As the IET Toronto Young Professionals Committee Chair, I had been nominated to attend the IET Young Professionals Community Volunteer Conference (YP CVC) 2016 and the IET Global Community Volunteer Conference (Global CVC) 2016.
The YP CVC was organized by the Young Professionals Community Committee (YPCC) on June 16th 2016, at the Royal Society of Arts in London, UK. There were more than twenty international delegates attending the conference in addition to the YPCC. This conference provided a great opportunity for YP members, from different region of the world, to share experiences and ideas and get to know each other. In the morning, the YPCC exhibited the YP progress around the world, shared the best practice for engagement events, summarised the YP challenge and planned the future. In the afternoon, the delegates were divided for group discussion. Couple of fantastic ideas for engaging YPs and promoting the value of IET were generated and presented. As representatives of Toronto Local Network, Rose and I presented the success of Toronto LN in the last year, the challenges caused by the local factors of North America and our suggestions. After a whole day conference programme, all the delegates reached an agreement: YP volunteers play a significant role in promoting the value of IET. Engaging YPs and strengthening the YP section will be the key goals for IET.
The Global CVC was held on 17-18th 2016, at the newly refurbished IET London: Savoy Place. The conference programme, which consisted of a variety of presentations, workshops and discussions, provided the chance to know IET better. The event also offered a series training and community session for every volunteer. In the regional sessions, the Americas – Community Committee (CC-A) gave an overview about the status, opportunities and challenges of Americas local networks. Representatives from each LN reported their updates. Jenny and Rose presented the successes and challenges of Toronto LN. Once again, the importance of young professionals were mentioned numerous times in the Global CVC.
As the IET Toronto Young Professionals Committee Chair, I will also act as an IET YP ambassador to contribute about YP events and recruit YP volunteers. I will stay in touch with the YPCC and other regional YP section, keep the conversations going and move forward the ideas we have created together.
