Community Manager Update: February 2017

By now you will know that we had to cancel our February event in Teacher Building, Glasgow due to the adverse weather conditions.   I am really disappointed abut this, as I know we had lots of folks looking forward to attending, but safety must come first.   I was especially looking forward to meeting some of the volunteers from the ACostE committee in Glasgow. We will definitely reschedule the event for sure, and will let everyone know as soon as we can.   Planning continues for our next event on the topic of Agile, so look out for further information over the coming weeks. The exec committee are meeting on Friday in London and one of the Agenda items for discussion will be our future programme of activities - and it's not too late to contribute - if you have any ideas, thoughts or suggestions…

Your Journey To Professional Development (CPDs)

As you know, IET has introduced a policy of random reviewing of Professionally Active Registrants’ CPD returns starting from January 2017.     Members will need to undertake a minimum of 30 hours of CPD a year. Useful links about CPD : What counts as CPDs/What should I do: What’s the difference between CPDs and IPDs CPD Resources CPD video CPD poster Join the IET Professional Development online group (most of the links above can be found at their online group):  find out more… For early career engineers – building your career   Working towards and gaining Professional registration qualifications is an example of CPD Attending Lifeskills workshops or events organised by Victoria Network , find out more .. Volunteer at Victoria Network:   Victoria Network is recruiting !     For established engineers…

Transforming Smart Phones Into Medical Appliances (IET Southern California Event).

Talking about field based technologies last month, I took opportunity to attend an insightful event hosted by IET Southern California where Neven Karlovac of Cellmic LLC spoke about the changes now seen in medical field based technologies, specifically around using smart devices as field based medical apparatus. Cellmic have created a simple smartphone attachable device that uses holographic lenses and computer algorithms to analyse medical samples in the field, whether its pandemics, food sampling, or mobile medical vehicles. The smart medical device is already being used in the field, and provides a very innovative use of transistor count on an IC chip Vs pixel rates of smart phones. The sample is placed on a digital sensor into which, through a pin hole, a LED light is sent. This creates…

MedPower 2016 - IET Library

Dear all,   We would like to inform you that papers accepted for the 10th Mediterranean Conference on Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution and Energy Conversion   have now been published within IET Digital Library http://digital-library.theiet.org/content/conferences/cp711 .

Challenges in Tribology 2017

The IET Tribology Network’s flagship event, Challenges in Tribology, is being held for the second time in March 2017.   This event is set up to share knowledge with people in industry who can apply it to improve competitiveness and sustainability, and to foster valuable dialogue between industry and academia within the UK.   The inaugural 2016 event, celebrating the 50 th anniversary of the Jost Report, brought together 100 people with a passion for Tribology.   This year’s event has been developed to build on that success. Again, the organisers have been successful in attracting an array of leading speakers from the UK and internationally. It will run over two days, each with a defined theme: Thursday 16 th March: Challenges in Transport Friday 17 th March: Materials and coatings for extreme…

New LN Committee elected at the AGM on 20 February 2017

The new Committee Members of the IET Victorian Local Network (LN) were elected at the Annual General Meeting (AGM), held on Monday, 20 February 2017 in Melbourne. The Committee now cosists of the following members:   Chairman : Mr Athanasios (Arthur) Baoustanos Vice-Chairman : Mr Raj Ranasinghe Secretary : Dr Priyantha Karunadasa Treasurer : Ms Michelle Zhao Marketing Officer : Mr Mohamed Awadalla Professional Registration Adviser (PRA): Dr Sashigaran (Sashi) Sivathasan International PRA : Mr Jananthan (Janaa) Ratnasabapathi Young Professionals Section (YPS) Chairman : Mr Evan Barrett Committee Member & Past Chair : Mrs Maria Vukovi Committee Member : Mr Mahinda Wickramasuriya Committee Member : Mr Peter Raven   The Elected Committee includes long standing members as well as new that have originated…

London Midland Labs seeks innovative startups for Transport Experience Accelerator

London Midland Labs seeks innovative startups for Transport Experience Accelerator Train operator London Midland has recently opened applications into a new initiative aimed at helping emerging startups in the rail and mobility sector through an accelerator program. London Midland Labs , The London Midland-led startup collaboration scheme, aims to partner with innovative startups looking to shake up the customer experience of travel and improve the efficiency of rail travel For startups in the Intelligent Mobility space, this is an unprecedented opportunity to test out their products in a live environment; real data and real customers that you just wouldn’t get access to elsewhere. As one of the UK’s highest performing franchise operators, London Midland serve 75 million journeys per year for…

