The agenda for this seminar is to provide the attendees with an overview of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA). By their nature, FPGAs can address many applications so we will look to build a strong foundation for future FPGA discussions. This foundation will include a high level overview of FPGAs as well as design flow and design methodologies. Additional topics to be discussed include embedded systems, DSP, and power.

Speaker:

The Presenter will be Brian Hoey. Brian is a Senior Field Applications Engineer (FAE) with Altera Corporation. As a FAE, Brian manages the technical engagement between Altera and some of their top customers within his geography. This engagement encompasses the whole design flow from consulting on system architecture to device selection and design implementation to prototype and production support. Brian has been with Altera for 7 years and has worked with companies in the military, test, computer, wireline and wireless communications markets. Prior to joining Altera, Brian was a design engineer with Northrop Grumman.

After the course, a CEU certificate can be obtained by each participant directly from IEEE Headquarters for $15.

Course applicants should register by sending an email to Boris Gramatikov (bgramat@jhmi.edu). The email should contain the following information:

Name and IEEE member number

Email address

Affiliation

IEEE membership (Y/N and Chapter, if any)

Age (optional)

Is the applicant applying for CEU certificate? (Y/N)

2. PES Announces Engineer’s Week Dinner Meeting

When:

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Where:

Historical Electronics Museum

1745 West Nursery Road

Linthicum, MD

410-765-0230

Time:

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Guest Speaker:

Ms. Carol Dodson

Vice President - BGE Business Transformation

RSVP to:

baltimorepes@ieee.org

RSVP by:

Friday, February 15th 2008.

See the website at:

http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r2/baltimore/baltimorepes/

3. Robot Challenge - Judges Needed

The Robot Challenge will be held this year on Saturday morning, April 12, and Sunday afternoon, April 13, at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, at 1415 Key Highway, near the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

We hope many members who have volunteered in previous years will come again, but we'll still have a need for a few new people. Please e-mail me if you would like to work with our high school students - they really learn a lot from their interaction with "real" engineers.

Drop me a line if you think you might be available, on one or both dates, and whether you have any preferences. Choices can be Any, Track Judge, Oral Presentation Judge, Administration, Repairs, or Photographer. We're looking for 70 people.

Contact me with any questions, and if you haven't previously done so in the past month, please, (new volunteer or veteran) complete the brief form below and e-mail it back to me.

Re: IEEE Robot Challenge 2008 JUDGES

Name:

Have you previously been a Judge, or involved in any other capacity: Yes/No

Available Saturday 4/12: Yes/No Sunday 4/13: Yes/No

Preferences:

Neville Jacobs, (e-m) Nevilleed@aol.com or (phone) 410-653-4176

4. IEEE GOLD

GOLD has two announcements.

Announcement 1:

Join Baltimore GOLD as they learn from the masters at Clipper City Brewing. Get behind the scenes at Baltimore's largest craft brewing facility. See what goes into making Baltimore's "best locally brewed beer" (City Paper, October 2001.)

See how your favorite beer is made. Tour the brewery: buy a great new souvenir Clipper City Glass for $5.00 and receive 6 COMPLIMENTARY fresh beer samples!! (Of course, you must be 21.) And, as always, the tour itself is free.

Clipper City Brewing Company encourages you to please drink responsibly!

Time: 1:00 PM

Date: Feb. 9th

Clipper City Brewing Company, LP

4615 Hollins Ferry Road, Suite B

Baltimore, MD 21227

Please RSVP to zane@ieee.org before Feb 5th, if you will be attending.

Announcement 2:

Baltimore GOLD now has a Facebook group. Learn more about GOLD and see upcoming events. Just search for the group Baltimore IEEE GOLD. Email randre@ieee.org if you have any questions.

5. Norbert Wiener Center Talks

The Section is supporting at a modest level the February 2008 FFT Talks of the Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Applications. See the following websites:

http://www.norbertwiener.umd.edu/

http://www.norbertwiener.umd.edu/FFT/FFT08/index.html

6. University of Maryland, College Park Terps Racing Team

The IEEE Baltimore Section has donated $1000 to the University of Maryland, College Park Terps Racing Team. Jeff Gamerman, a member of the team, made a presentation to the Baltimore section in November as part of their fund raising effort.

