Meet-the-Media and Iftar 2019
Venue: BUET
Organized by: IEEE Bangladesh Section
Women in Engineering Affinity Group, IEEE Bangladesh Section
Date: 25th May 2019
With a view to forging long-term and productive relationship between the electronic and print media of our country and IEEE Bangladesh Section (IEEE BDS), an iftar mahfil and press meetup was jointly organized by IEEE BDS and its Women In Engineering Affinity Group (WIE AG BDS) on the 25th of May, 2019. The event started at 5 pm in the afternoon. Professor Dr. Celia Shahnaz, Chair, IEEE BDS and founding chair and advisor of WIE AG BDS welcomed the respected media representatives and appreciated their timely arrival and interest in informing the general population about the profound reach and scope of IEEE. The event was an endeavor to highlight what media can do to make the general mass aware of IEEE and thus, encourage the young minds to consider the field of engineering and technology as a career choice.
Dr. Celia Shahnaz discussed the events and activities organized and awards and recognitions received by IEEE BDS in the recent years. She proudly presented the tremendous growth in paid membership (from 900 in 2014 to 3400 in 2019) as well as in the number of student branches ( from 9 in 2014 to 41 in 2019). Since its beginning in 1993, IEEE BDS has worked hard to bring international recognition for our country. It has wonderfully succeeded to do so and from the year 2016, there has been an upward spiral of awards. The latest culminating success was achieved at the 2018 IEEE R10 SYWL Congress in Bali, where Bangladesh Section achieved the highest number of awards alongside the “2018 Member and Geographic Activities Board Outstanding Large Section Award”, the highest recognition from global IEEE for a section.
To make our Prime Minister’s vision to evoke 4th Industrial revolution in Bangladesh tangible, there is no alternative to training students and young professionals about emerging technology and encouraging them in research. IEEE BDS arranges such workshops and conferences bringing foreign academics to our country. This benefits our budding researchers who will get the opportunity to register and take part in conferences organized in our country. Dr. Celia discussed all such events that were held in the recent years. She lauded the 2 affinity groups WIE BD and Youngs Professionals for their outstanding achievements and voluntary activities. She talked about significant educational activities and future events such as the YESIST12 to be held, marking the 25th anniversary of IEEE, BDS. She also informed the media about the humanitarian aspects of the organization, such as the project to provide the Rohingya refugees in our remote areas with clean drinking water. This project will actually help build skills of local engineering schools and ensure their involvement in sustaining and maintaining the project. She pointed out how the local media can attract local investors and philanthropists.
Dr. Celia further discussed industry-academia collaboration and various society-chapter activities. The major activities are, IEEE Xtreme Workshop, PES Day Celebration, SSIT Workshop, SPS Forum, EMBS forum etc.
Dr Celia noted how female participation in engineering is increasing and specially mentioned the contribution of WIE AG BDS by emphasizing the fact that out 3400 paid IEEE members in our country 1000 are female, making almost one third of the total.
The session ended at 6:30 pm and iftar was served to the guests and participants. Several media representatives of various print and electronic media including prominent national dailies like New Age, Kaler Kontho, Dhaka Tribune attended the program alongside the executive committee members of the two affinity groups and IEEE BDS .
