More than 15 percent of the world’s population—greater than 1 billion people—live with disabilities including hearing loss, vision problems, mental health challenges, and lack of mobility. EPICS in IEEE has engaged students’ ingenuity worldwide to address accessibility issues through adaptive services, redesigned technology, and new assistive technologies during its 2023 Access and Abilities Competition.

The competition challenged university students around the world to use their engineering skills to help with accessibility issues. The EPICS in IEEE Committee received 58 proposals and selected 23 projects, which were funded in early 2023.

EPICS is a grant-based program for IEEE Educational Activities that funds service learning projects for university and high school students.

The teams, which include faculty members and IEEE members, create and execute engineering projects in partnership with organizations to improve their communities.

“Some gamers with arm or hand deficiencies play with their feet, nose, mouth, or elbows, or they use devices not intended for that purpose and are forced to adapt. I realized that if there was a dedicated device designed for such individuals, they’d be able to play and experience the joy of gaming.” —John McCauley.

The four EPICS in IEEE pillars are access and abilities; environment; education and outreach; and human services. In the Access and Abilities Competition, student teams received between US $1,000 and $10,000. Each team had 12 months to build a prototype or solution in collaboration with its community partners. The projects, which involved more than 350 students and 149 IEEE volunteers, aimed to help an estimated 8,000 people in the first year of deployment.

The teams included participants from IEEE student branches, IEEE Women in Engineering groups, IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu honor society chapters, and IEEE sections.

Projects included a sound-detection device and a self-navigating robotic walking aid.

The competition was funded by the Taenzer Memorial Fund in 2019, with $90,000 allocated by the IEEE Foundation. The fund was established with a bequest from the estate of Jon C. Taenzer, an IEEE life senior member.

The student teams submitted their final reports this year.

Here are highlights from four of the projects:

Adaptive mouse for gaming

Members of the adaptive mouse EPICS in IEEE team at the University of Florida in Gainesville designed a device that contains keyboard functions and can be used with just one hand.EPICS in IEEE

A team of 10 biomedical engineering students at the University of Florida in Gainesville designed their project to help people whose hands or arms have an abnormality, so they could more easily play games.

The team built five adaptive mouse devices and plans to deliver them this year to five recipients involved with Hands to Love, a Florida-based organization that supports children with upper limb abnormalities.

The team incorporated the keyboard elements of gaming into a mouse, allowing gaming gestures and movements with just one hand. The 3D-printed mouse combines existing gaming technology, including the internal mechanisms of keyboards, a Logitech mouse, and Microsoft Xbox controller emulations. It allows the player to move and aim while gaming with just a mouse.

Gaming enthusiast John McCauley, a junior in the university’s biomedical engineering program, was behind the project’s conception.

“Some gamers with arm or hand deficiencies play with their feet, nose, mouth, or elbows, or they use devices not intended for that purpose and are forced to adapt,” McCauley says. “I realized that if there was a dedicated device designed for such individuals, they’d be able to play and experience the joy of gaming.”

The team used its $1,000 EPICS in IEEE grant to purchase the prototype’s components.

Making campus more accessible

Universidad Tecnólogica de Panamá students test their microcontroller-based prototype, designed to help make their school more accessible.EPICS in IEEE

A team of 15 undergraduate students from the Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá in Panama City and 24 students from four high schools in Chiriquí, Panama, created several projects focused on people with visual or physical disabilities. The team’s goal was to make their campus and community more accessible to those with different abilities. The projects enhanced their classmates’ autonomy and improved their quality of life.

The team made braille signs using a 3D printer, and they designed and built a personalized wheelchair. The students also automated the doors within the engineering department to provide better access to classrooms and corridors for those with disabilities.

“This project will be very useful, especially [in Panama], where buildings have not been adapted for people with disabilities,” said team member Gael Villarreal, a high school junior.

While working together on the project, team members honed their technical and interpersonal skills. They came to appreciate the importance of collaboration and communication.

“I learned that you need to have new experiences, be sociable, meet and get along with new people, and work as a team to be successful,” high school junior Gianny Rodriguez said.

The team used its $8,100 EPICS grant to purchase materials and train the community on using the new tools.

Helping children with hearing impairments

A team of students from the SRM Institute of Science and Technology student branch, in Chennai, India, worked with the Dr. MGR Home and Higher Secondary School for the Speech and Hearing Impaired, also in Chennai, to build a device to help children with hearing aids and cochlear implants learn Tamil, the local language. In rural areas, young children often do not have access to specialized speech and hearing health care providers to learn critical language skills. The team’s assistive device supports native language skill development, helping parents and trainers support the children in language and sound acquisition.

The project is designed to provide access to aural rehabilitation, including identifying hearing loss and therapies for children far from hospitals and rehabilitation centers.

The kiosklike device resembles an ATM and includes surround-sound speakers and touchscreens. It uses a touch monitor and microphones to access tasks and tests that help young children learn Tamil.

The team worked with 150 pupils at the school between the ages of 5 and 8 to develop the prototype. The built-in app includes tasks that focus on improving auditory awareness, auditory discrimination (the ability to recognize, compare, and distinguish between distinct sounds), and language acquisition (how people perceive and comprehend language).

The device tests the pupil’s hearing range based on sounds with visual cues, sounds at low intensity, sounds in the presence of noise, and sound direction.

The speakers emulate real-life situations and are used to relay the teacher’s instructions.

The team received a $1,605 grant to execute the project.

This video spotlights the challenges youngsters with hearing disabilities in Chenni, India, face and how the assistive technology will help them.

Self-navigating robotic walking aid

Students from the IEEE Swinburne Sarawak student branch in Malaysia brought a prototype of their walking aid to Trinity Eldercare, their community partner.EPICS in IEEE

To help senior citizens with mobility issues, a team of students from the IEEE Swinburne Sarawak student branch at the Swinburne University of Technology, in Malaysia, created a self-navigating walking aid.

The team wanted to improve existing walkers on the market, so they surveyed residents at Trinity Eldercare to find out what features would be useful to them.

The students’ prototype, based on a commercial walker, includes a wearable haptic belt that detects obstacles and alerts the user. Pressure sensors in the hand grips sense which direction the user wants to go. One of the senior citizens’ most requested features was the ability to locate a misplaced walker. The team was able to address the issue using sensors.

“I gained substantial knowledge in robotics programming and artificial intelligence and deep learning integration for person tracking and autonomous navigation,” one of the team members said. “Additionally, presenting our smart walker prototype at the International Invention, Innovation, Technolgy Competition and Exhibition in Malaysia enhanced my presentation skills, as I successfully articulated its viability and usefulness to the judges.”

The project received a $1,900 grant.

Join the EPICS in IEEE mailing list to learn more about all the Access and Abilities Competition projects and other impactful efforts made possible by donations to the IEEE Foundation. To learn more, check out the video of the competition:

The EPICS in IEEE program is celebrating its 15th year of supporting and facilitating service-learning projects and impacting students and communities worldwide

This year’s IEEE Conference on Digital Platforms and Societal Harms is scheduled to be held on 14 and 15 October in a hybrid format, with both in-person and virtual keynote panel sessions. The in-person events are to take place at American University, in Washington, D.C.

The annual conference focuses on how social media and similar platforms amplify hate speech, extremism, exploitation, misinformation, and disinformation, as well as what measures are being taken to protect people.

With the popularity of social media and the rise of artificial intelligence, content can be more easily created and shared online by individuals and bots, says Andre Oboler, the general chair of IEEE DPSH. The IEEE senior member is CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute, which is based in Sydney. Oboler cautions that a lot of content online is fabricated, so some people are making economic, political, social, and health care decisions based on inaccurate information.

“Addressing the creation, propagation, and engagement of harmful digital information is a complex problem. It requires broad collaboration among various stakeholders including technologists; lawmakers and policymakers; nonprofit organizations; private sectors; and end users.”

Misinformation (which is false) and disinformation (which is intentionally false) also can propagate hate speech, discrimination, violent extremism, and child sexual abuse, he says, and can create hostile online environments, damaging people’s confidence in information and endangering their lives.

To help prevent harm, he says, cutting-edge technical solutions and changes in public policy are needed. At the conference, academic researchers and leaders from industry, government, and not-for-profit organizations are gathering to discuss steps being taken to protect individuals online.

Experts to explore challenges and solutions

The event includes panel discussions and Q&A sessions with experts from a variety of technology fields and organizations. Scheduled speakers include Paul Giannasi from the U.K. National Police Chiefs’ Council; Skip Gilmour of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism; and Maike Luiken, chair of IEEE’s Planet Positive 2030 initiative.

“Addressing the creation, propagation, and engagement of harmful digital information is a complex problem,” Oboler says. “It requires broad collaboration among various stakeholders including technologists; lawmakers and policymakers; nonprofit organizations; private sectors; and end users.

“There is an emerging need for these stakeholders and researchers from multiple disciplines to have a joint forum to understand the challenges, exchange ideas, and explore possible solutions.”

To register for in-person and online conference attendance, visit the event’s website. Those who want to attend only the keynote panels can register for free access to the discussions. Attendees who register by 22 September and use the code 25off2we receive a 25 percent discount.

Check out highlights from the 2023 IEEE Conference on Digital Platforms and Societal Harms.

In today’s digital world, it’s easy for just about anyone to create a mobile app or write software, thanks to Java, JavaScript, Python, and other programming languages.

But that wasn’t always the case. Because the primary language of computers is binary code, early programmers used punch cards to instruct computers what tasks to complete. Each hole represented a single binary digit.

That changed in 1952 with the A-0 compiler, a series of specifications that automatically translates high-level languages such as English into machine-readable binary code.

The compiler, now an IEEE Milestone, was developed by Grace Hopper, who worked as a senior mathematician at the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp., now part of Unisys, in Philadelphia.

IEEE Fellow’s innovation allowed programmers to write code faster and easier using English commands. For her, however, the most important outcome was the influence it had on the development of modern programming languages, making writing code more accessible to everyone, according to a Penn Engineering Today article.

The dedication of the A-0 compiler as an IEEE Milestone was held in Philadelphia on 7 May at the University of Pennsylvania. That’s where the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp. got its start.

“This milestone celebrates the first step of applying computers to automate the tedious portions of their own programming,” André DeHon, professor of electrical systems, engineering, and computer science, said at the dedication ceremony.

Eliminating the punch-card system

To program a computer, early technicians wrote out tasks in assembly language—a human-readable way to write machine code, which is made up of binary numbers. They then manually translated the assembly language into machine code and punched holes representing the binary digits into cards, according to a Medium article on the method. The cards were fed into a machine that read the holes and input the data into the computer.

