IEEE Collabratec has made it easier for volunteers to display their IEEE positions. The online networking platform released a new benefit this year for its users: digital certificates for IEEE volunteering. They reflect contributions made to the organization, such as leading a committee or organizing an event.
Members can download the certificates and add them to their LinkedIn profile or résumé. Volunteers also can print their certificates to frame and display in their office.
Each individualized document includes the person’s name, the position they’ve held, and the years served. Every position held has its own certificate. The member’s list of roles is updated annually.
The feature is a result of a top recommendation to improve volunteer recognition made by delegates at the 2023 IEEE Sections Congress, according to Deepak Mathur. The senior member is vice president of IEEE Member and Geographic Activities. The new feature “respects the time and effort of our volunteers and is a testament to the power and versatility of the Collabratec platform,” Mathur said in an announcement.
Members can download their certificates by selecting the Certificates tab on their Collabratec page and scrolling to each of their positions.
IEEE TryEngineering has partnered with Keysight Technologies to develop lesson plans focused on electronics and power simulation. Keysight provides hardware, software, and services to a wide variety of industries, particularly in the area of electronic measurement.
IEEE TryEngineering, an IEEE Educational Activities program, empowers educators to foster the next generation of technology innovators through free, online access to culturally relevant, developmentally appropriate, and educationally sound instructional resources for teachers and community volunteers.
The lesson plans cover a variety of STEM topics, experience levels, and age ranges. Educators should be able to find an applicable topic for their students, regardless of their grade level or interests.
Lesson plans on circuits
There are already a number of lesson plans available through the Keysight partnership that introduce students to electrical concepts, with more being developed. The most popular one thus far is Series and Parallel Circuits, which has been viewed more than 100 times each month. Teams of pupils predict the difference between a parallel and serial circuit design by building examples using wires, light bulbs, and batteries.
“TryEngineering is proud to be Keysight’s partner in attaining the ambitious goal of bringing engineering lessons to 1 million students in 2024.” —Debra Gulick
The newest of the Keysight-sponsored lesson plans, Light Up Name Badge, teaches the basics of circuitry, such as the components of a circuit, series and parallel circuits, and electronic component symbols. Students can apply their newfound knowledge in a design challenge wherein they create a light-up badge with their name.
Developing a workforce through STEM outreach
“Keysight’s commitment to workforce development through preuniversity STEM outreach makes it an ideal partner for IEEE TryEngineering,” says Debra Gulick, director of student and academic education programs for IEEE Educational Activities.
In addition, Keysight’s corporate social responsibility vision to build a better planet by accelerating innovation to connect and secure the world while employing a global business framework of ethical, environmentally sustainable, and socially responsible operations makes it a suitable IEEE partner.
“TryEngineering is proud to be Keysight’s partner in attaining the ambitious goal of bringing engineering lessons to 1 million students in 2024,” Gulick says.
Author and leadership expert John C. Maxwell famously said, “The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders, and continually develops them.”
Experts confirm that there are clear benefits to fostering leadership by encouraging employees’ professional growth and nurturing and developing company leaders. A culture of leadership development and innovation boosts employee engagement by 20 percent to 25 percent, according to an analysis in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Companies are 22 percent more profitable, on average, when they engage their employees by building a culture of leadership, innovation, and recognition, according to Zippia research.
IEEE Leading Technical Teams is a live, six-hour course offered both in person and virtually. Addressing challenges that come with leading groups, it is designed for team leaders, managers, and directors of engineering and technical teams.
“Participating benefited me and my employer by enhancing my leadership skills in inspiring others to achieve the goals of our organization,” says Stephen Wilkowski, a system test engineer at CACI International in Reston, Va., who completed the training. “I found the leadership practices assessment to be very valuable, as I appreciated the anonymous feedback received from those who I work with. I would recommend the training to anyone desiring to improve their leadership skills.”
Attendees participate in the 360° Leadership Practices Inventory, a tool that solicits confidential feedback on the participant’s strengths and opportunities for improvement from their team members and managers. The program encompasses instructor-led exercises and case studies demonstrating the application of best practices to workplace challenges.
Participants learn the “five practices of exemplary leadership” and receive valuable peer coaching.
To learn more about in-person and virtual options for individuals and companies, complete this form.
