Category Archives: Uncategorized

Advancing Technology through New Initiatives

IEEE Future Directions fosters innovation and advancements through new and emerging technologies. Through the leadership of and guidance from the Future Directions Committee (FDC), it oversees nine initiatives going into 2024, along with efforts ranging from collaboration on technology roadmaps and global perspectives on semiconductors. The newest activity launched is a coalition across TA and IEEE on AI.

Focusing on the Initiative Process.

The methodology and process for determining which topic areas for FDC to work on for IEEE is an organic process. It is through a combination of analysis from FDC’s Industry Advisory Board (IAB), inputs from FDC members, Societies and Councils, IEEE Industry Engagement Committee, IEEE New Initiatives Committee, and consideration of current trends. More importantly, it requires a champion who has the knowledge, passion, and enthusiasm to start and lead a new initiative. The initiative must have a robust and large enough volunteer base for success. Cross-collaboration is equally important. Future Directions promotes collaboration among all Societies and Councils, and the organizational units across IEEE.

An initiative normally defines its goals and a strategy for success with the eventual outcome to become self-sustaining. Activities may include augmenting an existing IEEE conference(s), organizing a new conference or event, developing new educational opportunities, identifying new standards opportunities, and if there is a business need for a new application.

The lifecycle of an initiative ranges from four to six years, upon which it can evolve to various states outside of Future Directions. Examples may include it becoming a standalone, self-sustaining Technical Community or Committee, managed within a Society, its assets broken up across TA, or not continue.

Highlighting one initiative.

One of the current nine initiatives leverages the various technologies that enable and support the current and future needs in public safety. The IEEE Public Safety Initiative originated within the IEEE Future Network Initiative. It formally was approved by FDC to become an initiative in 2022.

Public Safety is a key imperative that affects all of us especially seen last year from the wildfires in Canada that generated significant smoke that impacted the air quality across the United States or that of natural disasters like the earthquakes in Turkey.

Public Safety per se is not considered a technology, but it is all the various technologies that can and do contribute to public safety needs. These range from, but are not limited to communications and networking, edge and cloud computing, IoT, blockchain, AI and machine learning, intelligent data, and augmented and virtual reality.

One key activity underway by the IEEE Public Safety Initiative is the first of its-kind conference on Public Safety Technology. The IEEE World Forum on Public Safety Technology (WF-PST) will be held 14-15 May 2024 outside of Washington, D.C.

Another activity is its support of the next IEEE Tech Talk in Orlando, Florida during the February Meeting Series.

Engagement and outreach opportunities.

As previously mentioned, a key success factor for any Technical Community or Committee depends on having a robust volunteer network. The IEEE Public Safety Initiative welcomes your interest and contributions. It is not the only opportunity. There are other activities within Future Directions as well as each Society or Council having their own Technical Community or Committee or special interest group.

To learn more about IEEE Public Safety Initiative or IEEE Future Directions, please check out each respective website. publicsafety.ieee.org, ieee.org/futuredirections

Please reach out with any questions and comments via Kathy Grise, k.l.grise@ieee.org.

Sensors Council

25 Years of the IEEE Sensors Council – A Success Story

John Vig, Founding President, IEEE Sensors Council

IEEE had many sensor activities in the 1990s and earlier, mostly in its technical societies, but the activities had no focus. My main purpose in founding the IEEE Sensors Council was to create a sensor focus in IEEE primarily through the creation of the IEEE Sensors Journal and the IEEE SENSORS Conference.

In the mid-1990s, the director of my laboratory asked me and two other researchers to help him deal with a budget cut. He set a goal of cutting half a million U.S. dollars from the library’s budget.

At that point, my team quickly became educated about the economics of publishing. When we first saw the prices we were paying for subscriptions, we were absolutely astounded. One journal, for example, published by a commercial publisher, cost 27 thousand U.S. dollars a year, and this was in 1996!

A typical IEEE journal’s price was 20–30 dollars a year for members and a few hundred dollars a year for institutions. Many commercial publishers’ prices were in the thousands of dollars a year.