The punch-card system was laborious; it could take days to complete a task. The cards couldn’t be used with even a slight defect such as a bent corner. The method also had a high risk of human error.

After leading the development of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) at Penn, computer scientists J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly set about creating a replacement for punch cards. ENIAC was built to improve the accuracy of U.S. artillery during World War II, but the two men wanted to develop computers for commercial applications, according to a Pennsylvania Center for the Book article.

The machine they designed was the first known large-scale electronic computer, the Universal Automatic, or UNIVAC I. Hopper was on its development team.

UNIVAC I used 6,103 vacuum tubes and took up a 33-square-meter room. The machine had a memory unit. Instead of punch cards, the computer used magnetic tape to input data. The tapes, which could hold audio, video, and written data, were up to 457 meters long. Unlike previous computers, the UNIVAC I had a keyboard so an operator could input commands, according to the Pennsylvania Center for the Book article.

“This milestone celebrates the first step of applying computers to automate the tedious portions of their own programming.” —André DeHon

Technicians still had to manually feed instructions into the computer, however, to run any new program.

That time-consuming process led to errors because “programmers are lousy copyists,” Hopper said in a speech for the Association for Computing Machinery. “It was amazing how many times a 4 would turn into a delta, which was our space symbol, or into an A. Even B’s turned into 13s.”

According to a Hidden Heroes article, Hopper had an idea for simplifying programming: Have the computer translate English to machine code.

She was inspired by computer scientist Betty Holberton’s sort/merge generator and Mauchly’s Short Code. Holberton is one of six women who programmed the ENIAC to calculate artillery trajectories in seconds, and she worked alongside Hopper on the UNIVAC I. Her sort/merge program, invented in 1951 for the UNIVAC I, handled the large data files stored on magnetic tapes. Hopper defined the sort/merge program as the first version of virtual memory because it made use of overlays automatically without being directed to by the programmer, according to a Stanford presentation about programming languages. The Short Code, which was developed in the 1940s, allowed technicians to write programs using brief sequences of English words corresponding directly to machine code instructions. It bridged the gap between human-readable code and machine-executable instructions.

“I think the first step to tell us that we could actually use a computer to write programs was the sort/merge generator,” Hopper said in the presentation. “And Short Code was the first step in moving toward something which gave a programmer the actual power to write a program in a language which bore no resemblance whatsoever to the original machine code.”

IEEE Fellow Grace Hopper inputting call numbers into the Universal Automatic (UNIVAC I), which allows the computer to find the correct instructions to complete. The A-0 compiler translates the English instructions into machine-readable binary code.Computer History Museum

Easier, faster, and more accurate programming

Hopper, who figured computers should speak human-like languages, rather than requiring humans to speak computer languages, began thinking about how to allow programmers to call up specific codes using English, according to an IT Professional profile.

But she needed a library of frequently used instructions for the computer to reference and a system to translate English to machine code. That way, the computer could understand what task to complete.

Such a library didn’t exist, so Hopper built her own. It included tapes that held frequently used instructions for tasks that she called subroutines. Each tape stored one subroutine, which was assigned a three-number call sign so that the UNIVAC I could locate the correct tape. The numbers represented sets of three memory addresses: one for the memory location of the subroutine, another for the memory location of the data, and the third for the output location, according to the Stanford presentation.

“All I had to do was to write down a set of call numbers, let the computer find them on the tape, and do the additions,” she said in a Centre for Computing History article. “This was the first compiler.”

The system was dubbed the A-0 compiler because code was written in one language, which was then “compiled” into a machine language.

What previously had taken a month of manual coding could now be done in five minutes, according to a Cockroach Labs article.

Hopper presented the A-0 to Eckert-Mauchly Computer executives. Instead of being excited, though, they said they didn’t believe a computer could write its own programs, according to the article.

“I had a running compiler, and nobody would touch it, because they carefully told me computers could only do arithmetic; they could not do programs,” Hopper said. “It was a selling job to get people to try it. I think with any new idea, because people are allergic to change, you have to get out and sell the idea.”

It took two years for the company’s leadership to accept the A-0.

In 1954, Hopper was promoted to director of automatic programming for the UNIVAC division. She went on to create the first compiler-based programming languages including Flow-Matic, the first English language data-processing compiler. It was used to program UNIVAC I and II machines.

Hopper also was involved in developing COBOL, one of the earliest standardized computer languages. It enabled computers to respond to words in addition to numbers, and it is still used in business, finance, and administrative systems. Hopper’s Flow-Matic formed the foundation of COBOL, whose first specifications were made available in 1959.

A plaque recognizing the A-0 is now displayed at the University of Pennsylvania. It reads:

During 1951–1952, Grace Hopper invented the A-0 Compiler, a series of specifications that functioned as a linker/loader. It was a pioneering achievement of automatic programming as well as a pioneering utility program for the management of subroutines. The A-0 Compiler influenced the development of arithmetic and business programming languages. This led to COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language), becoming the dominant high-level language for business applications.

The IEEE Philadelphia Section sponsored the nomination.

Administered by the IEEE History Center and supported by donors, the Milestone program recognizes outstanding technical developments worldwide.

About Grace Hopper

Hopper didn’t start as a computer programmer. She was a mathematician at heart, earning bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and physics in 1928 from Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. She then received master’s and doctoral degrees in mathematics and mathematical physics from Yale in 1930 and 1934, respectively.

She taught math at Vassar, but after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into World War II, Hopper joined the war effort. She took a leave of absence from Vassar to join the U.S. Naval Reserve (Women’s Reserve) in December 1943. She was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard, where she worked for mathematician Howard Aiken. She was part of Aiken’s team that developed the Mark I, one of the earliest electromechanical computers. Hopper was the third person and the first woman to program the machine.

After the war ended, she became a research fellow at the Harvard Computation Laboratory. In 1946 she joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp., where she worked until her retirement in 1971. During 1959 she was an adjunct lecturer at Penn’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering.

Her work in programming earned her the nickname “Amazing Grace,” according to an entry about her on the Engineering and Technology History Wiki.

Hopper remained a member of the Naval Reserve and, in 1967, was recalled to active duty. She led the effort to standardize programming languages for the military, according to the ETHW entry. She was eventually promoted to rear admiral. When she retired from the Navy at the age of 79 in 1989, she was the oldest serving officer in all the U.S. armed forces.

Among her many honors was the 1991 U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation “for her pioneering accomplishments in the development of computer programming languages that simplified computer technology and opened the door to a significantly larger universe of users.”

She received 40 honorary doctorates from universities, and the Navy named a warship in her honor.

The IEEE Board of Directors shapes the future direction of IEEE and is committed to ensuring IEEE remains a strong and vibrant organization—serving the needs of its members and the engineering and technology community worldwide—while fulfilling the IEEE mission of advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.

This article features IEEE Board of Directors members A. Matt Francis, Tom Murad, and Christopher Root.

IEEE Senior Member A. Matt Francis

Director, IEEE Region 5: Southwestern U.S.

Moriah Hargrove Anders

Francis’s primary technology focus is extreme environment and high-temperature integrated circuits. His groundbreaking work has pushed the boundaries of electronics, leading to computers operating in low Earth orbit for more than a year on the International Space Station and on jet engines. Francis and his team have designed and built some of the world’s most rugged semiconductors and systems.

He is currently helping explore new computing frontiers in supersonic and hypersonic flight, geothermal energy exploration, and molten salt reactors. Well versed in shifting technology from idea to commercial application, Francis has secured and led projects with the U.S. Air Force, DARPA, NASA, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and private-sector customers.

Francis’s influence extends beyond his own ventures. He is a member of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems, IEEE Computer, and IEEE Electronics Packaging societies, demonstrating his commitment to industry and continuous learning.

He attended the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville for both his undergraduate and graduate degrees. He joined IEEE while at the university and was president of the IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu honor society’s Gamma Phi chapter. Francis’s other past volunteer roles include serving as chair of the IEEE Ozark Section, which covers Northwest Arkansas, and also as a member of the IEEE-USA Entrepreneurship Policy Innovation Committee.

His deep-rooted belief in the power of collaboration is evident in his willingness to share knowledge and support aspiring entrepreneurs. Francis is proud to have helped found a robotics club (an IEEE MGA Local Group) in his rural Elkins, Ark., community and to have served on steering committees for programs including IEEE TryEngineering and IEEE-USA’s Innovation, Research, and Workforce Conferences. He serves as an elected city council member for his town, and has cofounded two non-profits, supporting his community and the state of Arkansas.

Francis’s journey from entrepreneur to industry leader is a testament to his determination and innovative mindset. He has received numerous awards including the IEEE-USA Entrepreneur Achievement Award for Leadership in Entrepreneurial Spirit, IEEE Region 5 Directors Award, and IEEE Region 5 Outstanding Individual Member Achievement Award.

IEEE Senior Member Tom Murad

Director, IEEE Region 7: Canada

Siemens Canada

Murad is a respected technology leader, award-winning educator, and distinguished speaker on engineering, skills development, and education. Recently retired, he has 40 years of experience in professional engineering and technical operations executive management, including more than 10 years of academic and R&D work in industrial controls and automation.

He received his doctorate (Ph.D.) degree in power electronics and industrial controls from Loughborough University of Technology in the U.K.

Murad has held high-level positions in several international engineering and industrial organizations, and he contributed to many global industrial projects. His work on projects in power utilities, nuclear power, oil and gas, mining, automotive, and infrastructure industries has directly impacted society and positively contributed to the economy. He is a strong advocate of innovation and creativity, particularly in the areas of digitalization, smart infrastructure, and Industry 4.0. He continues his academic career as an adjunct professor at University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

His dedication to enhancing the capabilities of new generations of engineers is a source of hope and optimism. His work in significantly improving the quality and relevance of engineering and technical education in Canada is a testament to his commitment to the future of the engineering profession and community. For that he has been assigned by the Ontario Government to be a member of the board of directors of the Post Secondary Education Quality Assessment Board (PEQAB).

Murad is a member of the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management, IEEE Education, IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems, and IEEE Vehicular Technology societies, the IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu honor society, and the Editorial Advisory Board Chair for the IEEE Canadian Review Magazine. His accomplishments show his passion for the engineering profession and community.

He is a member of the Order of Honor of the Professional Engineers of Ontario, Canada, Fellow of Engineers Canada, Fellow of Engineering Institutes of Canada (EIC), and received the IEEE Canada J.M. Ham Outstanding Engineering Educator Award, among other recognitions highlighting his impact on the field.

