informative. All communication related to SSIT newsletter may please be sent to the newsletter editor: Deepak Mathur at deepakmathur@ieee.org
JOIN SSIT