Upon learning this, I became determined to start an IEEE Sensors journal.

At about that time, I was elected president of the Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society and started participating in Technical Activities (TAB) meetings. The first TAB meeting I attended took place in 1997 shortly after my lab’s budget cuts.

At this meeting, I asked fellow presidents: does your society have activities in sensors? More than half the society presidents answered yes. Therefore, I started organizing an effort to create a council devoted to sensors. Initially, most society presidents were reluctant to support the idea.

I argued that, as nearly every society has an interest in sensors, but we have no journal in the field, and we have no major conference in the field, the logical thing to do would be to create a council.

I presented a proposal to TAB in June 1998. The then VP of TAB, Lloyd A. (Pete) Morley, was supportive. He formed an ad hoc committee and appointed me to chair it. He asked us to propose a constitution and bylaws at the November 1998 TAB meeting – which we did. After a vigorous debate, TAB approved them. I returned the following February to propose the establishment of the IEEE Sensors Council. TAB voted nearly unanimously to approve this proposal too.

In less than a year from the time I first proposed it, we persuaded the society presidents to overwhelmingly support the council.  Twenty-six societies, more than two-thirds in existence at the time, joined the Sensors Council. Subsequently, I was elected to be the first president of the Council and Vladimir Lumelsky was elected to be the first Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Sensors Journal.

Issue 1 of the Journal was published in June 2001. It contained ten papers. The early issues received few submissions. We were concerned, but then, the December issue received 16 papers, and, Volume 2, in 2002, contained 79 papers. The journal was on its way. It grew “exponentially” in the years that followed, as shown below.

Number of downloads and number of articles published in the IEEE Sensors Journal from its founding to 2023.

By 2011, the Sensors Journal had published 3500 pages. During 2020, the journal published 15,000 pages and its articles had been downloaded 1.2 million times.  In 2023, the Journal published 32,000 pages and had 3 million downloads, the 4th highest among the 131 IEEE journals.

The Council also started the IEEE Internet of Things Journal, another highly successful journal. It had 2.9 million downloads in 2023, the 5th highest among IEEE’s 131 journals. Also in 2023, the Council’s flagship conference had more than 1,000 attendees for the first time.

Innovation has been the hallmark of the Council. For example, the Council has been recording conferences and other presentations, and posting them on YouTube, for more than 10 years (>2K presentations posted; >300K views).

So, the main reason for establishing the IEEE Sensors Council, which was, primarily, to create a sensor focus in IEEE through the creation of an IEEE journal and an IEEE conference, has been achieved.

Councils have no members. Therefore, who is responsible for the Sensors Council’s successes during the Council’s initial 25 years? They are the thousands of volunteers who contributed their time and expertise; the editors, reviewers, authors, committee members… Thank you, volunteers!

News You Can Use from IEEE Technical Activities

IEEE Power & Energy Society – Powering The Next Generation of Change

The IEEE Power & Energy Society offers valuable programs including those for young professionals and students, such as job fairs, networking events, and panel sessions. Learn more about what attendees gained from the 2023 annual IEEE Power & Energy General Meeting (GM), and what you can look forward to at the upcoming 2024 IEEE Power & Energy Transmission & Distribution Conference & Exposition (T&D).

With over 42,000 global members, the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) is the 2nd largest society at IEEE.  With such an expansive network of volunteers making an impact,  IEEE PES’s Young Professionals and PES Student Members are poised to continue the tradition of change and influence in the power and energy industry.  

To cultivate the next generation of power and energy professionals, PES is proud to offer flourishing student programs at their flagship conferences, notably the annual IEEE Power & Energy General Meeting (GM) and bi-annual IEEE Power & Energy Transmission & Distribution Conference & Exposition (T&D).

At the 2023 IEEE PES General Meeting, held 16 – 20 July 2023 in Orlando, Florida, with nearly 3K attendees,  PES offered the following program to IEEE Young Professionals and PES Student Members.  

