UWA IEEE Student Branch - Message from the Chairperson

This year promises to be exciting and event filled. The first week will soon get underway with lecture note sales for the School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering.

There are currently site visits, membership drives and other professional events being planned. This will build on last year's successful events such as the record ticket sales for the IEEE Student Networking forum from UWA students.

The overall focus of this year's events will be on raising and expanding the profile of the IEEE as an organisation to students. I look forward to leading our branch into a successful year.

2007 has been a year of remarkable achievement. Recently we have been awarded the IEEE Australia Council Outstanding Student Branch award. Earlier this year the student Branch won 3rd place in the Region 10 IEEE Website Contest as well as 3rd place in the International IEEE Student Branch Website Contest. These achievements have ensured the recognition of our student branch achievements on national, regional and international level.

During the course of the year we have successfully held a variety of events which take care of the professional and social interests of students. Many of these have been detailed in past Region 10 newsletter articles this year.

A social event of particular note was our quiz night was held at the UWA Tavern. Due to the excellent turnout and very positive feedback from attendees, we plan to make this an annual affair. Sponsorship from local businesses around campus was secured, with attendees enjoying a wide selection of games and prizes.

On Wednesday 17th October, a site visit was conducted at the Western Australia Supercomputer Program (WASP) facility at the UWA. WASP provides advanced resources for high performance computing, as well as scientific visualization and virtual conferences. This site visit was attended by both staff and students and the tour consisted of a tour of the secure supercomputer room, access grid videoconferencing facility and visualization equipment, including a stereoscopic (3D) display and immersive dome environment.

On Tuesday 9th October our Annual General Meeting was held at the Blakers Lecture Theatre. It was pleasing to see such a strong interest in our student branch committee. We have a good mix of new and more experienced candidates in our branch which will ensure that we continue to provide good quality representation to our students.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the 2007 UWA IEEE Student Branch committee for their hard work and dedication over the past year. This has been the most successful year in the history of our student branch – both in terms of IEEE membership numbers, a testament to our successful membership drives, and in terms of events and student involvement.

Special acknowledgement must be made of our student branch counselor, Dr. Jasmine Henry for her continued dedication and support with all matters IEEE. The 2008 committee, with Dr. Henry as counselor is well placed to further improve on the successes of 2007, and I have no doubt that this will transpire.