A mini-MBA for technologists
The 12-week IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers and Technical Professionals program covers business strategy, new product development management, financial analysis, sales and marketing, and leadership. It includes a combination of expert instruction, peer interaction, self-paced video lessons, interactive assessments, live office hours, and hands-on capstone project experience. The program offers flexible learning opportunities for individual learners as well as customized company cohort options.
Developing professionals into strong leaders can have a lasting impact on a company, and the IEEE Professional Development Suite can help make that possible.
“The mini-MBA was a great opportunity to explore other areas of business that I don’t typically encounter,” says graduate Jonathan Bentz, a senior manager at Nvidia. “I have a customer-facing technical role, and the mini-MBA allowed me to get a taste of the full realm of business leadership.”
The Intensive Wireless interactive live course provides training necessary to stay on top of key developments in the dynamic, rapidly evolving communications industry. Designed for those with an engineering background who want to enhance their knowledge of wireless communication technologies, the series is an ideal way to train individual employees or your entire team at once.
The Advanced Topics in Wireless series is for engineers and technical professionals with a working knowledge of wireless who are looking to enhance their skill set. The series dives into recent advancements, applications, and use cases in emerging connectivity.
Participants in the live, online course series develop a comprehensive view of 5G/NR technology, as well as an understanding of the implementation of all the ITU-specified use case categories such as enhanced mobile broadband, mIoT, and ultra-reliable low-latency communication. The series also provides a robust foundation on the network architecture and the evolution of technology, which enables fully open radio access networks.
Tailored for professionals, faculty, and students, the IEEE eLearning Library taps into a wealth of expertise from the organization’s global network of more than 450,000 industry and academia members. Courses cover a wide variety of disciplines including artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, cyber and data security, power and energy, telecommunications, and IEEE standards.
You can help foster growth and leadership skills for your organization by offering employees access to hundreds of courses. Start exploring the library by filling out this form.
Completion of course programs offers learners the ability to earn IEEE certificates bearing professional development hours, continuing education units, and digital badges.
Telecom engineers and researchers face several challenges when it comes to testing their 5G and 6G prototypes. One is finding a testbed where they can run experiments with their new hardware and software.
The experimentation platforms, which resemble real-world conditions, can be pricey. Some have a time limit. Others may be used only by specific companies or for testing certain technologies.
The new IEEE 5G/6G Innovation Testbed has eliminated many of those barriers. Built by IEEE, the platform is for those who want to try out their 5G enhancements, run trials of future 6G functions, or test updates for converged networks. Users may test and retest as many times as they want at no additional cost.
Telecom operators can use the new virtual testbed, as can application developers, researchers, educators, and vendors from any industry.
“The IEEE 5G/6G Innovation Testbed creates an environment where industry can break new ground and work together to develop the next generation of technology innovations,” says Anwer Al-Dulaimi, cochair of the IEEE 5G/6G Innovation Testbed working group. Al-Dulaimi, an IEEE senior member, is a senior strategy manager of connectivity and Industry 4.0 for Veltris, in Toronto.
The subscription-based testbed is available only to organizations. Customers receive their own private, securesession of the testing platform in the cloud along with the ability to add new users.
A variety of architectures and experiments
The platform eliminates the need for customers to travel to a location and connect to physical hardware, Al-Dulaimi says. That’s because its digital hub is based in the cloud, allowing companies, research facilities, and organizations to access it. The testbed allows customers to upload their own software components for testing.
“IEEE 5G/6G Innovation Testbed provides a unique platform for the service providers, and various vertical industries—including defense, homeland security, agriculture, and automotive—to experiment various use cases that can take advantage of advanced 5G technologies like ultra low latency, machine-to-machine type communications and massive broadband to help solve their pain points,” says IEEE Fellow Ashutosh Dutta, who is a cochair of the working group. Dutta works as chief 5G strategist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, Md. He also heads the university’s Doctor of Engineering program.
“The IEEE 5G/6G Innovation Testbed creates an environment where industry can break new ground and work together to develop the next generation of technology innovations.”
The collaborative, secure, cloud-based platform also can emulate a 5G end-to-end network within the3rd Generation Partnership Program (3GPP), which defines cellular communications standards.
“Companies can use the platform for testing, but they can also use the environment as a virtual hands-on showcase of new products, services, and network functions,” Dutta says.