  • Student, Industry & Faculty Luncheon and Job Fair – At the luncheon a leading panel of faculty and industry professionals at various stages, offered key career advice and insights into the professional opportunities in the power and energy field.  Following the luncheon, a sold-out job fair was held with premier industry organizations represented,  companies included Burns & McDonnell, LUMA, S&C Electric, and more.
  • Student Poster Contest – 265 student research posters were selected and presented, showcasing the progressive research of the up-and-coming legion of power and energy professionals.  PES proudly supported these students in their journey, offering them complimentary event accommodations and reduced event student registration rates.

At the upcoming 2024 IEEE PES Transmission & Distribution Conference and Exposition on 

6 – 9 May 2024 in Anaheim, California, over 10K attendees are expected to attend with nearly 750 exhibitors.  As the largest and premier event in the IEEE Power & Energy Society events portfolio, PES is proud to offer the 2024 Collegiate and Young Professionals Program to support those looking for a career in the power and energy industry.  

The program is designed for the next generation of professionals who have innovative ideas and desire to shape a more sustainable future.  Highlights include a student poster session, internship opportunities, a Young Professionals Panel, professional headshots, interviewing tips, and more. 
As PES continues to foster and inspire the next generation of power and energy change-makers, you’re invited to stay updated on the upcoming IEEE PES Young Professionals and PES Student Members opportunities by following PES on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and X.

Society Member Benefit: Free IEEE DataPort Subscription

If you’re looking to further your research or access research datasets in your field of research, take advantage of your free individual subscription to IEEE DataPort. All society members automatically receive a free individual subscription to IEEE DataPort, the go-to resource for accessing, storing, and managing research data. Just log in to IEEE DataPort using your society member credentials to activate your free individual subscription.

IEEE DataPort has over 6 million global users and over 5,000 datasets and with your free individual subscription, you will get free access to all of the 5,000+ datasets. IEEE DataPort datasets have a CC-BY license so datasets can be copied, analyzed, or used for any other purpose with proper attribution.

IEEE DataPort also allows society members to upload 2TB of data, store research data indefinitely, obtain a DOI, link to a paper, generate citations, and more – all at no charge. If you have valuable research data that could benefit the global technical community, upload your own research data.

Storing your research data on IEEE DataPort helps gain citations and exposure for your research. Remember, just log in to IEEE DataPort using your society member credentials to activate your free individual subscription, a $480 annual value.

We look forward to adding more society members to the IEEE DataPort community.

Nobel-Prize-winners

IEEE Congratulates Nobel Prize Winners in Physics and Chemistry

IEEE wishes to congratulate the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry as awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Nobel Prize is widely considered one of the world’s most prestigious awards and has been honoring individuals from around the world for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for work in peace since 1901. In celebration of this achievement by these scientists and authors, IEEE has developed a listing of some of the laureates’ published works for both Physics and Chemistry that include a sampling of articles related to these achievements in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. All of the sample articles listed are available free to access for a limited period of time.

Winners in Physics

IEEE congratulates Ferenc Krausz, Pierre Agostini, and Anne L’Huillier on winning the 2023 Nobel Prize for Physics. The prize was awarded jointly to the three scientists “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter.”
According to the announcement from the Nobel Foundation, the  laureates’ contributions have “enabled the investigation of processes that are so rapid they were previously impossible to follow.”

It further explains that there are “potential applications in many different areas. In electronics, for example, it is important to understand and control how electrons behave in a material. Attosecond pulses can also be used to identify different molecules, such as in medical diagnostics.”

Winners in Chemistry

IEEE also congratulates Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus, and Alexei I. Ekimov on winning the 2023 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The prize was awarded jointly to the three scientists “for the discovery and development of quantum dots, nanoparticles so tiny that their size determines their properties.”

According to the announcement from the Nobel Foundation, the  laureates’ contributions have “succeeded in producing particles so small that their properties are determined by quantum phenomena. The particles, which are called quantum dots, are now of great importance in nanotechnology. Quantum dots now illuminate computer monitors and television screens based on QLED technology. They also add nuance to the light of some LED lamps, and biochemists and doctors use them to map biological tissue.”  It further explains that “in the future they could contribute to flexible electronics, tiny sensors, thinner solar cells and encrypted quantum communication.”.