IEEE Senior Member Christopher Root

Director, Division VII

Vermont Electric Power Company and Shana Louiselle

Root has been in the electric utility industry for more than 40 years and is an expert in power system operations, engineering, and emergency response. He has vast experience in the operations, construction, and maintenance of transmission and distribution utilities, including all phases of the engineering and design of power systems. He has shared his expertise through numerous technical presentations on utility topics worldwide.

Currently an industry advisor and consultant, Root focuses on the crucial task of decarbonizing electricity production. He is engaged in addressing the challenges of balancing an increasing electrical market and dependence on renewable energy with the need to provide low-cost, reliable electricity on demand.

Root’s journey with IEEE began in 1983 when he attended his first meeting as a graduate student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, N.Y. Since then, he has served in leadership roles such as treasurer, secretary, and member-at-large of the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES). His commitment to the IEEE mission and vision is evident in his efforts to revitalize the dormant IEEE PES Boston Chapter in 2007 and his instrumental role in establishing the IEEE PES Green Mountain Section in Vermont in 2015. He also is a member of the editorial board of the IEEE Power & Energy Magazine and the IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu honor society.

Root’s contributions and leadership in the electric utility industry have been recognized with the IEEE PES Leadership in Power Award and the PES Meritorious Service Award.

There were early signs that Muhammad Hamza Ihtisham was born to excel in engineering or computer science, but family tradition initially steered him toward a career in medicine. Ihtisham’s mother and other family members were medical professionals. His father is a businessman.

Even though his father had dreamed of having a son in the engineering field, it was assumed that Ihtisham would become a doctor. And he almost did. But when he didn’t pass the medical qualifying exams in high school, he saw it as a sign to switch professions.

Muhammad Hamza Ihtisham

Employer:

Jazz in Lahore, Pakistan

Title:

Network experience specialist in radio

Member grade:

IEEE member

Alma mater:

University of the Punjab

“I asked my parents and my principal for permission to switch my focus from medicine to computer science,” he says. Although the change took effect only three months before he had to take exams, he scored high enough to place third among the computer science students at his school. He has never looked back.

Ihtisham is now a network experience specialist in radio at the largest telecommunications provider in Pakistan: Lahore-based Jazz. Ihtisham monitors, supervises, and troubleshoots nationwide wireless networks and is a team player who implements smart systems and AI-based solutions to optimize network performance.

“We are working with 2G, 3G, and 4G network supervision,” he says, “and we’re also evolving for 5G and optical fiber networks.”

Muhammad Hamza Ihtisham chats with 2018 IEEE President Jim Jefferies.Muhammad Hamza Ihtisham

Early evidence of STEM affinity

Ihtisham didn’t need much encouragement to become an engineer, he says, adding that he always has wanted to work with technology.

When he was young, his father bought him a computer with a Pentium II CPU “at a time when there were very few computers in my town,” he says.

Ihtisham’s curiosity led him to dismantle and explore its components, fostering a deeper interest in technology.

“I destroyed many motherboards and processors when I pulled them out of the computer to see how they worked,” he says. It was part of his innate tendency to get to the bottom of how things worked. “I still have that spark in me, that inner child who wants to open things up and investigate how they work.”

He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering with a specialization in telecommunications from the University of the Punjab in 2018. He returned to pursue a master’s degree in industrial engineering and management—which he received in 2022.

Thanks to his IEEE connections, Ihtisham secured his position at Jazz even before getting his bachelor’s degree. As the university’s IEEE student branch chair, Ihtisham invited an engineer from Jazz to speak to students on campus. When Ihtisham later showed up at the company for a job interview, that same engineer was the department head and immediately recognized him.

Since his college days, Ihtisham has poured time and energy into giving back to the profession through participation in IEEE. He founded his school’s student chapter and today serves as chair of the IEEE Lahore Section’s Young Professionals group. He is also the deputy lead of the global technical and operation committee of the IEEE Young Professionals mentoring program, which connects experts with mentees to help them learn and further their career.

Active IEEE student leader

Ihtisham entered college thinking he would become a computer scientist, but before long he became convinced that his true passion lay in engineering. Noticing a gap in student activities within the school’s EE department, he joined IEEE in his third semester.

Although the university was more than 150 years old, electrical engineering was a relatively new course of study there.

“My graduating class had only the 10th cohort of graduates to earn that degree from the university,” he says.

As founder of the school’s IEEE student branch, Ihtisham set about adding activities and opportunities for would-be engineers that he felt were missing. He was the branch’s first chair, organizing activities, boosting membership, and overseeing initiatives that impacted his university and the wider IEEE Lahore Section. He was then appointed a student representative for the section.

“That was a turning point for me,” he says.

He originally started volunteering with IEEE for a pragmatic purpose that served the entire engineering student body, he says, but as he settled into his new leadership roles, volunteering became a source of personal fulfillment and development.

“When I started my IEEE journey, I was not prepared. But I worked on my leadership, my behavior, and improving my soft skills. So, you could say my involvement with IEEE has transformed my personality and served as leadership training.”

For his efforts, he has been recognized with several awards including the IEEE Lahore Section’s 2018 Outstanding Volunteer for organizing student activities and conferences.

“When I started my IEEE journey, I was not well groomed,” Ihistham says. “But I worked on my leadership, my behavior, and improving my soft skills. So, you could say my involvement with IEEE has transformed my personality and served as leadership training.”

The communications and negotiating skills he picked up by networking with IEEE members across the globe have benefited him at Jazz, he says.

His dedication to IEEE didn’t end with his student years. Today his roles involve mentoring, networking, and leading initiatives to foster growth and collaboration in the engineering community.

Now his leadership skills help him manage and motivate other volunteers and mentor engineering students. He received the 2021 IEEE MGA Young Professionals Achievement Award for organizing YP activities and the 2021 IEEE IAS Young Member Service Award for virtually engaging IEEE Industry Applications Society members during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Advice for aspiring engineers

To students considering a career in electrical engineering, Ihtisham emphasizes the importance of finding the right mentors and embracing open-source collaboration. He advises discussing ideas with experts to gain valuable insights and foster innovative thinking.

His success story underscores the value of mentorship, continuous learning, and community engagement. While he was in graduate school working toward his master’s degree, he began doing research to develop an effective and reliable brain-computer interface. He talked with the medical professionals in his family for information about how the brain works but then found himself at an impasse because there were not enough datasets in Pakistan for training his machine-learning software.

He reached out to the IEEE community and found a mentor for the project at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Their collaboration was fruitful enough that Ihtisham was invited to present a TEDx talk on what he had learned about addiction and neurofeedback.

Based on that project, he took home third prize in the IEEE IAS Chapters and Membership Department Zucker Undergraduate Student Design Contest in 2019.

Ihtisham’s journey with IEEE exemplifies the impact of dedication, mentorship, and continued learning on building an interesting and successful engineering career.

“My success is having an impact on my younger cousins,” he says. “If they want to pursue a career in engineering or another STEM field, they have someone in the family who can guide them.”

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.

To learn more about IEEE Collabratec, check out the user guide, FAQs, and users’ forum.

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.

The IEEE STEM Summit, a three-day virtual event in October for IEEE volunteers and educators, is expected to include a session highlighting Keysight’s lesson plans.

Educators and volunteers engaged in outreach activities with students can learn more on the Keysight TryEngineering partnership page.

The arrangement with Keysight was made possible with support from the IEEE Foundation.

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.

Developing professionals into strong leaders can have a lasting impact on a company, and the IEEE Professional Development Suite can help make it possible. The training programs in the suite help aspiring technology leaders who want to develop their essential business and management skills. Programs include IEEE Leading Technical Teams, the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers and Technical Professionals, and the Intensive Wireless Communications and Advanced Topics in Wireless courses offered by the IEEE Communications Society. IEEE also offers topical courses through its eLearning Library.

Tips for leading teams

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.”

For more information, see IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers and Technical Professionals.

Training on wireless communications

The Intensive Wireless Communications and the Advanced Topics in Wireless course series are exclusively presented by the IEEE Communications Society.

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.

Learn more about the Advanced Topics in Wireless Course Series by completing this form.

Topics in the eLearning Library

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.

In the two years since Arati Prabhakar was appointed director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, she has set the United States on a course toward regulating artificial intelligence. The IEEE Fellow advised the U.S. President Joe Biden in writing the executive order he issued to accomplish the goal just six months after she began her new role in 2022.

Prabhakar is the first woman and the first person of color to serve as OSTP director, and she has broken through the glass ceiling at other agencies as well. She was the first woman to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Arati Prabhakar

Employer

U.S. government

Title

Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Member grade

Fellow

Alma maters

Texas Tech University; Caltech

Working in the public sector wasn’t initially on her radar. Not until she became a DARPA program manager in 1986, she says, did she really understand what she could accomplish as a government official.

“What I have come to love about [public service] is the opportunity to shape policies at a scale that is really unparalleled,” she says.

Prabhakar’s passion for tackling societal challenges by developing technology also led her to take leadership positions at companies including Raychem (now part of TE Connectivity), Interval Research Corp., and U.S. Venture Partners. In 2019 she helped found Actuate, a nonprofit in Palo Alto, Calif., that seeks to create technology to help address climate change, data privacy, health care access, and other pressing issues.

“I really treasure having seen science, technology, and innovation from all different perspectives,” she says. “But the part I have loved most is public service because of the impact and reach that it can have.”

Discovering her passion for electrical engineering

Prabhakar, who was born in India and raised in Texas, says she decided to pursue a STEM career because when she was growing up, her classmates said women weren’t supposed to work in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.

“Them saying that just made me want to pursue it more,” she says. Her parents, who had wanted her to become a doctor, supported her pursuit of engineering, she adds.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1979 from Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, she moved to California to continue her education at Caltech. She graduated with a master’s degree in EE in 1980, then earned a doctorate in applied physics in 1984. Her doctoral thesis focused on understanding deep-level defects and impurities in semiconductors that affect device performance.

After acquiring her Ph.D., she says, she wanted to make a bigger impact with her research than academia would allow, so she applied for a policy fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science to work at the congressional Office of Technology Assessment. The office examines issues involving new or expanding technologies, assesses their impact, and studies whether new policies are warranted.

“We have huge aspirations for the future—such as mitigating climate change—that science and technology have to be part of achieving.”

“I wanted to share my research in semiconductor manufacturing processes with others,” Prabhakar says. “That’s what felt exciting and valuable to me.”

She was accepted into the program and moved to Washington, D.C. During the yearlong fellowship, she conducted a study on microelectronics R&D for the research and technology subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives committee on science, space, and technology. The subcommittee oversees STEM-related matters including education, policy, and standards.

While there, she worked with people who were passionate about public service and government, but she didn’t feel the same, she says, until she joined DARPA. As program manager, Prabhakar established and led several projects including a microelectronics office that invests in developing new technologies in areas such as lithography, optoelectronics, infrared imaging, and neural networks.