Should I really just have clicked on that? Royal Holloway Event

It’s happened to the best of us. An email pops into our inbox; we have a momentary lapse in judgement and click on the link in a dubious email. What follows is moments of panic and frantically clicking on the X button to close down the browser. You might run an antivirus scan, but the worry remains - should I really just have clicked on that? To answer this common question, Royal Holloway University are holding a Stevenson Science Lecture about cyber security and the technical and psychological reasons behind why people click on links in unfamiliar emails. The lecture, given by researchers from Royal Holloway's Information Security Group and Psychology Department, is taking place on 15 March 2017 at Savoy Place, London and looks sure to be a fascinating event.   Find out more and register

S21 - Stuttgart's New Main Station - Advance Notice Of A Technical Visit

Please keep the date free for a technical visit to Stuttgart's new main station on 23rd. September 2017. The  Stuttgart 21  project , consisting of a new high-speed rail link between Stuttgart and Ulm and a brand new  main station in Stuttgart , is one of the largest, most expensive and controversial building projects in Germany. It has already been the subject of a state referendum and will undoubtedly cost far more than originally planned. However, leaving politics aside, the major engineering challenges presented by moving the new main station underground and building new rail tunnels under the busy state capital of Baden-Württemberg are of interest to engineers from all technical areas. The IET Germany network has organised a group tour of the building site and the logistic centre on Saturday…

Choose A Date To Visit GF Piping Systems

The IET Switzerland and IET Germany Networks would like to organise a joint technical visit to  GF Piping Systems  in Schaffhausen in April or May 2017. Schaffhausen  is in Switzerland, but very close to the German border, and is famous for the  Rhine Waterfalls . GF Piping Systems traces its roots back to 1802 when Johann Conrad Fischer established a copper smelting plant in Schaffhausen. The company is now a leading supplier of piping systems for the safe and reliable transport of liquids and gases. If you would like to join us please indicate your date and time preferences by filling out our  Doodle poll  as soon as possible.  As soon as the final date and program have been decided we will inform you by e-mail and on the  local network website .       Click Here For P oll     Please keep…

Weirdest IoT Devices

The Internet of Things is set to create billions of internet connected devices over the next few years. Most of the devices created will solve a multitude of problems but does everything need to be internet connected/smart? Here is my list of some of the weirdest IoT devices so far:   Smart Hairbrush L'Oréal showcased this smart brush at CES17 and it detects frizziness, dryness, split ends and breakage as well as analysing brushing patterns. Feel like an unnecessary foray into the beauty market - surely most people can use their eyes and sense of touch to detect if their hair is dry/has split ends?! Mousetrap This mousetrap from Rentokil , traps the mouse and releases carbon dioxide when it detects a mouse inside. The device then sends a signal back to the base station to alert the user that…

Get Up To Speed With Electrification In Motorsports

A few weeks ago, together with many automotive specialists from industry and academia, I found myself in the excellent surroundings of Coventry Museum of Transport . The occasion was the ARTS TPN’s inaugural seminar on ‘Electrification in Motorsports’, where a range of excellent speakers gave an overview on the topic and covered various aspects of electrification across the motorsport sector, from electric motorcycles, drag bikes through to Formula E and FI cars.   Our first speaker was Angus Lyon, Director at Rockfort Engineering who set the scene with an ‘Overview of Electrification in Motorsports’.  Angus’ talk covered the history of electrification in motorsports from the late 19 th century electric land speed racing through to the latest racing series, including a mention of the first…

PEO And IET Student Papers Competition In Kingston

All are ivited to attend the student papers competition in Kingston on March 22nd .

IET Women in STEM Series - Second installment on 06 March

Second in the series of IET Women in STEM talks at UTC Reading is Nadia Farhan, HR Manager at Cisco. Nadia was a Project Manager at Cisco, supporting numerous programmes of work across IT work streams, before becoming an Apprentice Manager, managing and working with apprentices, last October. Cisco, an invaluable industry partner of UTC Reading, is an American multinational technology conglomerate that develops, manufactures and sells networking hardware, telecommunications equipment and other high-technology services and products. Nadia shall be talking about her career to date. This event is aimed at young people, parents and anyone interested in technology careers.   Date: 6 th March Time: 4.15pm For further information and to sign up please visit the following link: http :// meetu.ps/c…

Born on this day: Heinrich Hertz

Heinrich Hertz was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves as theorized by James Clerk Maxwell. He proved this theory by creating instruments to transmit and receive radio pulses using experimental procedures that ruled out all other known wireless phenomena. He made this discovery at 22 years old. Hertz’s work forms part of the foundation that modern communication systems are built upon. In 1886 he saw an electrical spark, which led him down a path that would lead to him being the first person to transmit and received controlled radio waves. He started thinking more deeply about sparks and their effects in electrical currents. You can read more about how he discovered radio waves in this well written post from famouscientists.org. Ironically…

University of Sheffield Lecture - 21st February 2017

Last nights lecture by Professor Alejandro Frangi looked at the facinating field of Biomedical Engineering working with their CISTIB team based at the University on ground breaking technology in the world of medicine. The link below gives a greater insight to the 5 pillars which the CISTIB work with. Although a highly technical lecture, Professor Frangi described how medical data can be gathered from patient information into a discreet hub to systematically improve medical procedures in this area of medical science. The lecture brought out the importance of multidisciplinary engineering working with medical practicitioners to move forward improvement to social well being. http://www.cistib.org/ Alan Chater CEng FIET SYLN.

