5TH WIECON ECE 2019

Lamia Iftekhar | January 8, 2020

Organizer: IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group – Bangalore Section

IEEE Bangalore Section

IEEE Bangladesh Section

IEEE WIE Bangladesh Section

Venue: Sterlings Mac Hotel, Bangalore, India

Date: November 15-16, 2019

Participants: 200

IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group – Bangalore Section, IEEE Bangalore Section, IEEE Bangladesh Section & IEEE WIE Bangladesh Section successfully executed the 5th IEEE International WIE Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering 2019 (IEEE WIECON-ECE 2019). The conference was held at Sterlings Mac Hotel, Bangalore, India on 15-16 November 2019.

The conference objective was to bring together leading industrialists and researchers to exchange, share their experiences, expertise on all aspects of “Electrical Engineering and Computer Science” and “Humanitarian” spheres. The conference also aimed to provide an interdisciplinary platform to present papers and discuss the recent innovations and challenges in the fields of Electrical and Computer Engineering. With the view to encourage participation of women scholars, each paper had at least one female author. The accepted papers which were presented in the two-day conference will also be published in the IEEE Xplore digital library.

IEEE WIECON-ECE 2019 was inaugurated on 15th Nov 2019 at Sterlings Mac Hotel, Bangalore. The conference was inaugurated with an invocation song and lighting of the lamp by the dignitaries. Mr. Abhishek Appaji, Asst. Professor, BMSCE was the Master of Ceremony. The inauguration was presided by Mr. Keshav Bapat, Chair – IEEE Bangalore Section. Mrs. Nemichandra, Ex General Manager & Dean of 'HAL Management Academy' (HMA), Bangalore was the chief guest. Dr. Celia Shahnaz, Professor, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, was the guest of honour and Dr. Y V S Lakshmi was the invited guest.

Dr. Lakshmi welcomed the august gathering. Mr. Bapat provided a glimpse of 43-year-old history of IEEE Bangalore Section, its activities and its many volunteering opportunities. Dr. Deepa Shenoy, Conference Chair, delivered key highlights of the summit followed by Mrs. Divya M G, WiE Chair announced the conference best papers.

This was followed by the address by the Chief Guest Mrs. Nemichandra. She shared her experiences as a system engineer and integrator in HAL. She highlighted the strides women engineers had taken over these few decades. She motivated the audience with her quote, ‘Women in the past opened doors of opportunity in different spheres of life and it is now left to the younger generations to move forward and make an impact.’

Dr. Celia Shahnaz then delivered her inaugural address encouraging delegates to work in the areas of humanitarian technologies. She presented her research “AI based Non-invasive Technology Development and Deployment for the Local community to support SDGs” to serve as an inspiration to the participants. The vote of thanks was proposed by Mrs. Manisha Sanal. The inaugural was concluded with a group photo of the over 200 delegates and dignitaries from around the world.

The two-day conference had nine keynote addresses in as many technical tracks, 60 accepted paper presentations, 18 Poster presentation one tutorial and a panel discussion. The Technical Program Committee chairs, Dr Kumudhini Ravindra, Dr Shaikh Fattah and organizing committee chair, Dr Pushpa C N, expressed their joy at the quality of papers received and the program organized.

The key note addresses were by Mr. Raman Kamalaksha, Hewlett Packard Enterprise on “Containers The Next Frontier of Virtualization”, Dr. Shaikh Fattah, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Bangladesh on “Modelling the Spatio-temporal Variation of Bio-signals for Automatic Disease Detection”, Ms. Vidya Hungud, Head of Engineering, Reliance Jio on “Digital Platform and Cloud Services Edge Computing and Digital Implications”, Ms. Ramya Srinivas, Data & Analytics Office, Cisco Systems, on “Scalable Architecture and Distributed Systems”, Dr. Anandi Giridharan, IISc, on “Impact of AI on Humanity”, Dr. Veena Bhat, Senior Data Scientist, Maersk Global Service Centres, on “Data and Data Science”, Dr. B P Harish, Professor and Chairman, Department of Electrical Engg., University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, on “Nanoelectronics: State-of-the-art and Beyond” and Dr. Kumudhini Ravindra, Innomantra Consulting, on “A Business Case for Smart Microgrids in India”.

On day 2, a WePOWER panel discussion and WePOWER tutorial session was conducted. WePOWER is a World Bank project to increase women participation in Power & Energy in South Asia. The panel discussion deliberated on ways to improve gender diversity in the Power and Energy Sector and was moderated by Dr. Kumudhini Ravindra. The panelists were Dr. Deepa Shenoy from UVCE, Bangalore, Dr. Celia Shahnaz from IEEE Bangladesh, representing the academic partners and Ms. Shweta Sharma from ABB, Bangalore and Ms. Shanti D R from TCE, Bangalore, representing the Industry perspectives. The WePOWER tutorial was provided to upskill participants on "Latest Development of Artificial Intelligence based Deep Learning Techniques in Smart Power Grid with penetration of Renewable Energy." The tutorial was conducted by Dr. Surekha Rajendra Deshmukh, Dean- Industry Institute Interaction, Pune.

The conference sponsors included Technical sponsors: Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO); Gold Sponsors: JP Morgan Chase, Google, Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE); Silver Sponsors: Reliance Jio; Bronze Sponsors: Dayananda Sagar University, BMS College of Engineering and Boeing; Professional body sponsors: IEEE YP Bangalore Section, IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee, Antenna and Propagation Society and Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, IEEE India Office; and Academic Sponsors: Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Reva University and RV College of Engineering.

Included during these two days was also engaging networking session, cultural program and feedback session. The two-day conference concluded with a valedictory wrap up and feedback hosted by Dr. Soma Pandey.