In addition to the cloud-based end-to-end environment, the testbed supports other architectures including multiaccess edge computing for reduced latency, physical layer testing via 5G access points and phones installed at IEEE, and Open RAN (radio access network) environments where wireless radio functionality is disaggregated to allow for better flexibility in mixing hardware and software components.
A variety of experiments can be conducted, Al-Dulaimi says, including:
Voice and video call emulation.
Authentication and encryption impact evaluation across different 5G platforms.
Network slicing.
Denial-of-service attacks and interoperability and overload incidents.
Verifying the functionality, compatibility, and interoperability of products.
Assessing conformity of networks, components, and products.
The testbed group plans to release a new graphical user interface soon, as well as a test orchestration tool that contains hundreds of plug-and-play test cases to help customers quickly determine if their prototypes are working as intended across a variety of standards and scenarios. In addition to basic “sanity testing,” it includes tools to measure a proposed product’s real-time performance.
The proofs of concept—lessons learned from experiments—will help advance existing standards and create new ones, Dutta says, and they will expedite the deployment of 5G and 6G technologies.
The IEEE 5G/6G testbed is an asset that can be used by the academics, researchers, and R&D labs, he says, to help “close the gap between theory and practice. Students across the world can take advantage of this testbed to get hands-on experience as part of their course curriculum.”
“The 3GPP-compliant end-to-end 5G network is built with a suite of open-source modules, allowing companies to customize the network architecture and tailor their testbed environment according to their needs,” Al-Dulaimi says.
The testbed was made possible with a grant from the IEEE New Initiatives Committee, which funds potential IEEE services, products, and other creations that could significantly benefit members, the public, customers, or the technical community.
To get a free trial of the testbed, complete this form.
Watch this short demonstration of how the IEEE 5G/6G Innovation Testbed works.
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Since its launch in 2019, the IEEE Learning Network (ILN) has been instrumental in advancing professional development through its diverse array of courses and programs. From specialized technical training to broader skill development, ILN online courses cater to professionals at every stage of their career and equip them with tools they need to succeed in today’s rapidly evolving landscape.
ILN is also achieving its original goal of becoming a one stop shop for education from across IEEE. Now more than 40 organizational units of IEEE have listed over 1,400 educational opportunities in ILN that provide practical knowledge from, covering artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, renewable energy, career development, and many more topics.
About 322,000 learners from more than 190 countries have completed ILN courses, with 83 percent saying in a satisfaction survey that they would recommend the program to their peers.
“The ILN is the go-to location for high-quality e-learning content to stay abreast with the latest topics in engineering and technology.” —Jason K. Hui
Many courses also allow users to earn digital certificates and badges bearing continuing-education units (CEUs) and professional development hours (PDHs). More than 65,000 digital certificates have been issued.
Testimonials from the community
“The introduction of ILN and the single platform of educational products by IEEE Educational Activities a few years ago was a hugely welcomed initiative for many in the industry and academia,” says Babak Beheshti, dean of the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences at New York Institute of Technology. “ILN provides a one-stop shop for the technical educational product search. My university engaged in a pilot to use several e-learning modules available on the ILN in several undergraduate and graduate engineering courses. The outcome was so positive that we purchased it.”
“The ILN’s centralized and comprehensive catalog has enabled me to stay updated on the latest computer hardware and software technologies,” says IEEE Fellow Sorel Reisman, professor emeritus of information systems at California State University, Fullerton. “The availability of digital certificates upon course completion and the ability to earn CEUs and PDHs is particularly valuable to technology practitioners, and reinforces IEEE’s commitment to ongoing personal and professional development for both members and nonmembers of our international community of engineers and computer scientists.”
“For me, the ILN is the go-to location for high-quality e-learning content to stay abreast with the latest topics in engineering and technology,” says Jason K. Hui, senior manager of engineering at Textron Systems in Wilmington, Mass.
Discount available now
In celebration of its five-year anniversary, during the month of July, ILN is offering US $5 off of select courses with the discount code ILN5.
You can follow ILN on Facebook and LinkedIn to engage with others, share insights, and expand your professional network.
The field of wireless communication is constantly evolving, and engineers need to be aware of the latest improvements and requirements. To address their needs, the
IEEE Communications Society is offering two exclusive training programs for individuals and technical teams.