School Presentation at PASCAL Primary School and PASCAL English School

Our annual presentation at the  PASCAL Primary School and PASCAL English School took place today. The turnout was exceptional with 54 students participating in the presentation. Alkis Spyrou and Athos Maimaris delivered the presentation that raised numerous questions and a lively discussion from the young students. The presentation revolved around Engineering, The IET and Renewable Energy Sources.

Bahrain IET LN PATW 2017, 25th Of February 2017.

Bahrain IET LN PATW 2017,  25 th of February 2017. Bahrain IET Local Network is organizing the PATW2017 next Saturday,  25 th of February 2017 by 11 am till 1:00 pm.  The event will be conducted at the Ahlui University auditorium, in Manama, for the first time.  This is to encourage the young from different sectors and engineering academic and industrial backgrounds.  IET PATW has been conducted in Bahrain by Bahrain LN for the last three years, in consequence.  For this year heat, preparations have been done so far to achieve this annual event, a judgment team has been selected,  prints have been prepared,  and contestants have been notified about the competition legal procedures. Looking forward to see this year 2017 event results.  Meanwhile, Bahrain Local Network is wishing all the best…

Meet The Tutor - Introduction To Content Protection

Graham Turner has worked in the pay and digital television field since the late 1980s.  His initial involvement was at BSB where he headed the company’s conditional access activities.  In 1991 he and a colleague founded Farncombe Technology, a consultancy and software house specialising in pay and digital television and telephony security. In 1993 Graham and two of his colleagues were commissioned by the European Commission to write the chapter on Conditional Access and Subscriber Management in the Green Paper used to initiate the DVB Project.  At Farncombe Graham also undertook the security audit of a number of conditional access systems as well as leading the development team that created a subscriber authorisation system which managed a million satellite pay TV subscribers for several years…

CIBSE ANZ Anounces 2017 Seminar Series - Getting Smart About Metering ***Special Rates For IET Members***

The Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) Australia & New Zealand annouced today its first seminars of the 2017 Seminar Series, held in Perth, Melbourne (Thursday, 16 March 2017, 1 Spring Street), Sydney and Auckland.  Seminar Series Program  here . Tickets are limited but at special rates for IET Members . To avoid delay, book your ticket today. Getting Smart About Metering An Essential Component of Electricity and Water Management You can’t manage what you don’t measure, but are we are measuring properly? Why is something so basic done so badly? We know that good metering is an essential component of high performing buildings (there is good reason why Green Star makes it a key feature), but time and again building owners and managers find that they can’t get meaningful…

Cyber Security and Hacking

Our grateful thanks for e2e-assure for an excellent but worrying lecture where they demonstrated hacking including "ransomware" and "man-in-the-middle". Please see the attached PDF. Their message - don't download any files from an email, etc. from an unkown source as it can include ransomware and malware. It was most worrying when the man-in-the-middle could see you enter your full credit card details as you logged in to one bank who ought to know better!  Many many thanks to Simon Vernon and Mark Peart for giving us all valuable lessons on how to use the internet.

Dragon boat race 2017 – Recruitment of Paddlers

Established in 2005, the IET dragon boat team has been racing in Hong Kong waters including Stanley, Shatin, Sai Kung, Tai po and Mui Woo over the past years and is in the process of recruiting new members for races scheduled for 2017! This year, the “the IETHK” dragon boat team plans to participate in the Mui Woo race scheduled on 28th May, and the Shatin race scheduled on 30th May! Training is scheduled to commence on Sunday, 19th February, at Tsing Yi Sports Ground and subsequent trainings will be held at either Shatin and Sai Kung, on every Sunday from 9:00am to noon, gradually building up the strength, stamina and team work for this physically demanding sport! Dragon boating is one of the fastest growing and most exciting water sports you can take part in Hong Kong, and the event is widely…

Speaker Highlight - Robot Ethics

We are very happy to announce that Dr Catherine Easton, Senior Lecturer in Law at Lancaster University, will be the second speaker at our upcoming Robot Ethics event on 23rd February. Dr Easton's research interests relate to the interaction of law and technology with a focus on robotics, artificial intelligence, data protection and Internet governance.  She is Chair of the British and Irish Law, Education and Technology Association (BILETA) and general editor of the European Journal of Current Legal Issues. At our Robot Ethics event Dr Easton will discuss how robotics is currently used in numerous aspects of healthcare provision, from robot-assisted surgery to "Carebots" dealing with daily health needs.  Her talk will also focus on the legal and ethical issues related to the use of robotic…

Look Forward YMS Session 16/17