In 1993 an opportunity arose that she couldn’t refuse, she says: President Bill Clinton nominated her to direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST develops technical guidelines and conducts research to create tools that improve citizens’ quality of life. At age 34, she became the first woman to lead the agency.

Believing in IEEE’s Mission

Like many IEEE members, Prabhakar says, she joined IEEE as a student member while attending Texas Tech University because the organization’s mission aligned with her belief that engineering is about creating value in the world.

She continues to renew her membership, she says, because IEEE emphasizes that technology should benefit humanity.

“It really comes back to this idea of the purpose of engineering and the role that it plays in the world,” she says.

After leading NIST through the first Clinton administration, she left for the private sector, including stints as CTO at appliance-component maker Raychem in Menlo Park, Calif., and president of private R&D lab Interval Research of Palo Alto, Calif. In all, she spent the next 14 years in the private sector, mostly as a partner at U.S. Venture Partners, in Menlo Park, where she invested in semiconductor and clean-tech startups.

In 2012 she returned to DARPA and became its first female director.

“When I received the call offering me the job, I stopped breathing,” Prabhakar says. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a difference at an agency that I had loved earlier in my career. And it proved to be just as meaningful an experience as I had hoped.”

For the next five years she led the agency, focusing on developing better military systems and the next generation of artificial intelligence, as well as creating solutions in social science, synthetic biology, and neurotechnology.

Under her leadership, in 2014 DARPA established the Biological Technologies Office to oversee basic and applied research in areas including gene editing, neurosciences, and synthetic biology. The office launched the Pandemic Prevention Platform, which helped fund the development of the mRNA technology that is used in the Moderna and Pfizer coronavirus vaccines.

She left the agency in 2017 to move back to California with her family.

“When I left the organization, what was very much on my mind was that the United States has the most powerful innovation engine the world has ever seen,” Prabhakar says. “At the same time, what kept tugging at me was that we have huge aspirations for the future—such as mitigating climate change—that science and technology have to be part of achieving.”

That’s why, in 2019, she helped found Actuate. She served as the nonprofit’s chief executive until 2022, when she took on the role of OSTP director.

Although she didn’t choose her career path because it was her passion, she says, she came to realize that she loves the role that engineering, science, and technology play in the world because of their “power to change how the future unfolds.”

Leading AI regulation worldwide

When Biden asked if Prabhakar would take the OSTP job, she didn’t think twice, she says. “When do you need me to move in?” she says she told him.

“I was so excited to work for the president because he sees science and technology as a necessary part of creating a bright future for the country,” Prabhakar says.

A month after she took office, the generative AI program ChatGPT launched and became a hot topic.

“AI was already being used in different areas, but all of a sudden it became visible to everyone in a way that it really hadn’t been before,” she says.

Regulating AI became a priority for the Biden administration because of the technology’s breadth and power, she says, as well as the rapid pace at which it’s being developed.

Prabhakar led the creation of Biden’s Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. Signed on 30 October 2022, the order outlines goals such as protecting consumers and their privacy from AI systems, developing watermarking systems for AI-generated content, and warding off intellectual property theft stemming from the use of generative models.

“The executive order is possibly the most important accomplishment in relation to AI,” Prabhakar says. “It’s a tool that mobilizes the [U.S. government’s] executive branch and recognizes that such systems have safety and security risks, but [it] also enables immense opportunity. The order has put the branches of government on a very constructive path toward regulation.”

Meanwhile, the United States spearheaded a U.N. resolution to make regulating AI an international priority. The United Nations adopted the measure this past March. In addition to defining regulations, it seeks to use AI to advance progress on the U.N.’s sustainable development goals.

“There’s much more to be done,” Prabhakar says, “but I’m really happy to see what the president has been able to accomplish, and really proud that I got to help with that.”

Sharlene Brown often accompanied her husband, IEEE Senior Member Damith Wickramanayake, to organization meetings. He has held leadership positions in the IEEE Jamaica Section, in IEEE Region 3, and on the IEEE Member and Geographic Activities board. Both are from Jamaica.

She either waited outside the conference room or helped with tasks such as serving refreshments. Even though her husband encouraged her to sit in on the meetings, she says, she felt uncomfortable doing so because she wasn’t an engineer. Brown is an accountant and human resources professional. Her husband is a computer science professor at the University of Technology, Jamaica, in Kingston. He is currently Region 3’s education activities coordinator and a member of the section’s education and outreach committee for the IEEE Educational Activities Board.

Sharlene Brown

Employer

Maritime Authority of Jamaica, in Kingston

Title

Assistant accountant

Member grade

Senior member

Alma mater

University of Technology, Jamaica, in Kingston; Tsinghua University, in Beijing

After earning her master’s degree in public administration in 2017, Brown says, she felt she finally was qualified to join IEEE, so she applied. Membership is open to individuals who, by education or experience, are competent in different fields including management. She was approved the same year.

“When I joined IEEE, I would spend long hours at night reading various operations manuals and policies because I wanted to know what I was getting into,” she says. “I was always learning. That’s how I got to know a lot of things about the organization.”

Brown is now a senior member and an active IEEE volunteer. She founded the Jamaica Section’s Women in Engineering group; established a student branch; sits on several high-level IEEE boards; and ran several successful recruitment campaigns to increase the number of senior members in Jamaica and throughout Region 3.

Brown was also a member of the subcommittee of the global Women in Engineering committee; she served as membership coordinator and ran several successful senior member campaigns, elevating women on the committee and across IEEE.

Brown also was integral in the promotion and follow-up activities for the One IEEE event held in January at the University of Technology, Jamaica. The first-of-its-kind workshop connected more than 200 participants to each other and to the organization by showcasing Jamaica’s active engineering community. The Jamaica Section has 135 IEEE members.

From factory worker to accountant

Brown grew up in Bog Walk, a rural town in the parish of St. Catherine. Because she had low grades in high school, the only job she was able to get after graduating was as a temporary factory worker at the nearby Nestlé plant. She worked as many shifts as she could to help support her family.

“I didn’t mind working,” she says, “because I was making my mark. Anything I do, I am going to be excellent at, whether it’s cleaning the floor or doing office work.” But she had bigger plans than being a factory worker, she says.

A friend told her about a temporary job overseeing exams at the Jamaican Institute of Management, now part of the University of Technology. Brown worked both jobs for a time until the school hired her full time to do administrative work in its accounting department.

One of the perks of working there was free tuition for employees, and Brown took full advantage. She studied information management and computer applications, Jamaican securities, fraud detection, forensic auditing, and supervisory management, earning an associate degree in business administration in 2007. The school hired her in 2002 as an accountant, and she worked there for five years.

In 2007 she joined the Office of the Prime Minister, in Kingston, initially as an officer handling payments to suppliers. Her hard work and positive attitude got her noticed by other managers, she says. After a month she was tapped by the budget department to become a commitment control officer, responsible for allocating and overseeing funding for four of the country’s ministries.

“What I realized through my volunteer work in IEEE is that you’re never alone. There is always somebody to guide you.”

As a young accountant, she didn’t have hands-on experience with budgeting, but she was a quick learner who produced quality work, she says. She learned the budgeting process by helping her colleagues when her work slowed down and during her lunch breaks.

That knowledge gave her the skills she needed to land her current job as an assistant accountant with the budget and management accounts group in the Maritime Authority of Jamaica accounts department, a position she has held since 2013.

While she was working for the Office of the Prime Minister, Brown continued to further her education. She took night courses at the University of Technology and, in 2012, earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration. She majored in accounting and minored in human resources management.

She secured a full scholarship in 2016 from the Chinese government to study public administration in Beijing at Tsinghua University, earning a master’s degree with distinction in 2017.

Brown says she is now ready to shift to a human resources career. Even though she has been supervising people for more than 17 years, though, she is having a hard time finding an HR position, she says.

Still willing to take on challenges, she is increasing her experience by volunteering with an HR consulting firm in Jamaica. To get more formal training, she is currently working on an HR certification from the Society for Human Resource Management.

Sharlene Brown arranged for the purchase of 350 desk shields for Jamaican schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.Sharlene Brown

Building a vibrant community

After graduating from Tsinghua University, Brown began volunteering for the IEEE Jamaica Section and Region 3.

In 2019 she founded the section’s IEEE Women in Engineering affinity group, which she chaired for three years. She advocated for more women in leadership roles and has run successful campaigns to increase the number of female senior members locally, regionally, and globally across IEEE. She herself was elevated to senior member in 2019.

Brown also got the WIE group more involved in helping the community. One project she is particularly proud of is the purchase of 350 desk shields for Jamaican schools so students could more safely attend classes and examination sessions in person during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brown was inspired to undertake the project when a student explained on a local news program that his family couldn’t afford Internet for their home, so he was unable to attend classes remotely.

“Every time I watched the video clip, I would cry,” she says. “This young man might be the next engineer, the country’s next minister, or the next professional.

“I’m so happy we were able to get funding from Region 3 and a local organization to provide those shields.”

She established an IEEE student branch at the Caribbean Maritime University, in Kingston. The branch had almost 40 students at the time of formation.

Brown is working to form student branches at other Jamaican universities, and she is attempting to establish an IEEE Power & Energy Society chapter in the section.

She is a member of several IEEE committees including the Election Oversight and Tellers. She serves as chair for the region’s Professional Activities Committee.

“What I realized through my volunteer work in IEEE is that you’re never alone,” she says. “There is always somebody to help guide you. If they don’t know something, they will point you to the person who does.

“Also, you’re allowed to make mistakes,” she says. “In some organizations, if you make a mistake, you might lose your job or have to pay for your error. But IEEE is your professional home, where you learn, grow, and make mistakes.”

On some of the IEEE committees where she serves, she is the only woman of color, but she says she has not faced any discrimination—only respect.

“I feel comfortable and appreciated by the people and the communities I work with,” she says. “That motivates me to continue to do well and to touch lives positively. That’s what makes me so active in serving in IEEE: You’re appreciated and rewarded for your hard work.”

This article is part of our exclusive career advice series in partnership with the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society.

With technological advancement and changing societal expectations, the concept of work-life balance has become an elusive goal for many, particularly within the engineering community. The drive to remain continuously engaged with work, the pressure to achieve perfection, and the challenge of juggling work and personal responsibilities have created a landscape where professional and personal spheres are in constant negotiation.

This article covers several factors that can disrupt work-life balance, with recommendations on how to address them.

The myth of urgency

In an era dominated by instant communication via email and text messages, the expectation to respond quickly has led to an illusion of urgency. The perpetual state of constant alertness blurs the distinction between what’s urgent and what isn’t.