Terps Racing offers Maryland undergraduate students the opportunity to design, build and race their own baja all-terrain and formula racing vehicles in various regional and national competitions. Terps racing invites students of any major to participate, although most are engineering students. The vehicle designs are technically sophisticated and involve many aspects of electronic and mechanical design that are used in current and future automobile designs such as engine controls, anti-lock braking and chassis and stability controls.

The University of Maryland provides some of the funding to the racing team and as part of the project effort, the students are required to raise the rest of the money required to complete their project which can come from corporate sponsors as well as individual donations.

Sponsors will have their corporate logos displayed on the vehicles.

7. Baltimore Section Becoming More Active in the Community

One of the functions of the geographic units of IEEE is to sponsor activities that will both grow the membership and meet the technical and professional needs of its current members. You have seen over the last year or so the continuing education program grow under the guidance of past chair Boris Gramatikov.

Other activities that are being sponsored by your section include:

An information session for prospective students at University of Maryland Baltimore County on the 26th of March,

The Norbert Weiner Center February talks on Signal processing at the University of Maryland College Park 21-22 February.

Elsewhere in this letter you will read how Baltimore Section is a sponsor of a student project at University of Maryland College Park which becomes an excellent demonstration of how interdisciplinary our field has become.

8. Notes from the Desk of the Section Chair

The following is a note from Bill Semancik, Chapter Chair for the IEEE Baltimore Section.

“As Section Chair, I would like to use the newsletter to communicate to our members some of the things that I am learning about and becoming involved in while serving you.

One of the things of which I need to keep you informed is the state of Maryland’s 6% tax on computer services. IEEE as a non-profit entity is by its nature non-partisan. We do have the responsibility of representing our membership in legislative matters that adversely affect our membership. Our concern for this tax is the disadvantage that will be placed on Maryland technology businesses – and likely small businesses. None of the surrounding states have such a tax. That means that Maryland businesses will be at a disadvantage when bidding on out of state contracts but out-of-state businesses will not be at a disadvantage when bidding on contracts in the state of Maryland. In my mind that means the business climate for information technology in the State of Maryland is getting worse. The down stream effects should be easy to see. A press conference was held in Annapolis on 30 January on the introduction of a bill to repeal this tax. If you also see this as an issue for the growth of technology based firms in the state, I urge you to contact your legislators. You should also be aware that the Chairs of both Washington and Baltimore Sections have signed a letter to the Maryland Legislature opposing this tax.

In January, I was asked by Doug Zuckerman, President of IEEE Communications Society to represent COMSOC at IEEE Systems Council. Now I don’t know about you but I was not even aware that IEEE had a Systems Council until Doug asked me to consider being the COMSOC rep. I have since learned that the alternate representative for the first two years was a long acquaintance from University of Maryland College Park, Dr. Stu Milner. Since accepting I have sat in on a conference call in anticipation of a meeting during the IEEE Summit in Louisville, KY next month. The Systems Council is trying to leverage the strengths of the various technical societies to prepare IEEE and its members to better deal with massively interconnected and interdependent systems – or as it is commonly known Systems of Systems. There is a goal to some day develop design standards for Systems of Systems. This is an end that resonates with me. I have spent most of my career as a researcher with occasional periods of time in product lines. One conclusion I reached a few years ago is that the reason that it is so difficult to get technology out of the R&D labs and into use is that many of the problems we now face are ones that can be solved through integrated systems. So what I will work toward in my role with the Systems Council is to find ways to include the innovations of the research community into the Systems of Systems Concept. Next month I will update you on what I learn at the IEEE Summit.

On a final note this month, I will state some degree of surprise at actually having been quoted by Spectrum on the Teacher In-Service Program. The need for technologically adept people has not lessened. From what I have observed and discussed with people who study such things, we are at the beginning of a transition where technology will be developed by globally dispersed teams whose members are chosen based upon suitability for the job rather than locality. If we have the wherewithal to have members of these teams we will be globally competitive. If we allow the current trends to continue, as a country we will not compete.”

9. Update on the Teacher In-Service Program (TISP)

TISP is starting to gain some traction in area represented by Baltimore Section. We had the session at the TEAM Expo at the Baltimore Museum of Industry in October. We have had one in-classroom session in a Baltimore City school. We are also scheduled for a session during Engineer’s week at Meade Middle School that will involve a number of schools from Anne Arundel County. We expect that as word of these sessions spreads among the schools, there will be the call for more sessions next school year. We will always welcome additional volunteers and will arrange training either on-the-job or in a special session if we get sufficient numbers.