You can find many more articles related to the topics of electron dynamics, attosecond pulses, quantum dots and related technologies in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

Climate Change Opportunities to Publish

IEEE Technical Activities is committed to publishing cutting-edge research dedicated to developing solutions for many critical climate change issues. As a researcher, consider publishing your climate change research in one of IEEE’s upcoming special sections:9ta0

A Message from the 2023 Technical Activities Vice President

A Message from the 2023 Technical Activities Vice President

A Message from the 2023 Technical Activities Vice President

Dear Colleagues,

We have reached the end of the year, a good time to reflect on what we accomplished and look forward to what comes next.

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.

Climate Change Technologies

This IEEE-wide grand challenge effort has achieved implementation across the Institute, with efforts leveraging all the strengths of the IEEE. For Technical Activities (TA), we look to our strengths in content creation realized through convening world-class conferences and meetings, curating and disseminating information through top publications, and aligning with the IEEE Ad Hoc Committee to Coordinate IEEE’s Response to Climate Change (CCIRCC) TA has responded with a core TA Program in Climate Change, supported by the Future Directions Committee convening of a virtual meeting covering the broad prospectus of IEEE capabilities in climate change technologies. We have created a steering committee to determine a sustainable path forward for the TA Climate Change efforts, which is examining options including continuing as a TA Program as well as forming a Technical Community 2.0 to build a community in the space that can create and cosponsor conferences and publications capable of generating resources to support its mission activities including outreach and engagement of the general public, media, and policymakers, as well as industry practitioners and the R&D community from academia, industry, and government. The efforts to seed activity this year will continue to bear fruit in the form of robust activity going forward, and we look forward to the next chapter in this story.

New Products and Services

At the start of 2023, TA took over the 2022 Board of Directors activity in Data-based business strategy to seek a way to valorize the massive IEEE data holdings in the engineering and technology space. That activity has resulted in key new product concepts.

AskIEEE is a technology encyclopedia in your pocket, with user profiles tailored to user contexts ranging from K12 students and educators to the general public, to college students, media and policymakers, and investors, practicing engineers, and researchers. AskIEEE can provide encyclopedic information appropriate for the context of the user and add value through cross-reference to relevant products, services, and events. For example, in a query about 4G versus 5G technologies, the K12 student and general public might receive information on basic differences in capability in terms of range, speed, and latency. The media or policy maker might additionally receive contact information for IEEE experts willing to be interviewed or testify to a parliamentary body. Practicing engineers might receive links to standards and specifications, while researchers might be connected to research articles on the topic. Queries in each category might also produce information on experience-appropriate educational materials and information on upcoming nearby meetings, workshops, and other events related to the topic. An AskIEEE prototype was demonstrated recently at Sections Congress. Development continues as the engine is trained against additional information.

Efforts continue to valorize the vast amounts of technology data produced and curated by IEEE, as well as the usage of data to understand emerging technology trends continues. Beneficiaries of such a product could include venture capitalists, Wall Street investors, chief technology officers, and many more. The goal is to improve the efficiency of the use of capital in advancing technology, clearly symmetric with the IEEE mission of advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Incorporating fast-breaking technology insights delivered through more than 2,000 IEEE conferences is a real challenge and will require the support of TA’s 47 Societies and Councils to achieve. This tool will also benefit IEEE in spotting emerging trends early, enabling us to build early support for nascent technical communities to bring them into the IEEE family.

Inclusion and Diversity

TA continues to focus on inclusion and diversity, integrating the multi-dimensional concept throughout operations. The TAB Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (CDI) is currently conducting a climate survey of TAB which will provide valuable information on the current state and help set baseline metrics against which to measure progress. The CDI Award Subcommittee (chaired by Prof Elza Erkip) met to complete their evaluation of the eight nominations that were submitted this year. We are looking forward to the presentation of the Award at the November 2023 IEEE Technical Activities Board meeting in Washington, D.C. We would like to challenge Societies and Councils to work with the TAB CDI and the IEEE WIE to come up with ways to recognize achievements in diversity and inclusion in their events and activities.

