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Uncategorized

IEEE Structure

If you have a hankering to learn the overall organizational structure of the IEEE, you can look it up here.

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Benefits Membership

Discounts for IEEE Members

IEEE members get discounts on a variety of products. Check them out here.

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Engineering Technology

IEEE Technical Activities

A message from the IEEE Technical Activities VP, John Verboncoeur, can be found here.

Except: “Our strategic priorities for 2023 include participation in the IEEE-wide efforts in Climate Change and Sustainable Technologies, imagining future products and services and new audiences, providing value to and growing existing audiences, and building on our diverse and inclusive community including implementation of the new IEEE Fellows process. We also take a look at exemplars for leveraging cross-cutting technology areas via collaboration among TA entities, increasingly important for addressing the technology grand challenge problems of our time. Lastly, we will take a look at the TA Tech Talk series.”

Technical Activities Operations also hosted a talk on farm technology (Not Your Grandfather’s Tractor).

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Uncategorized

Workforce Skills Communication Gap

The Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Research Center and HP have produced a report on a Workforce Skills Communication Gap.

From the Executive Summary: “The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine whether, or to what extent, institutions are using workforce trends to align and measure learning outcomes and help students communicate their level of workplace skill proficiencies to potential employers. If students can’t effectively communicate their level of workforce skill development across different areas and articulate their strengths using language that aligns with employers’ and industry experts’ expectations, a perceived skills gap will continue to exist.”

An overview of the research can be found here and there is a playbook here.

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Education Engineering Technology

Raspberry Pi Pico

Today there was a talk hosted by the IEEE Madison and SE Michigan CS and YP groups which provided an overview of the Raspberry Pi Pico Hardware and Software.

From the vendor: “The Raspberry Pi Pico series is a range of tiny, fast, and versatile boards built using RP2040, the flagship microcontroller chip designed by Raspberry Pi in the UK”.

From the vendor: “Designed by Raspberry Pi, RP2040 features a dual-core Arm Cortex-M0+ processor with 264kB internal RAM and support for up to 16MB of off-chip flash. A wide range of flexible I/O options includes I2C, SPI, and – uniquely – Programmable I/O (PIO).”

The Pico boards are available for as low as $4.00

The presentation material, reference links, and some programming material can be found here.

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Careers Engineering

Career Happiness – Do You Have It?

I listened to a career happiness webinar put on by the IEEE. It was pretty good. The tldr is that we should know what we want to be when we grow up and then make appropriate trade-offs. The focusing that the speaker provided was helpful (even if we may have heard it before).

You can find the recordings of this two-part webinar at the links below:

Career Happiness Part 1

Career Happiness Part 2

Categories
Education Engineering

Mental Health in Engineering, 11/16 Webinar

Just saw information about this free webinar from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). It’s short notice but if you are checking this blog and are interested, you may be able to catch it.

Description: Research has shown that engineering students that struggle with their mental health are less likely to seek needed help than students with similar challenges in other fields. Stigma, a strong feeling of disapproval, of mental health conditions (MHCs) is a society-wide issue that tends to conflict with help-seeking attitudes of those having MHCs.

Professional spaces, like those in engineering can enhance such societal prejudice based on the conceptions of what is believed to be acceptable traits of engineering students and professionals. In order to put mental health and wellbeing at the center of new systems of care it is necessary to unpack how stigma shapes the experiences of engineering students and professionals living with MHCs. 

This webinar is part of a larger series on building community and reflecting to re-envision in engineering education. This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. EEC-1733004.

The slides from this webinar are available here.

The recording of this webinar is available here.

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Engineering Social Good Technology

Looking To Give Back?

How about visiting some classrooms around the globe to share your technical and professional knowledge?

Share your story and technical expertise with pre-university students. Your visit could be a career QA session, a presentation on a particular technical topic, technical mentoring to support a hands-on activity challenge, judge a competition, etc. Join the programs and Share. Give Back. Inspire.

Learn more about classroom visits in IEEE’s TRYEngineering program. I think it will be interesting and fulfilling so I signed up.

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Engineering Humanities Social

Think You Are A Pretty Good Photographer?

Enter the World Standards Day Photo Contest to highlight how technology, driven by global standards, can help protect and preserve our planet. You could win a $500 prize.

Learn more here: “Framing the Future of Technology for Good” Photo Contest

The contest is open from 14 October 2023 at 8:00 AM ET through 14 December 2023 at 11:59 PM ET.

Categories
Science

2024 Is Coming Way Too Fast

I haven’t even caught up with 2023 yet and its already almost time for 2024!

Here are a few links to scan:

Exxon to mine lithium in Arkansas for EVs

How Big Is the Risk of Epidemics, Really?

The world is going discless. And that is a good thing because:

Plus, some other things to watch for in 2024.