Recognizing that not every email message warrants an immediate response is the first step in deciding what’s important. By prioritizing responses based on actual importance, individuals can reclaim control over their time, reduce stress, and foster a more manageable workload.

Throughout my career, I have found that setting specific times to check and respond to email helps avoid distractions throughout the day. There are programs that prioritize email and classify tasks based on its urgency and importance.

Another suggestion is to unsubscribe from unnecessary newsletters and set up filters that move unwanted email to a specific folder or the trash before it reaches your inbox.

Cutting back the endless workday

Today’s work environment, characterized by remote access and flexible hours, has extended the workday beyond a set schedule and has encroached on personal time. The situation is particularly prevalent among engineers committed to solving complex problems, leading to a scenario where work is a constant companion—which leaves little room for personal pursuits or time with family.

A balanced life is healthier and more sustainable, and it enriches the quality of our work and our relationships with those we love.

Establishing clear boundaries between work and personal time is essential. One way to do so is to communicate clear working hours to your manager, coworkers, and clients. You can use tools such as email autoresponders and do-not-disturb modes to reinforce your boundaries.

It’s important to recognize that work, while integral, is only one aspect of life.

The quest for perfectionism

The pursuit of perfection is a common trap for many professionals, leading to endless revisions and dissatisfaction with one’s work. The quest not only wastes an inordinate amount of time. It also detracts from the quality of life.

Embracing the philosophy that “it doesn’t have to be perfect” can liberate individuals from the trap. By aiming for excellence rather than perfection, one can achieve high standards of work while also making time for personal growth and happiness.

To help adopt such a mindset, practice setting realistic standards for different tasks by asking yourself what level of quality is truly necessary for each. Allocating a fixed amount of time to specific tasks can help prevent endless tweaking.

The necessity of exercise

Physical activity often takes a back seat to busy schedules and is often viewed as negotiable or secondary to work and family responsibilities. Exercise, however, is a critical component for maintaining mental and physical health. Integrating regular physical activity into one’s routine is not just beneficial; it’s essential for maintaining balance and enhancing your quality of life.

One way to ensure you are taking care of your health is to schedule exercise as a nonnegotiable activity in your calendar, similar to important meetings or activities. Also consider integrating physical activity into your daily routine, such as riding a bicycle to work, walking to meetings, and taking short strolls around your office building. If you work from home, take a walk around your neighborhood.

Sleep boosts productivity

Contrary to the glorification of overwork and sleep deprivation in some professional circles, sleep is a paramount factor in maintaining high levels of productivity and creativity. Numerous studies have shown that adequate sleep—seven to nine hours for most adults—enhances cognitive functions, problem-solving skills, and memory retention.

For engineers and others in professions where innovation and precision are paramount, neglecting sleep can diminish the quality of work and the capacity for critical thinking.

Sleep deprivation has been linked to a variety of health issues including increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and stress-related conditions.

Prioritizing sleep is not a luxury but a necessity for those aiming to excel in their career while also enjoying a fulfilling personal life.

Begin your bedtime routine at the same time each night to cue your body that it’s time to wind down. For a smooth transition to sleep, try adjusting lighting, reducing noise, and engaging in relaxing activities such as reading or listening to calm music.

Relaxation is the counterbalance to stress

Relaxation is crucial for counteracting the effects of stress and preventing burnout. Techniques such as meditation, deep-breathing exercises, yoga, and engaging in leisure activities that bring joy can significantly reduce stress levels, thereby enhancing emotional equilibrium and resilience.

Spending time with friends and family is another effective relaxation strategy. Social interactions with loved ones can provide emotional support, happiness, and a sense of belonging, all of which are essential for limiting stress and promoting mental health. The social connections help build a support network that can serve as a buffer against life’s challenges, providing a sense of stability and comfort.

Allow yourself to recharge and foster a sense of fulfillment by allocating time each week to pursue interests that enrich your life. Also consider incorporating relaxation techniques in your daily routine, such as mindfulness meditation or short walks outdoors.

Guarding time and energy

In the quest for balance, learning to say no and ruthlessly eliminating activities that do not add value are invaluable skills. Make conscious choices about how to spend your time and energy, focusing on activities that align with personal and professional priorities. By doing so, individuals can protect their time, reduce stress, and dedicate themselves more fully to meaningful pursuits.

Practice assertiveness in communicating your capacity and boundaries to others. When asked to take on an additional task, it’s important to consider the impact on your current priorities. Don’t hesitate to decline politely if the new task doesn’t align.

Challenges for women

When discussing work-life balance, it’s essential to acknowledge the specific challenges faced by women, particularly in engineering. They are often expected to manage household duties, childcare, and their professional responsibilities while also supporting their partner’s career goals.

It can be especially challenging for women who strive to meet high standards at work and home. Recognizing and addressing their challenges is crucial in fostering an environment that supports balance for everyone.

One way to do that is to have open discussions with employers about the challenges and the support needed in the workplace and at home. Advocating for company policies that support work-life balance, such as a flexible work schedule and parental leave, is important.

Achieving a healthy work-life balance in the engineering profession—and indeed in any high-pressure field—is an ongoing process that requires self-awareness, clear priorities, and the courage to set boundaries.

It involves a collective effort by employers and workers to recognize the value of balance and to create a culture that supports it.

By acknowledging the illusion of constant urgency, understanding our limitations, and addressing the particular challenges faced by women, we can move toward a future where professional success and personal fulfillment are mutually reinforcing.

A balanced life is healthier and more sustainable, and it enriches the quality of our work and our relationships with those we love.

The annual IEEE election process begins this month, so be sure to check your mailbox for your ballot. To help you choose the 2025 IEEE president-elect, The Institute is publishing the official biographies and position statements of the three candidates, as approved by the IEEE Board of Directors. The candidates are IEEE Fellows Mary Ellen Randall, John Verboncoeur, and S.K. Ramesh.

In June, IEEE President Tom Coughlin moderated the Meet the 2025 IEEE President-Elect Candidates Forum, where the candidates were asked pressing questions from IEEE members.

IEEE Fellow Mary Ellen Randall

Deanna Decker Photography

Nominated by the IEEE Board of Directors

Randall founded Ascot Technologies in 2000 in Cary, N.C. Ascot develops enterprise applications using mobile data delivery technologies. She serves as the award-winning company’s CEO.

Before launching Ascot, she worked for IBM, where she held several technical and managerial positions in hardware and software development, digital video chips, and test design automation. She routinely managed international projects.

Randall has served as IEEE treasurer, director of IEEE Region 3, chair of IEEE Women in Engineering, and vice president of IEEE Member and Geographic Activities.

In 2016 she created the IEEE MOVE (Mobile Outreach VEhicle) program to assist with disaster relief efforts and for science, technology, engineering, and math educational purposes.

The IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu honor society member has received several honors including the 2020 IEEE Haraden Pratt Award, which recognizes outstanding volunteer service to IEEE.

She was named a top businesswoman in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park area, and she made the 2003 Business Leader Impact 100 list.

Candidate Statement

Aristotle said, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Certainly, when looking at IEEE, this metaphysics phrase comes to my mind. In IEEE we have engineers and technical professionals developing, standardizing and utilizing technology from diverse perspectives. IEEE members around the world:

• perform and share research, product development activities, and standard development
• network and engage with each other and their communities
• educate current and future technology professionals
• measure performance and quality
• formulate ethics choices
• and many more – these are just a few examples!

We perform these actions across a wide spectrum of in-depth subjects. It is our diversity, yet oneness, that makes me confident we have a positive future ahead. How do we execute on Aristotle’s vision? First, we need to unite on mission goals which span our areas of interest. This way we can bring multiple disciplines and perspectives together to accomplish those big goals. Our strategy will guide our actions in this regard.

Second, we need to streamline our financing of new innovations and systematize the introduction of these programs.

Third, we need to execute and support our best ideas on a continuing basis.

As President, I pledge to:

Institute innovative products and services to ensure our mutually successful future;

Engage stakeholders (members, partners and communities) to unite on a comprehensive vision;

Expand technology advancement and adoption throughout the world;

Execute with excellence, ethics, and financial responsibility.

Finally, I promise to lead by example with enthusiasm and integrity and I humbly ask for your vote.

IEEE Fellow John Verboncoeur

Steven Miller

Nominated by the IEEE Board of Directors

Verboncoeur is senior associate dean for research and graduate studies in Michigan State University’s (MSU) engineering college, in East Lansing.

In 2001 he founded the computational engineering science program at the University of California, Berkeley, chairing it until 2010.

In 2015 he cofounded the MSU computational mathematics, science, and engineering department.

His area of interest is plasma physics, with over 500 publications and over 6,800 citations.

He is on the boards of Physics of Plasmas, the American Center for Mobility, and the U.S. Department of Energy Fusion Energy Science Advisory Committee.

Verboncoeur has led startups developing digital exercise and health systems and the consumer credit report. He also had a role in developing the U.S. Postal Service’s mail-forwarding system.

His IEEE experience includes serving as 2023 vice president of Technical Activities, 2020 acting vice president of Publication Services and Products Board, 2019-2020 Division IV director, and 2015—2016 president of the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society.

He received a Ph.D. in 1992 in nuclear engineering from UC Berkeley.

Candidate Statement

Ensure IEEE remains THE premier professional technical organization, deliver value via new participants, products and programs, including events, publications, and innovative personalized products and services, to enable our community to change the world. Key strategic programs include:

Climate Change Technologies (CCT): Existential to humanity, addressing mitigation and adaptation must include technology R&D, local relevance for practitioners, university and K-12 students, the general public, media and policymakers and local and global standards.

Smart Agrofood Systems (SmartAg): Smart technologies applied to the food supply chain from soil to consumer to compost.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): Implications from technology to business to ethics. A key methodology for providing personalized IEEE products and services within our existing portfolio, and engaging new audiences such as technology decision makers in academia, government and technology finance by extracting value from our vast data to identify emerging trends.

Organizational growth opportunities include scaling and coordinating our public policy strategy worldwide, building on our credibility to inform and educate. Global communications capability is critical to coordinate and amplify our impact. Lastly, we need to enhance our ability to execute IEEE-wide programs and initiatives, from investment in transformative tools and products to mission-based education, outreach and engagement. This can be accomplished by judicious use of resources generated by business activities through creation of a strategic program to invest in our future with the goal of advancing technology for humanity.

With a passion for the nexus of technology with finance and public policy, I hope to earn your support.

IEEE Fellow S.K. Ramesh

S.K. Ramesh

Nominated by the IEEE Board of Directors

Ramesh is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at California State University Northridge’s college of engineering and computer science, where he served as dean from 2006 to 2017.