IEEE Fellows Process

Implementation of the new IEEE Fellows process is in progress this year. While the resulting changes challenged deadlines for getting all the components in place, the benefits should outweigh the initial pain of making the change. Society and Council Fellows evaluators will have more input into the program, which was very important, especially for smaller fields of interest. We also have new categories which clarify the many different metrics that support elevation to Fellow status, as well as a more deliberate effort to build nominee pools beyond individual networks to ensure many diversity dimensions are considered that may be underrepresented in nomination networks, including geographic, career path and role, and gender. Now that much of the transition is complete, we anticipate next year will be easier, as we also see the benefits reflected in the next Fellows class.

Society and Council Partnership

I have had the opportunity throughout the year to attend the Administrative Committee (AdCom) or Board of Governors (BoG) meetings of several Societies and Councils. In particular, we discussed the Technical Activities strategy to better support our community and beyond with the latest technology information delivered through events, publications, and other products and services, with more planned for the months ahead. For me, it is a great opportunity to learn more about the myriad fields of interest within TA while sharing strategic opportunities with our top leaders.

Notable outcomes of which we are particularly proud include the 25th anniversary of the Sensors Council, which has achieved an amazing level of collaboration with 26 Societies. We are pleased to see that the Transportation Electrification Technical Community, officially becomes the Transportation Electrification Council (TEC) in 2024 with a seat on TAB. TEC will sign an MOU at the November OU series to share IP with the Industry Applications Society, Power and Energy Society, and Power Electronics Society. TEC has 18 society partners. Given the cross-cutting nature of many technology grand challenges, this level of partnership is an excellent demonstration of the impact of IEEE’s technology prowess.

TA Tech Talk

We hosted technology and innovation expert Mark Moran of John Deere at the Chicago Operating Unit (OU) series in June for the inaugural TA Tech Talk, with great audience engagement, login with your IEEE credentials to access the recording. The next TA Tech Talk will take place at the November OU series and will feature semiconductor expert Falan Yinug, Director of Economic Strategy at Qualcomm. Falan was previously Director of Industry Statistics and Economic Policy at the Semiconductor Industry Association. We anticipate a lively discussion!

For more details, please see the Fellows website at ieee.org/membership/fellows.

IEEE’s Open Access Program Evolves to Meet Authors’ Changing Needs

John P. Verboncoeur, IEEE Vice President of Technical Activities, discusses the growing impact of open access and how IEEE continues to adapt and evolve

As a growing number of authors in the STM community increasingly choose to publish via gold fully open access options to increase the visibility of their research to more users and optimize impact, IEEE is making important strides to provide a broader portfolio of open access options for these authors. By growing and adapting our portfolio in this way, it enables IEEE to continue to fulfill its mission and vision to drive global innovation through broad collaboration and the sharing of knowledge. IEEE’s ability to adapt is more important than ever today as, according to a recent report from the STM Association, more than a third of all global research articles are now published open access. The report goes on to state that.the percentage of newly published articles made available via gold full open access between 2012 and 2022 has increased from 9% to 35%, an almost four-fold increase.

IEEE works to support all authors globally with more choices

As these trends continue to evolve, IEEE has worked to rapidly expand opportunities to publish for our authors and meet author needs by providing new pathways to publish OA and developing new initiatives that support open science. IEEE recognizes that many authors prefer to publish OA to optimize the visibility of their research or have a need to meet the requirements of research funder mandates. Since IEEE strives to support all authors and readers globally, we aim to offer any author a publication venue that is compliant with their circumstances, regardless of their funding status, the publishing mandates they may have in place, or where in the world they may work. 

