The Monthly Connection
The Electronic Newsletter of the IEEE Toronto Section
Issue #20040701, July 2004
Links: home page, main news page, upcoming events
This Month: profile, chapter meetings, conferences, students, career services, member news, subscribing

The Electronic Newsletter of the IEEE Toronto Section - the latest news about upcoming events and the people that make them happen - Section and Chapter meetings, workshops, conferences, and other events of interest occuring in Toronto and surounding areas.   Posted every month.

Happy Canada Day July the first is our national holiday - time to celebrate just how good we have things in this wide wonderful country of ours!   Check out our home page for a few interesting links about July 1.

Alex Bot Photo Profile on Alex Bot

Dr. Alex Bot (Alexei Botchkarev) is a Senior Member IEEE and one of our newest volunteer leaders within the Toronto Section. He holds a 5-year degree in electronic engineering from the Kiev Aviation Engineering Academy, Ukraine, and Ph.D. from the aerospace R&D Institute. He has 15 years of research experience in the aerospace, avionics, data modelling and signal processing. He has authored or co-authored more than 60 publications, including 2 books. 7 years of patent research and coordinating intellectual property issues. 5 years in the education industry in Toronto. He served as a Marketing Manager and later as a Program Manager at Rockwell Collins, and as a Product Manager at Carbone Lorraine. He is a consultant for GS Research & Consulting in Toronto.

Alex is member of the IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE Industrial Applications Society. At the moment Alex is serving as the chair of the Toronto Section Conferences and Conventions Committees.

You can read the biographies of any of our volunteer leaders on our web site by visiting our executive page.

Upcoming Chapter/Group Activities

July 8 Dr. Q. T. Zhang of the City University of Hong Kong will present a seminar on "Capacity and Outage Issues of Wireless MIMO Systems on Correlated Fading Channels", organized by our Communications Chapter.   Click for details.

July 20 Kathy Yang, an Applications Engineer Consultant with Mentor Graphics in Ottawa will present a lecture entitled "Smarter Test For Nanometer Design", organized by our Solid-State Circuits Society Chapter.   Click for details.

July 21 Celia Desmond, President of World Class Telecommunications will present a seminar on "Project Management" organized by our Women in Engineering Group.   Click for details.

September 15 is the date for our tour of the ABB Transformer plant in Guelph, Ontario. However, please note that July 26 is the deadline for registering to reserve your seat on the bus which will depart from the Yourdale Mall parking lot. This tour is being organized by our Power Engineering Chapter.   Click for details.

Meeting Reports

June 8 Meeting Photo. Click to enlarge Women in Engineering - "Balancing Life & Work – Can It Really Be Done?"   Balance based on the Oxford Dictionary means the condition that exists when two opposites are equal or in correct proportions. Trying to achieve a proper balance between work and play was the topic of WIE June 8, meeting.  

Anna Araujo from the WIE executive team opened the meeting by congratulating all the attendees for being present that day; practicing balance between work and play.   Attendees, despite being at different stages of their lives, expressed concern for having to juggle a career and other activities.   But why is it that we all feel rushed?   Does our personality play any role in our capability of keeping the balance? Are we worried that delegating the tasks might affect the quality of the end result? How about prioritizing? These are some of the topics that the group brainstormed.   One solution that was discussed was practicing Yoga.   Yoga can help relax our mind and body from the stress and pain. Keeping in touch with nature has positive effects on our soul and body.   It helps us to keep a log of things we do on a daily basis.   We all enjoyed the Spadina Gardens Restaurant environment and food.   We thank all who attended and made this WIE mid-Spring social get together informative and enjoyable.   The WIE executive team looks forward to meeting you at its next gathering!

Conference Photos and Presentations

CCCECE04 Photo The 17th Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering was held May 2 - 5, 2004, in Niagara Falls, Ontario. There are now several hundred photographs, taken at the conference, posted on the conference web site, as well as the presentations provided by the plenary speakers. Click to visit the conference photos web page and select from 15 links below the heading "Conference Photos".

The photo at the left shows opening plenary speaker, NSERC President Dr. Tom Brzustowski, who has made his presentation about Canadian university research available.

For the Tuesday plenary session, the speaker was the just announced 2004 McNaughton Medalist - Dr. Renato Bosisio, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Ecole Polytechnique at the University of Montreal. He has also made his presentation on microwave engineering research available.

Student News

Electro-Federation Canada (EFC) is a national, not-for-profit industry association representing over 250 member companies in the electrical, electronics and telecommunications industries in Canada.   Now in its ninth year, the EFC Foundation will award $50,000 to eligible students in the fields of engineering, computer science and business administration, as well as to eligible second or third phase electrical apprentices.   Application Deadline: August 12, 2004 - details

Career Services

We have a new link on our careers page - Bluelime Consulting are looking for good electrical engineers for manufacturers of wireless, server, and other hardware products across Canada - see link on our careers site.

Member News

Congratulations to three of our members who have been recently elevated to Senior Member grade; Wai Tung Ng and Shawn S. Otal   If you wish to apply for Senior Member elevation, or nominate someone else, please use this link.

Advertising

The IEEE Toronto Section accepts advertising for items deemed to be of interest to our members. If you would like to advertise in our newsletter, please contact the editor.

Thanks For Reading

That's all for now, hope to have you visit again next month ..... Bob Alden, Editor
Please send any news item submissions, comments, suggestions, concerns to the editor at this email


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Home Page: http://toronto.ieee.ca
Last update: 2004,06,30 by webmaster