10. Request for Volunteers Interested in Leading Technical Chapters

Baltimore Section is still looking for someone interested in becoming chair and building on the momentum started with Aerospace and Electronic Systems last year. AES has officers for other chapter positions and is looking for an enthusiastic individual take the reins and lead the chapter. Interested parties should please contact Bill Semancik at wsemancik@ieee.org.

11. Financial Engineering: a Growing Career Path for Technical Professionals

The following is a paid advertisement by T. Rowe Price, a leading global investment management firm.

It might surprise you to hear that the financial industry is now one of the hottest destinations for sharp-minded engineers. And for good reason, says Richard T. Whitney, head of Quantitative Equities at Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price, a leading global investment management firm.

“The financial industry has matured to a point where sophisticated and innovative models are now a big part of decision-making,” explains Whitney. This is prompting many financial firms to reach out to engineers and others with technical backgrounds to apply their expertise to the world of investing.

See the following website for more information:

http://www.troweprice.com/financialengineering

12. IEEE-USA Impact Newsletter for Winter 2008

2008 IEEE-USA Annual Meeting Indianapolis, Ind., 25-27 April

IEEE-USA’s 2008 Annual Meeting will be held early in 2008 to avoid conflict with the IEEE Sections Congress. So, please mark your calendars for 25-27 April 2008. Receive leadership training, learn about IEEE-USA activities and how they will benefit members in your Section, and learn about other PACE programs throughout the country. For more information, visit:

www.ieeeusa.org/calendar/conferences/2008annualmeeting

Congressional Visits Day (SET-CVD)

Registration is now open for the 2008 Science, Engineering, & Technology Congressional Visits Day (SET-CVD), scheduled for 4-5 March 2008 in Washington, D.C.

A coalition of private sector companies, professional societies and educational institutions sponsor SET-CVD. Its objective is to demonstrate the importance of science, engineering and technology to our Nation’s future growth to congressional decision-makers. Approximately 200 scientists, engineers and technologists from around the country will meet with Members of Congress and the administration during this two-day event.

Encourage your colleagues to come! We are especially interested in attracting first-time attendees and students this year. If interested, please register for CVD online at:

www.ieeeusa.org/policy/cvd/2008/CVD2008.pdf

Two New E-Books on Innovation

IEEE-USA has published two new e-books on innovation. The Best of Today’s Engineer: On Innovation is a compilation of the best articles on innovation from the Today’s Engineer archives, and is now available to IEEE members for only $4.95. In addition, we bring you a great companion book, Innovation Conversations — Book 1: The Innovation Process, from internationally renowned innovation expert and author, William C. Miller — now available to IEEE members for a discounted rate of $9.95. Check out these and 21 other e-books (some free!) to IEEE members. To purchase, go to:

www.ieeeusa.org/communications/eBooks.

IEEE-USA’s CareerNavigator

Visit IEEE-USA’s CareerNavigator [http://careers.ieeeusa.org] for your employment, career development, consulting and entrepreneurial needs. Choose from a wide range of products, publications, online management training and other useful services.

IEEE-USA Online Communities

Join 2,800 other members in the online Employment & Career Services Community, and learn about hard-to-find jobs; seek advice from other engineers on how to find a job in a particular industry; and meet people in situations similar to yours.

If you are an entrepreneur, thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, or a seasoned business person, join IEEE-USA’s Entrepreneurs Community at:

www.ieeeusa.org/careers/entrepreneurs/forum.

This community allows entrepreneurs to ask questions; and seek input and advice on writing a business plan, obtaining funding, intellectual property concerns, building a technology business, and more.

IEEE-USA Online Engineering VideoScholarship Competition

In October, IEEE-USA launched an online video competition for undergraduate engineering students, calling on participants to create 90-second video clips, aimed at 11- to 13-year-olds that reinforce engineers’ contributions to the quality of life. IEEE-USA will award seven scholarship prizes totaling $10,000 to the most creative and effective video clips highlighting the theme How Engineers Make a World of Difference. The competition is open to all U.S. undergraduate students in engineering and computer science. All entries must be submitted through YouTube by Friday, 18 January 2008.

For more information on how to enter the IEEE-USA Online Engineering Video Scholarship Competition, go to:

www.ieeeusa.org/communications/video_competition

or e-mail

p.mccarter@ieee.org.