An IEEE volunteer for 42 years, he has served on the IEEE Board of Directors, the Publication Services and Products Board, Awards Board, and the Fellows Committee. Leadership positions he has held include vice president of IEEE Educational Activities, president of the IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu honor society, and chair of the IEEE Hearing Board.

As the 2016–2017 vice president of IEEE Educational Activities, he championed several successful programs including the IEEE Learning Network and the IEEE TryEngineering Summer Institute.

Ramesh served as the 2022–2023 president of ABET, the global accrediting organization for academic programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology.

He received his bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication engineering from the University of Madras in India. He earned his master’s degree in EE and Ph.D. in molecular science from Southern Illinois University, in Carbondale.

Candidate Statement

We live in an era of rapid technological development where change is constant. My leadership experiences of four decades across IEEE and ABET have taught me some timeless values in this rapidly changing world: To be Inclusive, Collaborative, Accountable, Resilient and Ethical. Connection and community make a difference. IEEE’s mission is especially important, as the pace of change accelerates with advances in AI, Robotics and Biotechnology. I offer leadership that inspires others to believe and enable that belief to become reality. “I CARE”!

My top priority is to serve our members and empower our technical communities worldwide to create and advance technologies to solve our greatest challenges.

If elected, I will focus on three strategic areas:

Member Engagement:

• Broaden participation of Students, Young Professionals (YPs), and Women in Engineering (WIE).
• Expand access to affordable continuing education programs through the IEEE Learning Network (ILN).

Volunteer Engagement:

• Nurture and support IEEE’s volunteer leaders to transform IEEE globally through a volunteer academy program that strengthens collaboration, inclusion, and recognition.
• Incentivize volunteers to improve cross-regional collaboration, engagement and communications between Chapters and Sections.

Industry Engagement:

• Transform hybrid/virtual conferences, and open access publications, to make them more relevant to engineers and technologists in industry.
• Focus on innovation, standards, and sustainable development that address skills needed for jobs of the future.

Our members are the “heart and soul” of IEEE. Let’s work together as one IEEE to attract, retain, and serve our diverse global members. Thank you for your participation and support.

Schoolchildren around the world are told that they have the potential to be great, often with the cheery phrase: “The sky’s the limit!”

Gladys West took those words literally.

While working for four decades as a mathematician and computer programmer at the U.S. Naval Proving Ground (now the Naval Surface Warfare Center) in Dahlgren, Va., she prepared the way for a satellite constellation in the sky that became an indispensable part of modern life: the Global Positioning System, or GPS.

The second Black woman to ever work at the proving ground, West led a group of analysts who used satellite sensor data to calculate the shape of the Earth and the orbital routes around it. Her meticulous calculations and programming work established the flight paths now used by GPS satellites, setting the stage for navigation and positioning systems on which the world has come to rely.

For decades, West’s contributions went unacknowledged. But she has begun receiving overdue recognition. In 2018 she was inducted into the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame. In 2021 the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences presented her its Webby Lifetime Achievement Award, while the U.K. Royal Academy of Engineering gave her the Prince Philip Medal, the organization’s highest individual honor.

West was presented the 2024 IEEE President’s Award for “mathematical modeling and development of satellite geodesy models that played a pivotal role in the development of the Global Positioning System.” The award is sponsored by IEEE.

How the “hidden figure” overcame barriers

West’s path to becoming a technology professional and an IEEE honoree was an unlikely one. Born in 1930 in Sutherland, Va., she grew up working on her family’s farm. To supplement the family’s income, her mother worked at a tobacco factory and her father was employed by a railroad company.

Physical toil in the hot sun from daybreak until sundown with paltry financial returns, West says, made her determined to do something other than farming.

Every day when she ventured into the fields to sow or harvest crops with her family, her thoughts were on the little red schoolhouse beyond the edge of the farm. She recalls gladly making the nearly 5-kilometer trek from her house, through the woods and over streams, to reach the one-room school.

She knew that postsecondary education was her ticket out of farm life, so throughout her school years she made sure she was a standout student and a model of focus and perseverance.

Her parents couldn’t afford to pay for her college education, but as valedictorian of her high school class, she earned a full-tuition scholarship from the state of Virginia. Money she earned as a babysitter paid for her room and board.

West decided to pursue a degree in mathematics at Virginia State College (now Virginia State University), a historically Black school in Petersburg.

At the time, the field was dominated by men. She earned a bachelor’s degree in the subject in 1952 and became a schoolteacher in Waverly, Va. After two years in the classroom, she returned to Virginia State to pursue a master’s degree in mathematics, which she earned in 1955.

Gladys West at her desk, meticulously crunching numbers manually in the era before computers took over such tasks.Gladys West

Setting the groundwork for GPS

West began her career at the Naval Proving Ground in early 1956. She was hired as a mathematician, joining a cadre of workers who used linear algebra, calculus, and other methods to manually solve complex problems such as differential equations. Their mathematical wizardry was used to handle trajectory analysis for ships and aircraft as well as other applications.

She was one of four Black employees at the facility, she says, adding that her determination to prove the capability of Black professionals drove her to excel.

As computers were introduced into the Navy’s operations in the 1960s, West became proficient in Fortran IV. The programming language enabled her to use the IBM 7030—the world’s fastest supercomputer at the time—to process data at an unprecedented rate.

Because of her expertise in mathematics and computer science, she was appointed director of projects that extracted valuable insights from satellite data gathered during NASA missions. West and her colleagues used the data to create ever more accurate models of the geoid—the shape of the Earth—factoring in gravitational fields and the planet’s rotation.

One such mission was Seasat, which lasted from June to October 1978. Seasat was launched into orbit to test oceanographic sensors and gain a better understanding of Earth’s seas using the first space-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system, which enabled the first remote sensing of the Earth’s oceans.

SAR can acquire high-resolution images at night and can penetrate through clouds and rain. Seasat captured many valuable 2D and 3D images before a malfunction caused the satellite to be taken down.

Enough data was collected from Seasat for West’s team to refine existing geodetic models to better account for gravity and magnetic forces. The models were important for precisely mapping the Earth’s topography, determining the orbital routes that would later be used by GPS satellites, as well as documenting the spatial relationships that now let GPS determine exactly where a receiver is.

In 1986 she published the “Data Processing System Specifications for the GEOSAT Satellite Radar Altimeter” technical report. It contained new calculations that could make her geodetic models more accurate. The calculations were made possible by data from the radio altimeter on the GEOSAT, a Navy satellite that went into orbit in March 1985.

West’s career at Dahlgren lasted 42 years. By the time she retired in 1998, all 24 satellites in the GPS constellation had been launched to help the world keep time and handle navigation. But her role was largely unknown.

A model of perseverance

Neither an early bout of imposter syndrome nor the racial tensions that were an everyday element of her work life during the height of the Civil Rights Movement were able to knock her off course, West says.

In the early 1970s, she decided that her career advancement was not proceeding as smoothly as she thought it should, so she decided to go to graduate school part time for another degree. She considered pursuing a doctorate in mathematics but realized, “I already had all the technical credentials I would ever need for my work for the Navy.” Instead, to solidify her skills as a manager, she earned a master’s degree in 1973 in public administration from the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

After retiring from the Navy, she earned a doctorate in public administration in 2000 from Virginia Tech. Although she was recovering from a stroke at the time that affected her physical abilities, she still had the same drive to pursue an education that had once kept her focused on a little red schoolhouse.

A formidable legacy

West’s contributions have had a lasting impact on the fields of mathematics, geodesy, and computer science. Her pioneering efforts in a predominantly male and racially segregated environment set a precedent for future generations of female and minority scientists.

West says her life and career are testaments to the power of perseverance, skill, and dedication—or “stick-to-it-iveness,” to use her parlance. Her story continues to inspire people who strive to push boundaries. She has shown that the sky is indeed not the limit but just the beginning.

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 testbed was launched this year with support from AT&T, Exfo, Eurecom, Veltris, VMWare, and Tech Mahindra.

The subscription-based testbed is available only to organizations. Customers receive their own private, secure session 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 the 3rd 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.”

Partnership with major telecom companies

The IEEE 5G/6G Innovation Testbed recently joined the Acceleration of Compatibility and Commercialization for Open RAN Deployments project. A public-private consortium, ACCORD includes AT&T, Verizon, Virginia Tech and the University of Texas at Dallas. The group is funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, whose programs and policymaking efforts focus on expanding broadband Internet access and adoption throughout the country.

“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. youtube

This is a guest post. The views expressed here are solely those of the authors and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum, The Institute, or IEEE.

Many in the civilian artificial intelligence community don’t seem to realize that today’s AI innovations could have serious consequences for international peace and security. Yet AI practitioners—whether researchers, engineers, product developers, or industry managers—can play critical roles in mitigating risks through the decisions they make throughout the life cycle of AI technologies.

There are a host of ways by which civilian advances of AI could threaten peace and security. Some are direct, such as the use of AI-powered chatbots to create disinformation for political-influence operations. Large language models also can be used to create code for cyberattacks and to facilitate the development and production of biological weapons.

Other ways are more indirect. AI companies’ decisions about whether to make their software open-source and in which conditions, for example, have geopolitical implications. Such decisions determine how states or nonstate actors access critical technology, which they might use to develop military AI applications, potentially including autonomous weapons systems.

AI companies and researchers must become more aware of the challenges, and of their capacity to do something about them.

Change needs to start with AI practitioners’ education and career development. Technically, there are many options in the responsible innovation toolbox that AI researchers could use to identify and mitigate the risks their work presents. They must be given opportunities to learn about such options including IEEE 7010: Recommended Practice for Assessing the Impact of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems on Human Well-being, IEEE 7007-2021: Ontological Standard for Ethically Driven Robotics and Automation Systems, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s AI Risk Management Framework.

If education programs provide foundational knowledge about the societal impact of technology and the way technology governance works, AI practitioners will be better empowered to innovate responsibly and be meaningful designers and implementers of regulations.

What Needs to Change in AI Education

Responsible AI requires a spectrum of capabilities that are typically not covered in AI education. AI should no longer be treated as a pure STEM discipline but rather a transdisciplinary one that requires technical knowledge, yes, but also insights from the social sciences and humanities. There should be mandatory courses on the societal impact of technology and responsible innovation, as well as specific training on AI ethics and governance.

Those subjects should be part of the core curriculum at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at all universities that offer AI degrees.

If education programs provide foundational knowledge about the societal impact of technology and the way technology governance works, AI practitioners will be empowered to innovate responsibly and be meaningful designers and implementers of AI regulations.