The online
Intensive Wireless Communications and Advanced Topics in Wireless course series are taught by experts in real time. Through lectures that include practical use cases and case studies, participants acquire knowledge that can be applied in the workplace. During the interactive, live courses, learners have the opportunity to engage directly with industry expert instructors and get answers to their questions in real time.
Recordings of the courses are available to facilitate group discussions of the materials and deepen understanding of concepts. Copies of the instructors’ slides are shared with participants, providing an ongoing resource for future reference.
The benefits of training as a team
“A team taking the courses together can benefit from discussing examples from the lectures and the practice questions,” instructor
Alan Bensky says. “Attendees can also help each other better understand more difficult topics.” Bensky, who has more than 30 years of industry experience, teaches the Intensive Wireless Communications series.
Panteleimon Balis, an Advanced Topics in Wireless instructor, says taking the courses together as a team “fosters an aligned development of knowledge that enhances communication and collaboration within the team, leading to more effective problem-solving and decision-making.” Balis is a radio access network specialist who provides training on mobile and wireless communications technologies.
“The collective development of skill sets enables the team to apply the assimilated knowledge to real-world projects, driving innovation and efficiency within the organization,” he says. “Ultimately, attending these courses as a team not only strengthens individual competencies but also reinforces team cohesion and performance, benefiting the organization as a whole.”
Practical use cases to apply on the job
The following topics are covered in the Intensive Wireless Communications course, which is scheduled to be held in September and October:
Fundamentals of wireless communication.
Network and service architecture.
Cellular networks.
Noncellular wireless systems.
Several practical use cases are shared in the courses. Bensky notes, for example, that those working on Wi-Fi devices or network deployment likely will find the section on
IEEE 802.11 especially useful because it covers the capabilities of the different amendments, particularly regarding data rate calculation and presentation of achievable rates.
“Attending these courses as a team not only strengthens individual competencies but also reinforces team cohesion and performance, benefiting the organization as a whole.”
—Panteleimon Balis
The Advanced Topics in Wireless series, taught in October and November, includes these classes:
5G RAN and Core Network: Architecture, Technology Enablers, and Implementation Aspects.
O-RAN: Disrupting the Radio Access Network through Openness and Innovation.
Machine Type Communications in 5G and Beyond.
The inclusion of use cases, Balis says, brings significant value to the learning experience and helps with bridging the gap between theory and practice. In the O-RAN (open radio access network) module, for example, case studies analyze the pros and cons of early deployments in Japan and the United States.
As noted by the
IEEE Standards Association, the key concept of O-RAN is opening the protocols and interfaces among the various building blocks—radios, hardware, and software—in the RAN.
The Advanced Topics in Wireless courses are scheduled to begin after the Intensive Wireless Communications series concludes.
More details about courses are available
online, where you can learn how to offer the series to your team.
When it comes to addressing climate change, the “in unity there’s strength” adage certainly applies.
To support IEEE’s
climate change initiative, which highlights innovative solutions and approaches to the climate crisis, IEEE’s TryEngineering program has created a collection of lesson plans, activities, and events that cover electric vehicles, solar and wind power systems, and more.
To help bring the climate collection to more students, TryEngineering has partnered with the
Museum of Science in Boston. The museum, one of the world’s largest science centers, reaches nearly 5 million people annually through its physical location, nearby classrooms, and online platforms.
TryEngineering worked with the museum to distribute a nearly four-minute
educational video created by Moment Factory, a multimedia studio specializing in immersive experiences. Using age-appropriate language, the video, which is posted on TryEngineering’s climate change page, explores the issue through visual models and scientific explanations.
“Since the industrial revolution, humans have been digging up fossil fuels and burning them, which releases CO2 into the atmosphere in unprecedented quantities,” the video says. It notes that in the past 60 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide increased at a rate 100 times faster than previous natural changes.
“We are committed to energizing students around important issues like climate change and helping them understand how engineering can make a difference.”
The video explains the impact of pollutants such as lead and ash, and it adds that “when we work together, we can change the global environment.” The video encourages students to contribute to a global solution by making small, personal changes.
“We’re thrilled to contribute to the IEEE climate change initiative by providing IEEE volunteers and educators access to TryEngineering’s collection, so they have resources to use with students,” says
Debra Gulick, director of IEEE student and academic education programs.