IEEE-USA Mass Media Fellows

Since 2000, in conjunction with the AAAS program, IEEE-USA Engineering Mass Media Fellows have backed nine U.S. IEEE undergraduate and gradate students, who have helped journalists in print and broadcast fields communicate authoritatively to the public about science, engineering and technology. IEEE-USA Mass Media Fellows have been engaged by such media outlets as Scientific American, the Chicago Tribune and WNBC-TV. Mass Media Fellows must be at least a senior in college majoring in mathematics; engineering; or the natural, physical, health, computer or social sciences. Fellows reviewed their experiences in the program in articles appearing in the November Institute Online and in the November-December IEEE Potentials magazine. Deadline for applications is Tuesday, 15 January 2008. For more information on the program, go to:

www.aaas.org/programs/education/MassMedia

or e-mail:

p.mccarter@ieee.org.

13. IEEE-USA Seminar

Career Survival for Engineers and Scientists in the 21st Century

A 1-day career management seminar provided by:

IEEE-USA Career & Workforce Policy Committee (CWPC)

Hosted by the IEEE Northern Virginia, Washington, Baltimore Sections

Date: Saturday, March 15, 2008

Time: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Location:

Cost: $xx for IEEE members; $xx for non members, $xx for students, $xx unemployed. Includes coffee, lunch, and handout of slides

Every mega trend requires new frontiers, new visions, new tools, and new problem solving skills. The latest trend is globalization of commerce, science and technology development. Change is the only unchangeable force in nature. Engineers’ and scientists’ career markets have gone through the following paradigms:

I. 1950s-1960s: Secure engineers in corporate world

II. 1970s-1980s: Restless and trend-knowledgeable engineers

III. 1990s-2000: Project-based engineers

IV. Future Trend: Globalization, Globally competitive engineers

Engineers, technologists and scientists have created incredible inventions using their scientific minds, logical and differential cognitive powers. Our scientific and engineering training equips engineers with the best tools for future career markets. However, it is time to upgrade our tool sets and sharpen our scientific minds to integrate diverse perspectives. The new globalization paradigm requires adopting new tool sets (communication skills and perceptions) to turn negative energy into positive breakthroughs.

The ultimate goal of this Career Workshop is to empower engineers, technologists, and scientists and their profession. It motivates engineers and scientists to work with management and human resources to innovate their own career and lifestyle in the 21st Century with empowered vision, confidence, and global leadership in technology and scientific frontiers.

Objectives and Outcomes

The goal of this seminar is to teach you how to help yourself manage/run your career in this era of globalization and selective hiring.

You will learn about:

• Changes in job market, list of resulting challenges

• Job market requirements, how you relate to market, your business model

• Analyzing personal factors impacting adapting to new workplace

• Starting a personal career plan, values statement, and branding

• New methods of job search, and begin development of your elevator pitch

• Understanding the interview process, what to expect, how to present yourself

• How to help yourself using IEEE resources and help available and be motivated to try new job search approaches

IEEE-USA and IEEE National Capital Area care about your career development. This Career Workshop provides practical and powerful strategies to maximize your career talents presented in a positive and entertaining way. This program will open your eyes and senses to see your career in a brand new light. You can not afford to miss this perception-changing career makeover program.

Course Outline

• Welcome and Introductions (10-20 min)

• State of the Engineering Workplace (30 min) (Hutchins)

Communicate “big picture”, paradigm shift, and dynamics of job market

• Requirements for Success in the new workplace (30 min) (Perkins)

Communicate what employers expect, what attributes are needed to succeed. Understand market requirements, how to relate to market, your business model (EXERCISE)

• Break

• How you can Adapt (30 min) (Perkins)

Communicate attitudes and approaches needed to respond to new workplace. Understand personal factors impacting adapting to new workplace.

What are your “critical variables”? (EXERCISE)

• Developing a career strategy for change (60 min) (Lindborg)

Developing, branding and presenting a successful career plan. Identifying and building your “value added.” Recasting your accomplishments (EXERCISE)

• Lunch – (Noon, 60 min) Keynote (TBD)

• Conducting a Creative job search (30 min) (Lindborg)

New ways find the right job and work opportunities. Networking, informational interviewing. Continuing education. Elevator pitch – tell me about yourself (EXERCISE)

• Effective Writing (30 min) (McManes)

• Closing the deal Part I (30 min) (Lahdhiri)

How to use your resume, how to sell yourself

• Break

• Closing the deal Part II (60 min) (Lahdhiri)

Understand interview process, what to expect, how to present yourself

• Emerging Future Jobs (30 Min) (Perkins)

Where news jobs are coming

• How IEEE can help (10 min) (Lahdhiri)

Understand IEEE resources and help available

• Conclusion - (10 min) (Perkins)

Wrap-Up and Program Evaluation

Speakers

• Ed Perkins is 2007 chair of the IEEE-USA CWPC

• Greg Hutchins is an entrepreneur, management consultant and career coach.

