5:30 Jeffrey A. Von Arx (Java), Ph..D., the Senior Director of Systems, Technology, and Platform Development at Biotronik/MSEI, gave a fascinating presentation on "TECHNOLOGIES AND TRENDS IN IMPLANTABLE MEDICAL DEVICES".

6:30 Chair calls the meeting to order

 6:35 Approval of Past Minutes Approved and status of previous action items Completed.

Adoption of Agenda   Approved.

 6:40 Chair’s Report.  No NW Area meeting scheduled for Region 6; John P. will follow up.

Let’s start focusing on what the Section can do to help Chapters, and encourage them to attend ExComm.  Per Ed Perkins, Region activity has not been high; he will reach out.

 6:45 Vice-Chair’s Report  Justin not present.  His new e-mail is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 6:50 Treasurer’s Report  Unofficial balance $112,573.  Chapters have been receiving support once their financial report is submitted.  Chapters should have received the e-mail (Chair, Vice Chair and Treasurer get the e-mail).

 6:55 Secretary’s Report

 7:00 Chapter Reports (5 minutes Each max)

          Ed Epp:  Artificial Intelligence/Robotics are the top two future industries.  They met yesterday.

          Farhana:  Solid State Circuits—they have an invitee list.  First presentations will start this month.  They may host a PSU short course on AI Hardware, and would like to coordinate with the PSU Student Chapter.  Their biggest challenge is attendance at events.

          Jinsub:  No meetings yet, but two technical meetings in March and April scheduled.  Topics are optimization and signal processing communication.

          Mirella: 

          Ed Perkins:  Nanotechnology Council.  25 attendees at the last meeting on 3D and quantum computers.   The next Chapter meeting is scheduled for March 16th at 1pm.

          Russ M:  Communications Society.  Last met February 25th on AI in vehicles, about 75 people attended.  Pradeep organized the event.

                   The Women In Engineering. will have their monthly book club meeting—see vTools for details.

          Sohrab:   Computer Society had a joint meeting with the Phoenix chapter, with 20 or so attendees from Oregon.  EventBrite was used successfully.

          Dan G:  PES is meeting Tuesday, March 16th at 12:30—see vTools for details.

 7:35 Focus Presentation Done at 5:30

 

7:50 New Business

          Ed Perkins:  SUSTECH conference program is nearly completed.  April 22-24, virtual.  Info is on the Region 6 Linkedin site.  Student member $25, IEEE member $50 for all 3 days.  $150 for IOT webinar, and you get hardware.  About 20 entrants in the poster competition.  The Los Angeles area will run it next year, but since our Section supplies 50% of the funds (the Region the other 50%), the plan is to try and meet in Portland.

          The Virtual Sections conference is open for registration, and is free of charge.

 

Increasing Attendance at ExComm:  How can we get 80% participation at the ExComm?  Require Chapter updates to be given in order to get the funding from the Section?  The report can be just one paragraph (who your officers are, and 3 things you will be doing the next year)—perhaps require 2x per year update to get funding.  Should we use social media, like Twitter?  Personal outreach also works, as well as making sure what resources are available to the Chapters.

Should we have a virtual Chapter Chairs symposium?

Ed talked about spatial.chat, a virtual room kind of like “Second Life”.  The Region plans to do something with this.

 

7:55 Reading of Action Items

 

7:58 Next Meeting  April 13th at 6:30pm

 

8:00 Adjourn  Adjourned at 7:55pm

Action Items:

All: Find a permanent Chair and Vice-Chair volunteer.  Carry over to next meeting.

Lee: 2021 budget—completed

Lee:  Find a speaker for the next meeting—completed

All:  Recruit folks for future focus presentation.  Ed Epp is speaking in April

John P:  How are we perceived by our members?  He will contact IEEE staff about assistance with the survey, and then form a committee of 4 or 5 folks to move forward.  Carry over to next meeting.

INCOSE (Herb Milligor at PSU) e-mail  Action:  Promote it on vTools.  Was someone supposed to supply info to the Secretary?  John will pursue.

Dan G:  Update of Officer on Section web site:  Provide information to Daniel E. (completed), and he can update.  Completed, except for a photo of John and a group photo.

Dan G: to get web site passwords from Daniel E. and store them, as well as the GoDaddy account.  Carry over to next meeting.

 Ed Epp:  Creating a forum/message board that don’t cost a high monthly fee—to discuss with Russ and Daniel E.   Ed contacted Daniel E., has not heard back from others on IEEE tools.  Ed Perkins suggested Slack; the robotics team uses it; it limits the total number of messages at 10,000.  Ed Epp reports using e-mail is easier to manage with the small number of weekly e-mails they are receiving, for now.

 Ugonna:  Provide contact info for Student Officers to Dan G.  Carry over.

 John P:  Gather e-mail addresses and provide to Dan G. to store and send out meeting notices.  John will send the list March 10th.

Sohrab: Either find a Treasurer and set up a concentration account, or track the funds himself to be sure the funds don’t get lost year to year.   Rick Smith offered to help with a tracking sheet.  Carry over to the next meeting.

Ed Epp: To provide a focus presentation on RAS at the April meeting.

John P:  To summarize ways to increase attendance and engagement at ExComm meeting and send out an e-mail.

Dan G. to go over vTools events that have not been filed and will send out an e-mail.

Dan G. to set up a time for the four officers to meet monthly, perhaps 3rd or 4th Tuesday at 6pm.  Send John P. the webex password info.

 

Attendees:  John Prohodsky, Lee Oien, Daniel Goodrich, Ed Epp, Ed Perkins, Rick Smith, Russ Mickiewicz, Sohrab Aftabjahani, Farhana Sheikh, Jinsub Kim, Mirella.