1. To inspire: provide an interactive platform for members to become more engaged with the IET
2. To inform: educate on new tools, best practice, latest developments and successes
3. To interact: provide a two-way forum for sharing ideas
This year’s conference started on Friday with the Americas’ final of the Present around the World (PATW) competition. NorCal was represented by Jane Xiang (Fig 1: second from the right) with her presentation titled “Who Are Reading Your Resumes and Watching Your Digital Interviews?” and she gave a very polished and thought provoking presentation. All of the competitors were excellent. They each had great content, were very confident and exuded composure. The judges really did have a hard time determining the winner, which ultimately was Rohullah Latif from Southern California with his talk “Regenerative Medicine: Restoring Hope”. In second place was Vanessa Di Battista with her talk “Geosynthetics and Antarctica: Applications and Performance of Geosynthetic Technologies in Antarctica Soil Remediation”. While the PATW really concentrates on developing soft skills, the competition is also a great vehicle for highlighting some of the incredible work being performed by the Young Professionals (YPs) in the IET.
Fig 1. The IET America’s PATW contestants (left to right): Gideon Mentie; Sayana Saithu; Vanessa Di Battista; Karan Sharma; Macy Kuang; Seles Bhola; Jane Xiang; Rohullah Latif
On Saturday, the CVC conference began in earnest with the LNs each presenting the success and challenges. It is quite remarkable just how much is going on in the various IET LN through the Americas and it quickly became clear that the LN should communicate more in order to be able to highlight and potentially share some of the great events that each of the LNs is hosting. Each presentation had similar concerns and an unofficial competition broke out – which LN represented the biggest geographic area!
Fig 2: NorCal presenting an overview of their LN
A session was spent discussing how the LNs can to attract and inspire YPs through events such as the PATW and the Global Challenge. For IET NorCal, it is imperative that we foster an environment in which students and YPs feel that they have a relevant organization that helps them build their careers be it through job searching, resume writing or even just networking. This was a very inspiring session with lots of good input from all of the attendees and once all of the actions and ideas are collated, they will be shared with everyone. If you have any ideas, we’d love to hear them!
While heading out to the Sunday session, it was noticed that there was an element of danger to the conference as the signs around the conference center attested to.
Once the session started, the group focused on how to encourage interest in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). To that end, the IET brought along some kits that have been used by other LNs at fairs, schools and careers events. This covered all age groups, from flashlight kits for the younger engineers of tomorrow to MicroBits and Little Bits circuit kits for the older children. Of course, being engineers, once the attendees had things to play with there was no stopping them and everyone wanted to have a go!
Fig 3: An impromptu MicroBit coding session breaks out! Does anybody know JavaScript?!
There were many other highlights from the weekend including talks on “Now and Future NASA” by Major Gary A. Dahlke and the Lightning Cabaret by Rhys Phillips.
The volunteers that help run the LNs by organizing seminars and arranging site visits etc. are essential to maintaining the IET’s presence in the Americas. There are always opportunities to help out with either time or even ideas about things to do. If you can contribute, then please get in touch! We are always looking for more help and we are particularly interested in hearing form our YPs and students.
Thanks to all that participated and especially to Ashley and Rob from HQ for planning and running such a great conference. See you all again in a couple of years!