“We are excited to partner with the Museum of Science to bring even more awareness and exposure of this important issue to the school setting,” Gulick says. “Working with prominent partners like the museum, we are committed to energizing students around important issues like climate change and helping them understand how engineering can make a difference.”
To help find ways to solve transportation issues such as poorly maintained roads, traffic jams, and the high rate of accidents, researchers need access to the most current datasets on a variety of topics. But tracking down information about roadway conditions, congestion, and other statistics across multiple websites can be time-consuming. Plus, the data isn’t always accurate.
The new National Transportation Data & Analytics Solution (NTDAS), developed with the help of IEEE, makes it easier to retrieve, visualize, and analyze data in one place. NTDAS combines advanced research tools with access to high-quality transportation datasets from theU.S. Federal Highway Administration’sNational Highway System and the entire Traffic Message Channel network, which distributes information on more than 1 million road segments. Anonymous data on millions of cars and trucks is generated from vehicle probes, which are vehicles equipped with GPS or global navigation satellite systems that gather traffic data on location, speed, and direction. This information helps transportation planners improve traffic flow, make transportation networks more efficient, and plan budgets.
The platform is updated monthly and contains archival data back to 2017.
“The difference between NTDAS and other competitors is that our data comes from a trusted source that means the most: the U.S. Federal Highway Administration,” says Lavanya Sayam, senior manager of data analytics alliances and programs for IEEE Global Products and Marketing. “The data has been authenticated and validated. The ability to download this massive dataset provides an unparalleled ease to data scientists and machine-learning engineers to explore and innovate.”
IEEE is diversifying its line of products beyond its traditional fields of electrical engineering, Sayam adds. “We are not just focused on electrical or computer science,” she says. “IEEE is so diverse, and this state-of-the-art platform reflects that.”
The suite of tools allows users to do tasks such as creating a personal dashboard to monitor traffic conditions on specific roads, downloading raw data for analysis, building animated maps of road conditions, and measuring the flow of traffic. There are tutorials available on the platform on how to use each tool, and templates for creating reports, documents, and pamphlets.
“The difference between National Transportation Data & Analytics Solutions and other competitors is that our data comes from a trusted source that means the most: the U.S. Federal Highway Administration.” —Lavanya Sayam
“This is the first time this type of platform is being offered by IEEE to the global academic institutional audience,” she says. “IEEE is always looking for new ways to serve the engineering community.”
A subscription-based service, NTDAS has multidisciplinary relevance, Sayam says. The use cases it includes serve researchers and educators who need a robust platform that has all the data that helps them conduct analytics in one place, she says. For university instructors, it’s an innovative way to teach the courses, and for students, it’s a unique way to apply what they’ve learned with real-world data and uses.
The platform goes beyond just those working in transportation, Sayam notes. Others who might find NTDAS useful include those who study traffic as it relates to sustainability, the environment, civil engineering, public policy, business, and logistics, she adds.
50 ways to minimize the impact of traffic
NTDAS also includes more than50 use cases created by IEEE experts to demonstrate how the data could be analyzed. The examples identify ways to protect the environment, better serve disadvantaged communities, support alternative transportation, and improve the safety of citizens. “Data from NTDAS can be easily extrapolated to non-U.S. geographies, making it highly relevant to global researchers,” according to Sayam. This is explained in specific use cases too.
The cases cover topics such as the impact of traffic on bird populations, air-quality issues in underserved communities, and optimal areas to install electric vehicle charging stations.
Two experts covered various strategies for how to use the data to analyze the impact of transportation and infrastructure on the environment in this on-demand webinar held in May.
Thomas Brennan, a professor of civil engineering at the College of New Jersey, discussed how using NTDAS data could aid in better planning of evacuation routes during wildfires, such as determining the location of first responders and traffic congestion in the area, including seasonal traffic. This and other data could lead to evacuating residents faster, new evacuation road signage, and better communication warning systems, he said.
Watch this short demonstration about the National Transportation Data & Analytics Solutions platform.
“Transportation is a basic fabric of society,” Sayam says. “Understanding its impact is an imperative for better living. True to IEEE’s mission of advancing technology for humanity, NTDAS, with its interdisciplinary relevance, helps us understand the impact of transportation across several dimensions.”
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