Changing the AI education curriculum is no small task. In some countries, modifications to university curricula require approval at the ministry level. Proposed changes can be met with internal resistance due to cultural, bureaucratic, or financial reasons. Meanwhile, the existing instructors’ expertise in the new topics might be limited.

An increasing number of universities now offer the topics as electives, however, including Harvard, New York University, Sorbonne University, Umeå University, and the University of Helsinki.

There’s no need for a one-size-fits-all teaching model, but there’s certainly a need for funding to hire dedicated staff members and train them.

Adding Responsible AI to Lifelong Learning

The AI community must develop continuing education courses on the societal impact of AI research so that practitioners can keep learning about such topics throughout their career.

AI is bound to evolve in unexpected ways. Identifying and mitigating its risks will require ongoing discussions involving not only researchers and developers but also people who might directly or indirectly be impacted by its use. A well-rounded continuing education program would draw insights from all stakeholders.

Some universities and private companies already have ethical review boards and policy teams that assess the impact of AI tools. Although the teams’ mandate usually does not include training, their duties could be expanded to make courses available to everyone within the organization. Training on responsible AI research shouldn’t be a matter of individual interest; it should be encouraged.

Organizations such as IEEE and the Association for Computing Machinery could play important roles in establishing continuing education courses because they’re well placed to pool information and facilitate dialogue, which could result in the establishment of ethical norms.

Engaging With the Wider World

We also need AI practitioners to share knowledge and ignite discussions about potential risks beyond the bounds of the AI research community.

Fortunately, there are already numerous groups on social media that actively debate AI risks including the misuse of civilian technology by state and nonstate actors. There are also niche organizations focused on responsible AI that look at the geopolitical and security implications of AI research and innovation. They include the AI Now Institute, the Centre for the Governance of AI, Data and Society, the Distributed AI Research Institute, the Montreal AI Ethics Institute, and the Partnership on AI.

Those communities, however, are currently too small and not sufficiently diverse, as their most prominent members typically share similar backgrounds. Their lack of diversity could lead the groups to ignore risks that affect underrepresented populations.

What’s more, AI practitioners might need help and tutelage in how to engage with people outside the AI research community—especially with policymakers. Articulating problems or recommendations in ways that nontechnical individuals can understand is a necessary skill.

We must find ways to grow the existing communities, make them more diverse and inclusive, and make them better at engaging with the rest of society. Large professional organizations such as IEEE and ACM could help, perhaps by creating dedicated working groups of experts or setting up tracks at AI conferences.

Universities and the private sector also can help by creating or expanding positions and departments focused on AI’s societal impact and AI governance. Umeå University recently created an AI Policy Lab to address the issues. Companies including Anthropic, Google, Meta, and OpenAI have established divisions or units dedicated to such topics.

There are growing movements around the world to regulate AI. Recent developments include the creation of the U.N. High-Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence and the Global Commission on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military Domain. The G7 leaders issued a statement on the Hiroshima AI process, and the British government hosted the first AI Safety Summit last year.

The central question before regulators is whether AI researchers and companies can be trusted to develop the technology responsibly.

In our view, one of the most effective and sustainable ways to ensure that AI developers take responsibility for the risks is to invest in education. Practitioners of today and tomorrow must have the basic knowledge and means to address the risk stemming from their work if they are to be effective designers and implementers of future AI regulations.

Authors’ note: Authors are listed by level of contributions. The authors were brought together by an initiative of the U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute launched with the support of a European Union initiative on Responsible Innovation in AI for International Peace and Security.

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.

To stay updated on courses, events, and more, sign up for ILN’s free weekly newsletter.

Being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder as a child hasn’t hindered computer engineer Roberto Moreno from reaching his goals. ASD, a neurodevelopmental disorder, impacts how a person behaves, learns, perceives the world, and socializes with others. Moreno, an IEEE member, is a technical leader for AgenciaSur, a Chilean company that develops tools to help businesses digitize their operations. He manages six employees at the Santiago location.

Although Moreno didn’t have a mentor, he says, many people throughout his life assisted him, whether it was with schoolwork or navigating social situations. They also helped him with the mental health issues the struggles prompted.

“The people who made an impact on me,” he says, “helped me fight for the vision I had for my life so as to not fall into the depths of depression and anxiety.”

Roberto Moreno

Employer

AgenciaSur, in Santiago, Chile

Title

Technical leader

Member grade

Member

Alma mater

Universidad Andrés Bello in Santiago

He says that’s why he wants to build a support system for neurodivergent engineers and students, especially those living in South America. The term neurodivergent is used to describe people whose brains process information atypically, including those with ASD, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and dyslexia. There is a stigma surrounding such conditions in many countries, Moreno says, leading to discrimination at school, work, and professional organizations.

Moreno helps engineering students and young professionals learn how to overcome challenges so they don’t leave the profession. He participates in mentorship programs including the one on IEEE Collabratec, sharing his experiences and helping his mentees navigate challenging situations.

Facing his biggest challenges

Moreno’s success didn’t come easily. Growing up, he faced quite a few challenges including learning how to read, write, and speak English. Moreno is extremely literal and finds it hard to understand sarcasm, as is common among people with ASD.

That made learning a new language more challenging.

In Spanish, he notes, “the graphemes and phonemes differ greatly from Germanic ones.” Graphemes are individual letters or groups of letters that represent speech sounds. Phonemes are the speech sounds that make up words. The difference in graphemes and phonemes makes it difficult to quickly make the connection between words and their meaning in Germanic languages, Moreno says.

He also struggles with the “go with the flow” attitude. He prefers to follow the rules and social norms at all times.

“This caused people to treat me differently,” he says.

When Moreno didn’t know or recognize what was causing his discomfort, it would drain him emotionally, he says. But if he never tried to understand the causes, he says, he wouldn’t have achieved his goals.

“Experiencing things that are out of my comfort zone has led to a lot of personal growth,” he says. “For example, if I had been influenced by people who discriminated against me, I would not feel comfortable being interviewed by The Institute.”

Tips for staying organized and mentally healthy

Having difficulty with being organized is common in people with autism, Moreno says.

Students especially find it difficult to manage their time. Moreno suggests they use programs such as Kanban and Pomofocus to create to-do lists and track the status of their homework and other projects.

Making time for oneself—to play a video game, say, or exercise—is necessary, he says. It’s especially important for students who are easily overwhelmed by their environment, such as bright lights in a classroom, a room that’s too hot or cold, or a place with many loud noises. Setting aside time for hobbies also can help prevent meltdowns, which are common for people with ASD when their nervous system is overloaded.

Recognizing employees’ needs

It’s important for employers to understand that some neurodivergent employees can become intensely focused on activities, causing them to lose track of time and their surroundings, Moreno says. He suggests that managers split large projects into multiple tasks. So-called atomic tasks can make an assignment more manageable and less overwhelming. The method also allows employees to better manage their time.

Managers should also accommodate their employees’ needs, Moreno says.

“For example, one of my team members was having personal difficulties, and because of this he often completed his tasks late at night,” he says. “When assigning him a project, I needed to take this into consideration and estimate how long it would take him to complete it so as to not cause him more stress.”

How IEEE can support neurodivergent members

Being part of IEEE’s technical communities has been invaluable to Moreno’s professional success, he says. As an IEEE Computer Society member, he learned how to be more positive, see the humor in difficult situations, and not be as emotionally affected.

“I have learned a lot from more experienced technical professionals,” he says, “and I continue to grow as an engineer.”

There are ways IEEE can better support neurodivergent members, he says, including creating programs in collaboration with neurodivergent people. For example, he says, IEEE Women in Engineering could expand its Student-Teacher and Research Engineer/Scientist (STAR) program, which connects preuniversity girls with an engineer or scientist to encourage them to pursue a STEM career. The initiative, he says, could add a category specifically for neurodivergent students, enabling them to be mentored by a neurodivergent engineer or scientist.

Moreno suggests that IEEE streamline its proposal process for new projects, including keeping a record of what proposals were accepted or rejected and why. The feedback would help IEEE volunteers replicate successful proposals when writing their own, he says.

IEEE also could update the wording of its bylaws to prevent arbitrary interpretations. Neurodivergent people are likely to miss linguistic subtleties, sarcasm, and irony, he notes. They need regulations to be clear and direct so they can better comply with the rules and use the appropriate terms with other members. The wording in the IEEE Code of Ethics, he says, is a good example of a document that avoids arbitrary discriminatory language.

The benefits of an IEEE membership

The most important member benefit is the networking opportunities, Moreno says. “Without IEEE I would not have been able to meet and work with talented engineers and members such as Tania Quiel, Fernando Boucher, Nita Patel, and others,” he says.

Another benefit is the leadership training he received from participating in the IEEE Volunteer Leadership Training Program. The IEEE Member and Geographic Activities program provides members with resources and an overview of the organization, including its culture and mission.

“VoLT strengthened my soft skills and encouraged me to continue to work towards achieving my professional goals,” he says.

The semiconductor laser, invented more than 60 years ago, is the foundation of many of today’s technologies including barcode scanners, fiber-optic communications, medical imaging, and remote controls. The tiny, versatile device is now an IEEE Milestone.

The possibilities of laser technology had set the scientific world alight in 1960, when the laser, long described in theory, was first demonstrated. Three U.S. research centers unknowingly began racing each other to create the first semiconductor version of the technology. The three—General Electric, IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory—independently reported the first demonstrations of a semiconductor laser, all within a matter of days in 1962.

The semiconductor laser was dedicated as an IEEE Milestone at three ceremonies, with a plaque marking the achievement installed at each facility. The Lincoln Lab event is available to watch on demand.

Invention of the laser spurs a three-way race

The core concept of the laser dates back to 1917, when Albert Einstein theorized about “stimulated emission.” Scientists already knew electrons could absorb and emit light spontaneously, but Einstein posited that electrons could be manipulated to emit at a particular wavelength. It took decades for engineers to turn his theory into reality.

In the late 1940s, physicists were working to improve the design of a vacuum tube used by the U.S. military in World War II to detect enemy planes by amplifying their signals. Charles Townes, a researcher at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, N.J., was one of them. He proposed creating a more powerful amplifier that passed a beam of electromagnetic waves through a cavity containing gas molecules. The beam would stimulate the atoms in the gas to release their energy exactly in step with the beam’s waves, creating energy that allowed it to exit the cavity as a much more powerful beam.

In 1954 Townes, then a physics professor at Columbia, created the device, which he called a “maser” (short for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). It would prove an important precursor to the laser.

Many theorists had told Townes his device couldn’t possibly work, according to an article published by the American Physical Society. Once it did work, the article says, other researchers quickly replicated it and began inventing variations.