• Henry Lindborg is a recognized expert in organizational program development and planning, management consultant and career coach.

• Tarek Lahdhiri is the co-chair of the CWPC subcommittee on Career Issues.

• Chris McManes is Senior Public Relations Coordinator with IEEE-USA.

Greg Hutchins

Greg is a principal with Quality Plus Engineering (Q+E), a Portland Oregon enterprise solutions company. Q+E is a federally approved provider of lean, program, supply, and risk management advisory services as well as training. Greg has written many columns and articles on career management for IEEE EAB, PMI and ASQ.

Tarek Lahdhiri, Ph.D., P.E.

In 1998, Dr. Lahdhiri joined General Motors Corporation in Warren, Michigan, where he is currently holding the position of Lab Manager for the Vehicle Controls Systems-CAE in the GM Engineering Process and Math Strategy Division. He is currently in charge of the real-time synthesis, analysis, and simulation of vehicle control systems and subsystems. Dr. Lahdhiri is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Michigan. He is currently Region 4 PACE Chair, the Region 4 coordinator for the IEEE-USA Employment & Career Service Committee, a member of the IEEE Educational Activities-Best Practices Planning Committee, and the IEEE Student Advisor at the University of Windsor.

Henry J. Lindborg, Ph.D.

Hank Lindborg is a Quality Plus Engineering in-house Director and Adviser of Organizational Program Development and Planning. He has facilitated strategic planning and coached leaders for improvement. As a consultant he has led strategic planning, organizational development and training initiatives for Fortune 500 companies, schools, banks universities and utilities. Henry created the Quality Opportunity Index for organizational assessment, in use by business, industry, publishing, utilities, and education. The methodology was adopted by AQIP for higher education improvement. He developed 360-degree leadership assessment instrument (1999) in use for leadership coaching at major corporations and in the MBA program at Notre Dame University. Provided individual and group values-based coaching. Hank has a BA from Fordham University, MA and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published Basics of Cross-Functional Teams (Productivity Press, 1997), and is a Career columnist for ASQ’s Quality Progress with over 100 articles, reviews and presentations.

Chris McManes

Chris McManes has worked in public relations for IEEE-USA since November of 2000. He manages the organization's public relations program and helps to formulate its government relations strategy. He often serves as IEEE-USA's spokesman and has traveled across the country stressing the importance of media relations to IEEE members. Chris has helped IEEE-USA garner coverage in the Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, San Jose Mercury News, Dallas Morning News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, EE Times, Computerworld and Electronic Design, among others. Broadcast credits include the CBS Evening News, MSNBC and CNN.

McManes came to IEEE-USA after working as sports information director at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., since April of 1998. He has continued as a part-time employee of the university and promoted the men's basketball team when it won the 2001 NCAA Division III national championship. While working as a sports writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in the 1990s, McManes covered numerous high-profile events, including NASCAR Nextel Cup racing and the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. He has conducted exclusive interviews with a wide variety of people, including actor Craig T. Nelson, and sports personalities Vince Carter, Phil Jackson, Don Shula, Joe Gibbs, Janet Evans, Ty Murray, Chad Pennington and Michael Jordan.

McManes graduated from the University of Maryland in 1982 with a degree in kinesiological sciences (the study of human movement). He also attended the University of North Texas and studied journalism at the University of North Carolina.

Edward Perkins

Ed has 30 years experience in the electronics industry, including hardware design automation, program and project management, mixed-signal test development automation, design services management, chip architecture development, software development, and real time embedded systems programming. He was a program manager in the Virtual Test Division of IMS in Beaverton, OR, where he was responsible for leading their mixed-signal R&D development efforts. Ed also spent 10 years at Digital Equipment Corporation in the central engineering CAD department where he was responsible for development and deployment of CAE services and support to engineering groups worldwide. He has been an IEEE volunteer for 25+ years. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and is Past Chair of the Oregon Section, Region 6 Membership cochair, and a member of the IEEE-USA Career and Workforce Policy Committee. He has a BSEE and MSCS from WPI (Worcester, MA) and most recently an MS ECE specializing in VLSI design and test from Portland State University (Portland, OR).

