In this short blog, ComSoc YP chair Shashank Gaur and other team members share their experiences as YP volunteer. Here, we asked following questions to each member:
- How was their overall experience of being a YP volunteer for the last two years? Did they work in a team or as an individual?
- What has been their favorite part of being a YP volunteer?
- What they learnt as a YP volunteer? In what ways they were able to give back to the society?
- Which project they see was (more) impactful in the last two years?
- Discuss a time when they implemented feedback. What they see has to be done further as a YP team and their suggestions for 2022?
Shashank Gaur – Chair
Project Involvement – Team Management
- I worked in a team with all amazing YP leaders. It has been a great experience to see all the interested YPs take lead on their projects with so much passion. I especially enjoyed the ability of volunteers to lead their project without much help.
- To welcome new members to the team and introduce them to all the interesting things we do.
- When I started volunteering for ComSoc YP it was a 5 people team and now it has grown to more than double. I have learned that it is very difficult to engage people in volunteering and each individual requires a different approach.
4. Webinars. I think it has opened doors for us to have new communication channels.
5. In mid-2021, the team told me that we need to have more people and I actively reached out to individuals who showed interest and talked to them about joining the team. Creating more opportunities for contributions by our members and volunteers. I would also love to see more video-oriented projects.
Virginia – Team Member
Project Involvement – ComSoc YP Awards Organizer
- I’ve been a YP volunteer for less than one year, during which I’ve been very happy to see how many valuable activities are carried out by the YPs for the YPs, and to be part of some of them. I worked mainly as an individual, but I received a great help from other team members in some circumstances
- Meeting new YPs with whom sharing experiences, finding differences and commonalities, learning from success stories.
- I learnt to be more confident, especially when speaking in public. My key project has been focused on finding ways to improve the existing awards and designing new awards, so that YPs can be recognized for their outstanding achievements considering different aspects of their careers (e.g. as a practitioner, as an early-stage YP, as a volunteer).
4. Online events
5. In the attempt to make webinars and events as much inclusive as possible, I considered Shashank’s feedback to invite speakers from Asia, which had been unrepresented in the past. However, work isn’t done yet, as we still need to reach out to speakers in Latin America, as well as include more female researchers and engineers. I’ve been a YP volunteer for only a year now, but unfortunately I haven’t had yet the opportunity to meet in person with any of my “colleagues,” mainly due to COVID. I think it would be important, if the situation permits, to organize more initiatives to promote team building. Also, it would be nice to start organizing more “live/in person” events to conferences and workshops, that could stimulate more social interactions not only among YP volunteers, but also with the YP audience.
Manali – Team Member
Project Involvement – Event Organizer
- I represented YP during several online events in conferences.
- I was never on stage ever since the pandemic happened. I liked the thrill of being virtually on stage and interacting and/or addressing 100+ people every 2 months.
- I learnt a whole lot about the wireless communication academic direction for the upcoming years from all the fireside chats I hosted. I also gained a lot of confidence for public speaking.
- Conference online events
- I was asked to engage people in various slack groups. I used to post fun facts or about our events on these groups during conferences. This was a great suggestion as we were able to draw interested audience of one event to all the other YP events as well. I want to use our volunteer team’s contacts and reach out to the current leaders of the student groups, and also created a slack channel for them. In future, we can advertise our event information to the students in their channels.
Manuel- Team Member
Project Involvement – Publicity & Social Media Posting
- I was a volunteer for the last 8 months of 2021, had a great experience to interact with other YPs and be part of a bigger team. Coordination with other YPs was needed to collect data to be used in the posts (webinars, conferences, etc.)
- To collaborate with other YPs and get a first-hand experience of a real teamwork effort.
- Efficient communication is key to keep the workflow running smoothly. I could give back by providing with posts on social media to advertise about ComSoc YP events. My key projects have been the posts planning to announce YP events in ICC 2021 and Globecom 2021.
4. Webinars and YP online events in conferences, in the last two years, it has been key to maintain professional interactions.
5. Shashank provided with suggestions on the strategy to follow when posting to market the YP events on the big conferences and I implemented them, for future I agree with Shashank.
Deepti – Team Member
Project Involvement –ComSoc YP blogs, YP events
- I joined YP as a volunteer in January 2021 and it has been a great experience. I met different skill sets of people and worked with them in a great team.
- My favorite part of being a YP member was working in a team, where other young professionals discussed their thoughts to enhance the quality of each project including YP blogs, awards, and webinars, etc. I really enjoyed being part of the IEEE ICC conference and would like to be part to host YP events in the future.
- I have learned about organizing events and publishing blog content. I have taken an interview of young professionals who works in academic and learned from his journey as well. I also reached out to other researchers regarding the blog content, which helped to enhance my communication skills.
- Conference events, webinars
- Based on the feedback, I approached those young professionals those are also interested to write about non-technical blogs. I reached out to the researchers, industrialist and academician regarding blog writings. I also participated to host YP events at IEEE conferences.
To be continue…
**Statements and opinions given in this blog are the expressions of the contributor(s). Responsibility for the content of published articles rests upon the contributor(s), not on the IEEE Communication Society or the IEEE Communications Society Young Professionals