Townes and other engineers figured that by harnessing higher-frequency energy, they could create an optical version of the maser that would generate beams of light. Such a device potentially could generate more powerful beams than were possible with microwaves, but it also could create beams of varied wavelengths, from the infrared to the visible. In 1958 Townes published a theoretical outline of the “laser.”

“It’s amazing what these … three organizations in the Northeast of the United States did 62 years ago to provide all this capability for us now and into the future.”

Several teams worked to fabricate such a device, and in May 1960 Theodore Maiman, a researcher at Hughes Research Lab, in Malibu, Calif., built the first working laser. Maiman’s paper, published in Nature three months later, described the invention as a high-power lamp that flashed light onto a ruby rod placed between two mirrorlike silver-coated surfaces. The optical cavity created by the surfaces oscillated the light produced by the ruby’s fluorescence, achieving Einstein’s stimulated emission.

The basic laser was now a reality. Engineers quickly began creating variations.

Many perhaps were most excited by the potential for a semiconductor laser. Semiconducting material can be manipulated to conduct electricity under the right conditions. By its nature, a laser made from semiconducting material could pack all the required elements of a laser—a source of light generation and amplification, lenses, and mirrors—into a micrometer-scale device.

“These desirable attributes attracted the imagination of scientists and engineers” across disciplines, according to the Engineering and Technology History Wiki.

A pair of researchers discovered in 1962 that an existing material was a great laser semiconductor: gallium arsenide.

Gallium-arsenide was ideal for a semiconductor laser

On 9 July 1962, MIT Lincoln Laboratory researchers Robert Keyes and Theodore Quist told the audience at the Solid State Device Research Conference that they were developing an experimental semiconductor laser, IEEE Fellow Paul W. Juodawlkis said during his speech at the IEEE Milestone dedication ceremony at MIT. Juodawlkis is director of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s quantum information and integrated nanosystems group.

The laser wasn’t yet emitting a coherent beam, but the work was advancing quickly, Keyes said. And then Keyes and Quist shocked the audience: They said they could prove that nearly 100 percent of the electrical energy injected into a gallium-arsenide semiconductor could be converted into light.

MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory’s [from left] Robert Keyes, Theodore M. Quist, and Robert Rediker testing their laser on a TV set.MIT Lincoln Laboratory

No one had made such a claim before. The audience was incredulous—and vocally so.

“When Bob [Keyes] was done with his talk, one of the audience members stood up and said, ‘Uh, that violates the second law of thermodynamics,’” Juodawlkis said.

The audience erupted into laughter. But physicist Robert N. Hall—a semiconductor expert working at GE’s research laboratory in Schenectady, N.Y.—silenced them.

“Bob Hall stood up and explained why it didn’t violate the second law,” Juodawlkis said. “It created a real buzz.”

Several teams raced to develop a working semiconductor laser. The margin of victory ultimately came down to a few days.

A ‘striking coincidence’

A semiconductor laser is made with a tiny semiconductor crystal that is suspended inside a glass container filled with liquid nitrogen, which helps keep the device cool. General Electric Research and Development Center/AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives

Hall returned to GE, inspired by Keyes and Quist’s speech, certain that he could lead a team to build an efficient, effective gallium arsenide laser.

He had already spent years working with semiconductors and invented what is known as a “p-i-n” diode rectifier. Using a crystal made of purified germanium, a semiconducting material, the rectifier could convert AC to DC—a crucial development for solid-state semiconductors used in electrical transmission.

That experience helped accelerate the development of semiconductor lasers. Hall and his team used a similar setup to the “p-i-n” rectifier. They built a diode laser that generated coherent light from a gallium arsenide crystal one-third of one millimeter in size, sandwiched into a cavity between two mirrors so the light bounced back and forth repeatedly. The news of the invention came out in the November 1, 1962, Physical Review Letters.

As Hall and his team worked, so did researchers at the Watson Research Center, in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. In February 1962 Marshall I. Nathan, an IBM researcher who previously worked with gallium arsenide, received a mandate from his department director, according to ETHW: Create the first gallium arsenide laser.

Nathan led a team of researchers including William P. Dumke, Gerald Burns, Frederick H. Dill, and Gordon Lasher, to develop the laser. They completed the task in October and hand-delivered a paper outlining their work to Applied Physics Letters, which published it on 1 November 1962.

Over at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, Quist, Keyes, and their colleague Robert Rediker published their findings in Applied Physics Letters on 1 December1962.

It had all happened so quickly that a New York Times article marveled about the “striking coincidence,” noting that IBM officials didn’t know about GE’s success until GE sent invitations to a news conference. An MIT spokesperson told the Times that GE had achieved success “a couple days or a week” before its own team.

Both IBM and GE had applied for U.S. patents in October, and both were ultimately awarded.

All three facilities now have been honored by IEEE for their work.

“Perhaps nowhere else has the semiconductor laser had greater impact than in communications,” according to an ETHW entry, “where every second, a semiconductor laser quietly encodes the sum of human knowledge into light, enabling it to be shared almost instantaneously across oceans and space.”

IBM Research’s semiconductor laser used a gallium arsenide p-n diode, which was patterned into a small optical cavity with an etched mesa structure.IBM

Juodawlkis, speaking at the Lincoln Lab ceremony, noted that semiconductor lasers are used “every time you make a cellphone call” or “Google silly cat videos.”

“If we look in the broader world,” he said, “semiconductor lasers are really one of the founding pedestals of the information age.”

He concluded his speech with a quote summing up a 1963 Time magazine article: “If the world is ever afflicted with a choice between thousands of different TV programs, a few diodes with their feeble beams of infrared light might carry them all at once.”

That was a “prescient foreshadowing of what semiconductor lasers have enabled,” Juodawlkis said. “It’s amazing what these … three organizations in the Northeast of the United States did 62 years ago to provide all this capability for us now and into the future.”

Plaques recognizing the technology are now displayed at GE, the Watson Research Center, and the Lincoln Laboratory. They read:

In the autumn of 1962, General Electric’s Schenectady and Syracuse facilities, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and MIT Lincoln Laboratory each independently reported the first demonstrations of the semiconductor laser. Smaller than a grain of rice, powered using direct current injection, and available at wavelengths spanning the ultraviolet to the infrared, the semiconductor laser became ubiquitous in modern communications, data storage, and precision measurement systems.

The IEEE Boston, New York, and Schenectady sections sponsored the nomination.

Administered by the IEEE History Center and supported by donors, the Milestone program recognizes outstanding technical developments around the world.

Edith Clarke was a powerhouse in practically every sense of the word. From the start of her career at General Electric in 1922, she was determined to develop stable, more reliable power grids.

And Clarke succeeded, playing a critical role in the rapid expansion of the North American electric grid during the 1920s and ’30s.

During her first years at GE she invented what came to be known as the Clarke calculator. The slide rule let engineers solve equations involving electric current, voltage, and impedance 10 times faster than by hand.

Her calculator and the power distribution methods she developed paved the way for modern grids. She also worked on hydroelectric power plant designs, according to a 2022 profile in Hydro Review.

She broke down barriers during her life. In 1919 she became the first woman to earn a master’s degree in electrical engineering from MIT. Three years later, she became the first woman in the United States to work as an electrical engineer.

Her life is chronicled in Edith Clarke: Trailblazer in Electrical Engineering. Written by Paul Lief Rosengren, the book is part of IEEE-USA’s Famous Women Engineers in History series.

Becoming the first female electrical engineer

Clarke was born in 1883 in the small farming community of Ellicott City, Md. At the time, few women attended college, and those who did tended to be barred from taking engineering classes. She was orphaned at 12, according to Sandy Levins’s Wednesday’s Women website. After high school, Clarke used a small inheritance from her parents to attend Vassar, a women’s college in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where she earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and astronomy in 1908. Those degrees were the closest equivalents to an engineering degree available to Vassar students at the time.

In 1912 Clarke was hired by AT&T in New York City as a computing assistant. She worked on calculations for transmission lines and electric circuits. During the next few years, she developed a passion for power engineering. She enrolled at MIT in 1918 to further her career, according to her Engineering and Technology History Wiki biography.

After graduating, though, she had a tough time finding a job in the man-dominated field. After months of applying with no luck, she landed a job at GE in Boston, where she did more or less the same work as she did in her previous role at AT&T, except now as a supervisor. Clarke led a team of computers—employees (mainly women) who performed long, tedious calculations by hand before computing machines became widely available.

The Clarke Calculator let engineers solve equations involving electric current, voltage, and impedance 10 times faster than by hand. Clarke was granted a U.S. patent for the slide rule in 1925.Science History Images/Alamy

While at GE she developed her calculator, eventually earning a patent for it in 1925.

In 1921 Clarke left GE to become a full-time physics professor at Constantinople Women’s College, in what is now Istanbul, according to a profile by the Edison Tech Center. But she returned to GE a year later when it offered her a salaried electrical engineering position in its Central Station Engineering department in Boston.

Although Clarke didn’t earn the same pay or enjoy the same prestige as her male colleagues, the new job launched her career.

U.S. power grid pioneer

According to Rosengren’s book, during Clarke’s time at GE, transmission lines were getting longer and larger power loads were increasing the chances of instability. Mathematical models for assessing grid reliability at the time were better suited to smaller systems.

To model systems and power behavior, Clarke created a technique using symmetrical components—a method of converting three-phase unbalanced systems into two sets of balanced phasors and a set of single-phase phasors. The method allowed engineers to analyze the reliability of larger systems.

Vivien Kellems [left] and Clarke, two of the first women to become a full voting member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, meeting for the first time in GE’s laboratories in Schenectady, N.Y. Bettmann/Getty Images

Clarke described the technique in “Steady-State Stability in Transmission Systems,” which was published in 1925 in A.I.E.E. Transactions, a journal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, one of IEEE’s predecessors. Clarke had scored another first: the first woman to have her work appear in the journal.

In the 1930s, Clarke designed the turbine system for the Hoover Dam, a hydroelectric power plant on the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona. The electricity it produced was stored in massive GE generators. Clarke’s pioneering system later was installed in similar power plants throughout the western United States.

Clarke retired in 1945 and bought a farm in Maryland. She came out of retirement two years later and became the first female electrical engineering professor in the United States when she joined the University of Texas, Austin. She retired for good in 1956 and returned to Maryland, where she died in 1959.

First female IEEE Fellow

Clarke’s pioneering work earned her several recognitions never before bestowed on a woman. She was the first woman to become a full voting member of the AIEE and its first female Fellow, in 1948.

She received the 1954 Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award “in recognition of her many original contributions to stability theory and circuit analysis.” She was posthumously elected in 2015 to the National Inventors Hall of Fame.