IEEE Region 8 Student Activities Committee (R8 SAC)

Major announcement regarding the SBC 2012

Where will you be spending the best week of your summer next year? The only right answer to this question is, of course, at the IEEE Region 8 Student Branch and GOLD Congress, the biennial congress that brings together 300 student members from all across the region and the world, for a week full of learning experiences, networking and, of course, an incredible amount of fun.

You may be wondering though, where exactly will this be? And, now, we can finally answer your question…

The location for the SBC 2012 will be…

…

…

...

...

…

Madrid, Spain!

The congress organisation will be led by the Technical University of Madrid Student Branch, who previously organised the ISBC 2011. The year ahead will, for sure, be quite intense for them, but that’s what it takes to prepare a LEGENDARY event.

We will, of course, keep all of you posted on the developments, and will announce the registration and funding procedures when the time comes. For now, be sure to mark the last week of July on your calendar, and start gathering stuff for the Multicultural Evening!

See you all in Madrid! :)

Biysk Technological Institute Student Branch (Russia) is organizing the 4th International Distance Contest on Application Programming Microprocessor-based Systems in Assembly Language for MCS-51 Standard Microcontroller.

Registration for the contest is open until October 17, 2011. The contest will be held in two phases, with the first one taking place on October 19, 2011 and the finals on October 26, 2011.

More details can be found on the contest website, and you can contact the organizing team through This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The topic of September R8 SAC Chat Session will be IEEE Day 2011, the 2nd edition of the worldwide IEEE celebration to take place on October 6, 2011. If you want to know more, do not forget to show up for this month's chat session on Wednesday, September 7, at 1700 UTC (other time zones), in our chat component.

As always, if you have any other non-IEEE Day related question, feel free to show up and ask. We are there to answer each and every question. If you still have not registered on our website, go ahead and do it now. See you on September 7!

Getting recognized for all your personal and your team’s efforts as IEEE volunteers is a great reward for all the energy and enthusiasm you put into your student branch day after day. We received many excellent submissions for this year’s region 8 awards. We have been quite busy evaluating them all and the decision in some categories was not easy at all. Congratulations to all the winners!

The results will also be published in the September issue of Region 8 News.

2011/2012 year approaching very fast, and all Student Branches are planning to start recruiting new members and start their activities. But How we shall start recruiting members?, what is the best recruiting strategies to be followed??

The R8 SAC team will be online to discuss and answer your questions about how to perform best Recruiting Strategies on  August 3, 2011, 5pm UTC (other time zones). If you are not registered on our website, you can create an account by selecting the appropriate link on the left sidebar.

Due to some last minute difficulties that were brought to our attention, we have decided to extend the SBC 2012 proposal deadline by ONE week. The new (and final) deadline is June 8, 2011. If you wish to update your previously submitted proposal within this time frame, you are allowed to do so.

IEEE R8 Student Paper Contest 2011 Oral Finals were successfully realized in Lisbon, Portugal, April 26 and 27, 2011, during the EUROCON 2011 Conference. All five selected SPC papers were presented by their authors/co-authors.

After the Oral Finals, Jury awarded the prizes to:

I prize: Diploma and 800 USD (cash award amount)
Shailesh Kulkarni, Patrick Reynaert, Cicero Vaucher, Domine Leenaerts, Maarten Tytgat: "Design of a Ka-band Upconverter for Satellite Communication", Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, Benelux Section
The KU Leuven Student Branch, from which the I prize winner of the SPC 2011 comes from, receives the R8 "Dick Poortvliet Award", an amount of USD 250

II prize: Diploma and 500 USD (cash award amount)
Jaymin Mankowitz,  Andrew Paverd:  "Mobile Device-Based Cellular Network Coverage Analysis Using Crowd Sourcing",  University of the Witwatersrand SB, Johannesburg,  South Africa Section

III prize: Diploma and 200 USD (cash award amount)
Ralph Tanbourgi: "Resolving the Connectivity-Throughput Trade-off in Random Networks", Karlsruhe Univ SB, Germany Section

A new competition co-sponsored by IBM and IEEE provides teams of university students with an opportunity to bring some of the world's most compelling social and commercial challenges into the classroom.

The IBM/IEEE Smarter Planet Challenge: Student Projects Changing the World will debut in IEEE sections in Boston and the United Kingdom-Republic of Ireland during 2011, before being expanded worldwide next year. In the first-year pilot phase, up to three awards will be provided to each section to student teams that propose classroom projects derived from a menu of topics identified by the worldwide IBM Smarter Planet project that confront technology professionals, business leaders and policy-makers.

"Solutions for most Smarter Planet issues require technological expertise, an understanding of business and legal principles, and an appreciation for the social implications of innovation," says Wendy Murphy, Executive Program Manager, IBM Global University Programs. "By co-sponsoring this competition, we want to encourage students to work together in the kind of multi-disciplinary teams that have become a fixture in innovative organizations," she added.

Full details about application procedures and selection criteria are available at smarter planet challenge.