This year has been very tough! The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all of us, one way or the other. This uncomfortable situation has limited our plans to gather in-person like we did last year in ICC , WCNC, and several other venues in various parts of the world. But it has not and will not hold us knowing each other better and share aspirations to lead a better world together this year too. We feel more responsible for our commitment to building a network of young professionals, help them evaluate their career goals, and polish their professional image. Organizing fun-filled and informative events/webinars in several IEEE ComSoc venues has been an integral part of YP activities to achieve most of these goals.
Memoirs of YP Week at ICC 2020
With this spirit, in early June this year, ComSoc YP hold a series of successful sessions themed “volunteering, career growth, and writing funding proposals” during the virtual conference of ICC 2020. A quick recap to which, we had an insightful fireside chat with Andrea Goldsmith and Jeffrey Andrews, particularly about choosing a research topic, setting career goals, and the importance of the quality of the work than the quantity. In a separate session, Lajos Hanzo shared his experiences on the student’s “go-to” research approach and the importance of understanding the innovation cycle. That was great! Next, we had two special sessions on writing research funding and grant proposals by Deep Medhi from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Lawrence Wong from the National University of Singapore (NUS). Besides, over a week, and in different time zones, we ran several sessions on “Volunteering for ComSoc” to share about us, our experiences as volunteers for ComSoc, and the opportunities available.
lín-hó (Hello) Taipei !
We, the IEEE ComSoc YP team, welcome you all again at the exciting YP week in IEEE GLOBECOM 2020, Taipei, Taiwan. We are delighted to introduce our incredible speakers, who will be sharing their years-long academic and industry experiences to the young professionals. This time, YP week’s theme is at navigating early young professionals towards their career goals and unleashing impactful research direction on wireless communications. Here, we present a sneak peek at YP week at GLOBECOM 2020. We have a total of five different online sessions from ComSoc YP at GLOBECOM 2020.
Special Sessions from Qualcomm
There are two alluring industry sessions from Qualcomm this time. You must have guessed about this; the first one will be an open, fireside chat session with senior leaders from Qualcomm, Alexei Gorokhov (first in the picture below), and Hao Xu (second in the picture below). Notably, fireside chat has been the most prominent and vital event we have been organizing at conferences. The young professionals can directly interact with the speakers in a fireside chat. And this time, we have speakers talking about the frontier of research in 2020 and beyond and building a successful career within Qualcomm!
Talking about our speakers, Alexei Gorokhov is currently Vice President of Technology at Qualcomm. He led the Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (QCT) systems effort focused on designing, implementing, and commercializing 5G-NR technology, with years of experience in communication technologies. Hao Xu is currently the head of Qualcomm Research China, where he is leading various standardization topics from 3G to 5G technologies at Qualcomm R&D. He has pioneered the millimeter-wave propagation research with Dr. T. Rappaport. So get ready for this incredible opportunity during the fireside chat session! Second, we have an invitation-only recruiting session with Qualcomm. This session may be one of such chances you have been waiting for, just in time! Don’t forget to check out the events space.
Fireside Chat with Gerhard and Meryem
In another fireside chat session, we have Gerhard Fettweis, Vodafone Chair Professor at TU Dresden, Germany, and Meryem Simsek, a senior research scientist at International Computer Science Institute (ICSI), Berkeley, USA. Ever wonder about coupled research topics such as chip designs, tactile internet and applications, and 5G and beyond networks? Our speakers have an in-depth understanding of these topics to share in this fireside chat.
Gerhard is mainly working on wireless transmission and chip design and coordinates two research centers at TU Dresden, with more than 20 companies from Asia/Europe/US sponsoring his research. In Dresden, he has spun-out eleven start-ups and setup funded projects in a volume of close to EUR 1/2 billion.
Meryem chairs the IEEE ComSoc Tactile Internet technical sub-committee and has initiated the IEEE P1918.1 working group, and serves as the working group’s secretary. Also, she is leading the ETSI IP6 work item on IPv6 based Tactile Internet. She has been with Intel Labs working on machine learning-based solutions for beyond 5G networks. She is particularly interested in resource management in heterogeneous wireless networks, wireless network design and optimization, self-organizing networks, and the Tactile Internet and its applications.
An Interactive Session with Lajos Hanzo
In a poem, a famous Nepali Poet, Laxmi Prasad Devkota, wrote, “ambition what to take, fly and touch the moon”! Talking about ambitions, ever since Marconi demonstrated the feasibility of long-distance wireless communications across the North-Atlantic, researchers have aspired to make ’telepresence’ a reality for anyone, anywhere and anytime. So are we there yet? In an interactive session, Lajos Hanzo will speculate on the potential frontier-research issues of our alluring field of study, harnessing the creative power of open-minded, collaborative endeavors.
Hanzo is a Professor at the University of Southampton, UK, where he heads an academic research team working on a range of research projects in wireless multimedia communications aiming for flawless telepresence, supported by rich three-dimensional audio/video communications. Were you there during YP week at ICC 2020? We had an incredible interaction session with Lajos on the innovation cycle back then.
An Interactive Session with Halim Yanikomeroglu
In another tutorial, we have Halim Yanikomeroglu, a full-professor at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. He is a Distinguished Speaker for the IEEE Communications Society and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society on 5G/6G wireless technologies. He is interested in the architecture of wireless networks and the physical, medium access, and networking layers, and the cross-layer aspects of wireless communications. Talking about which, have you thought about Integrated Space/Aerial/Terrestrial Access Architecture for 6G Networks? How would it be? Do we need an advanced physical layer for 6G? What would be the role of AI, Machine Learning, and Data Analytics in this regard? Aren’t you ready to listen to Dr. Halim in an interactive tutorial session?
Rising Stars of ComSoc
We have a special event to appreciate and applause some of the outstanding young professionals working in the communications industry this year. During the session, you will hear from YP Award Winners from 2020 on their excellent career achievements. There will also be networking opportunities to meet leaders of ComSoc during some breakout sessions on different topics.
We look forward to meeting you in all of these events! Stay safe!
