In this blog, we have John Benedict Boggala, who is currently working with Amazon as a manager for its digital and devices support team. He was the founding chair for the All India PES Student/YP and WIE congress in Bangalore and co-organized the YP tracks in three successive editions of the All India CS Congress. He also participated in multiple All India Computer Society Congress, All India Student/YP, and WIE Congress and contributed to its success. He was also part of the volunteering team, which organized the Hardware Technology Summit under Region 10 YP.
Let’s hear more from John himself: how he got involved with ComSoc, and later decided to volunteer, what he has been doing, and his experiences so far.
Beginning of the journey.
Hello, everyone! My name is John Benedict Boggala. I live here in India and have volunteered with IEEE since 2011 when I joined as a student member. I work with Amazon currently as a manager for its digital and devices support team.
For IEEE, I volunteer with IEEE Potentials as its Associate Editor and Region 10 South Asia YP Coordinator. I joined the Communications Society (ComSoc) and Signal Processing Society back in 2011 as a student member when a senior came over to our class and gave a 10-minute presentation about the benefits of Communication Society. I primarily subscribed because I liked the magazine and wanted to get my hands on the spectrum every month. It’s been about ten years to that day, and I still eagerly wait for them to get delivered to my post box every month and some other IEEE publications. I became the vice-chair of my University’s ComSoc chapter, which also happened to be my first ever lead role. Many of my succeeding leadership roles were better because of all the learning and trial and error methods I employed during my term in the University’s ComSoc chapter. I got a chance to get in touch with Shashank towards the end of 2017 and meet him in Bali in 2018 for the Region 10 Congress. I was already into the idea of volunteering for ComSoc YP. And pitching the same and subsequently working for the team until now has been a gratifying experience
Contributing to and doing things that I love to do.
We worked on creating new social media channels and creating content for the same. Our work with the Facebook page and the Instagram account has been immensely satisfying so far. I have a feeling that we have a long way to go. I used many design tools to design whatever I did; I think I have a lot to contribute to the same. Volunteering has always been a critical aspect of my professional journey so far. A lot of tools and platforms I work on had its learning origins from volunteering. I can do a lot of graphic design work at work because of all the tools I learned during volunteering. A lot of freelance work that I do now with design and consulting has its roots in volunteering.
ComSoc has been great to me in terms of value; it has provided me with professional connections, magazines, and conferences. I would like to see more work in promoting the same to potential members and industry practitioners.
John has worked in many teams and has contributed immensely to their success over the years. From being part of ad-hoc groups in IEEE to global targets at Amazon, John has proven to be a valuable resource. He has been invited to many student congresses and events to deliver talks on technical topics and management quirks. He has represented YP in many forums and events and played a valuable part in the YP panels and tracks on numerous SPAC’s and STEP programs. Overall, John has been a valuable volunteer and has inspired many volunteers to start and continue volunteering. He is an outstanding role model and any volunteer who is looking to make a mark in IEEE.
