The Canadian Atlantic Section has a large number of active society chapters relative to its size covering a great variety of different topics.
These include the:
Communications Society,
Computer Society, and the
Oceanic Engineering Society.
There are also five joint society chapters. These are the
Circuits & Systems / Solid-State Circuits Society,
Computational Intelligence / Systems, Man & Cybernetics Society,
Power & Energy / Industry Applications Society,
Robotics & Automation / Instrumentation & Measurement Society, and the
Signal Processing / Microwave Theory & Techniques Society.
Each technical chapter has a ton of resources available for volunteers, whether it is in the form of technical content, funding for chapter events or the Distinguished Lecturer program. We are always looking for new volunteers to join the team and help support activities with our local chapters.
Traditional Events / Schedules / Formats
Events have traditionally been in the form of a one to one and a half hour lecture style presentation or a tour of a communications-based company or facility. Speakers have been drawn primarily from local companies and organizations with the occasion Distinguished Lecturer organized through the Eastern Area or a visiting professor or industry person whom was present on business related with Dalhousie University or a local company.
Events are usually held during the standard academic terms (September to November and January to March) to take advantage of the large student membership present during those times and to avoid the summer season when many members chose to take vacation time. Events usually begin at 5:30pm so as to not overlap with classes running at the local universities and to catch most industry members immediately following working hours before heading out of the city.
Events which had very broad topics of discussion tended to draw larger crowds then those which had a very narrow or specific focus. Topics that could be of interest to multiple disciplines (engineering and computer science) were also quite popular.
Historical Leanings / What Works Well
Each technical society provides a list of distinguished lecturers in different areas relevant to the chapters. Usually we can invite from these lists worldwide renowned professors and chief scientist in leading companies that are specialized in topics relevant to our members.
After the DL expresses his interest to visit our chapter for lecture, we send the lecture proposal to the DL program general Chair for approval. After receiving the approval we publicize this lecture in Atlantic Canada website. Also to get more engagement from our IEEE students’ members we publicize this lecture internally in universities.