R10 Funded “IEEE R10 HTC 2017 WIE Track” Organized by WIE AG BDS
Organizer: WIE AG, IEEE Bangladesh Section
Venue: ECE Building, BUET
Date: 21 December, 2017
WIE AG, IEEE Bangladesh Section organized “IEEE R10 HTC 2017 WIE Track” funded by R10 WIE, IEEE BDS on 21 December, 2017, at Room No-627, ECE Building, BUET. About 54 students and professionals including both IEEE and non-IEEE members participated in the event. At first, Samantha Lubaba Noor, Chair, WIE AG, IEEE BDS gave her welcome speech. She talked about the purpose of WIE AG, IEEE BDS and the benefits of its membership.
Then she introduced Dr. Ramalatha Marimuthu, a role model for young female engineers, who has also published six technical books and more than fifteen research papers in international conferences and journals and having 31 years of teaching experiences. She was one of the distinguished speakers.
Dr. Ramalatha has delivered lectures on assistive technology in universities and conferences all over the world and was invited to the Google Headquarters, Mountainview, California to deliver a speech on her research in assistive technology for people with special needs. Dr Marimuthu is a senior member of IEEE and founder chair of Madras IEEE Women in Engineering Affinity group (2007 – 2014).She was R10 WIE Coordinator for 2008-2010 and Chair, the IEEE Women in Engineering Committee for 2011 and 2012. She launched an exclusive project “Sangamam” for the transfer of technology to rural areas.
As per the title of her speech “IS ETHICAL LEADERSHIP INCOMPATIBLE WITH GOD’S DESIGN”, she talked about various aspects of women leadership and contribution of women in the field of technology. She mentioned about the scarcity of women leaders when it comes to occupy the top positions in companies and various other sectors. Her speech explored the reasons for it-is the culture or society or the women themselves responsible for this? And does it really need a solution? Later on, she also guided the participants in developing unique solutions for social problems like special needs and women empowerment.
In the second session, the top 5 teams of IEEE R10 HTC 2017 idea contest gave their oral presentation in front of the judges. Also the top 20 teams among the 51 teams participated in the poster presentation segment of idea contest in the morning of the same day. The judges of the contest were Dr. Ramalatha Marimuthu, Kumaraguru College of Technology, Norliza Mohd Noor, Associate Professor in UTM Razak School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Kuala Lumpur Campus, Sadia Afroz, research scientist at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) and Suyog Vyawahare, CEO and founder of Suyog Technologies.The idea contest was organized with a view to finding out the solutions of the challenges and problems faced by women in Bangladesh.
After completing the presentation, champion teams were awarded with crests and certificates by Vincenzo Piuri, IEEE Fellow, 2015 IEEE Vice President for Technical Activities, Amarnath Raja, Founder and CEO, InApp and Dr. Ramalatha Marimuthu, kumaraguru College of Technology. The two segments of idea contest along with the technical talk was conducted by Samantha Lubaba Noor, Chair, IEEE WIE BDS, Tasnim Binte Shawkat, Graphics Designer, IEEE WIE BDS and Raisa Fabiha, Newsletter Editor, IEEE WIE BDS.