14. Engineers Club of Baltimore

To celebrate National Engineers Week (February 17-23), the Engineers Club of Baltimore is offering a special initiation fee for the month of February. Join during the month of February for only $100 (Regularly $750).

Contact Keri Haas (keri@esb.org) for more information.

15. Baltimore Region Conferences

The following conferences are planned for Maryland, Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia. This list can be used for planning purposes and also represents potential volunteering opportunities.

2008 IASTED International Conference on Antennas, Radar and Wave Propagation (ARP)

16 Apr - 18 Apr 2008

Best Western Conference Centre

Baltimore, MD, USA

http://www.iasted.org/conferences/home-616.html

2008 Integrated Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Conference (ICNS)

05 May - 07 May 2008

Bethesda Maryland USA

http://spacecom.grc.nasa.gov/icnsconf/index.shtml

2008 IEEE 23rd Annual Conference on Computational Complexity (CCC)

22 Jun - 26 Jun 2008

University of Maryland

College Park, MD, USA

http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/jrogers/complexity/

2008 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering

(CASE 2008)

23 Aug - 26 Aug 2008

Marriott Key Bridge

Arlington, VA, USA

http://www.ieee-case.org

2008 IEEE International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis & Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS)

07 Sep - 10 Sep 2008

Tremont Suite Hotels

Baltimore, MD

16. New Initiatives

New Initiative (NI) funds are available to fund innovative efforts of strategic importance to the IEEE.

Please visit http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/initiatives for further information.

Seed Grants are available "for funding risky and innovative projects where relatively small amounts of funding are required." Seed project funding requests can be for up to US $25,000. The application process is simple. The target time from submission to approval of funds is 45 days, maximum. Seed grants can, for example, be used to show the feasibility of an idea in preparation for a full NI proposal.

For further information, please visit:

http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/initiatives/sgp.html

17. Continuing EE Education

We are re-running this request for interest in a continuing education program. This program will be in the format of seminars focused on a particular topic of interest. The seminars may run either during the week after work hours or possibly on Saturday. The idea for the program is described below.

Name of project: Continuing EE Education (“CEEE”)

Goal: A section-level program aimed at:

Updating the IEEE members on new developments in the EE field.

Familiarizing engineers with basic new tools, products and techniques as well as giving them the initial knowledge and skills to use them.

Inviting representatives from different vendors to present leading novel products.

Giving tutorials in new areas.

Helping IEEE fellow members become more competitive, especially in times of uncertain jobs, off-shoring and salary stagnation.

Facilitating networking.

Broadening the horizon of each IEEE member.

Fostering collaboration between members of different societies as well as generation of new ideas (“cross-pollination” element).

The program should be open to all IEEE members, including students. It is meant to be a cross-societies initiative, i.e. should not be limited to narrow topics serving the interests of a single chapter only. Emphasis should be placed on meeting with experienced experts from different fields. Critical comparisons between different solutions of EE problems are expected to be made, and trends should be discussed.

Potential topics of interest could include, but are not limited to:

Software tools:

Programming languages

Compilers

Real-Time Operating systems

Debuggers

Emulators

Hardware tools:

Novel electronic components

Single-Board Computers (SBC)

Embedded solutions

FPGAs

Printed circuit board design (schematics capture, layout)

Circuit simulation (PSPICE)

Portable devices

Signal and image processing (examples, tools, help)

Wireless devices:

Theory

Standards

Available OEM products

Trends

Internet-based methods and devices:

Standards

Available tools

Web Page Design

Contemporary design tools (like AutoCad and Solid Works)

Reliability and Compliance issues

We plan to invite qualified speakers from academia, industry and governmental institutions. The speakers will be professionals who can give first-hand information and share front-line experience on the technology, methods and tools being presented.

We plan to organize 2-4 meetings annually. Each meeting is planned to last for 2 hours or more. We could meet on weekdays, or on Saturdays.

Please send us your suggestions and preferences regarding topics, time and place of meetings, the name/acronym of the program etc.

Boris Gramatikov

Baltimore Section

Bgramat@jhmi.edu