IEEE launches new open access options for authors

In 2020, in an effort to meet the evolving needs of authors, IEEE launched new fully open access journals in a wide range of technologies including biomedical engineering, computing, nanotechnology, power electronics, telecommunications, vehicular technology, and more..This is in addition several other existing open access titles such as IEEE Photonics Journal and IEEE’s most popular interdisciplinary OA journal, IEEE Access. IEEE has continued to rapidly expand this portfolio and today offers more than 30 fully open access journals, in addition to over 170 hybrid journals that offer an open access option. With all of these options in place, IEEE has reached a milestone of over 1 million open access articles published in 2023.

Maintaining journal quality in the open access model

One of the concerns stated in some circles of the scholarly community related to the open access model is the question of maintaining journal quality. The concern is that the typical gold OA model requires an author to pay article processing charges (APCs) to publish OA and that this may incentivize some publishers to publish a much greater quantity of articles to optimize revenue. This type of behavior could in turn diminish the overall quality of the corpus of scientific literature available to the research community. In fact, in a recent article from Science, it was announced that nearly two dozen journals from two of the fastest growing open-access publishers will no longer receive a journal impact factor, one of several key metrics used to evaluate journal quality. 

When IEEE launched its new open access journals, we listened to these concerns and took action to ensure the proper safeguards are in place to protect journal quality, regardless of publishing model. Independent editorial boards were developed for each journal to drive IEEE’s commitment to publish high-quality articles and breakthroughs in technology innovation.  Each new open access journal is required to follow IEEE’s established high standard of peer review and publishing principles, drawing on expert technical communities to continue to meet or exceed the same high quality as our premier subscription titles.

In addition, IEEE continues to build an integrated ecosystem with other publishers to scale up the detection of research misconduct in scholarly publishing. This commitment helps IEEE to maintain the health of the scholarly record, uphold publishing ethics and the detection of research misconduct. 

IEEE’s commitment to quality shines through

As a result of the commitment to quality, IEEE’s open access publications have made significant strides in a very short period of time to meet IEEE quality standards. In June 2023, IEEE announced that 12 of IEEE’s new fully open access journals were accepted into the Web of Science Core Collection™ by Clarivate and received their first Journal Impact Factors according to the 2022 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) from Clarivate, released in 2023. According to Clarivate, the Web of Science Core Collection™ follows a unique selection process conducted by expert in-house editors using a set of 24 quality criteria designed to select for editorial rigor and best practice at the journal level. The IEEE journals listed above successfully met this set of quality criteria within just a few short years of launch and were entered into the Clarivate Emerging Sources Citation Index™ (ESCI).

In addition, the JCR study reveals that IEEE hybrid journals, all which all offer an open access option to authors, continue to maintain rankings at the top of their fields based on key methods of citation measurement including Impact Factor, Eigenfactor and Article Influence Score. In fact, IEEE has 15 of the top 20 journals in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 10 of the top journals in Telecommunications and 5 of the top 10 in Artificial Intelligence by Journal Impact Factor. IEEE Access, IEEE’s largest fully open access publication, is ranked as the No. 1 journal by Eigenfactor in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications.

IEEE’s support and commitment to open science

IEEE is continually working to develop more tools, services, and publication opportunities for authors and researchers to help increase the exposure of their work. To that end, IEEE has also introduced the following open science initiatives to further support researchers and enable greater discoverability of their research:

  • TechRxiv™ – a free preprint server for unpublished research to help authors share early results and discoveries ahead of formal peer review and publication
  • IEEE DataPort™ – an online platform that enables researchers to easily share, access, and manage datasets in one trusted location, with an option to post open access
  • Code Ocean – an easy-to-use platform in which users can share and run code in the cloud to enable reproducibility of results

Compliance with funder mandates

In addition, IEEE recently committed its full portfolio of more than 170 hybrid journals to transformative status, enabling any Plan S funded author to publish OA in any hybrid title.This transition to Transformative Journal status is another demonstration of IEEE’s ongoing commitment to working with institutions and funders to provide sustainable open access publishing opportunities to authors that allow for a wider dissemination of knowledge and enables authors to maximize exposure of their research.

IEEE forms transformative open access agreements with Institutions

Finally, I wanted to note that IEEE offers flexible open access programs designed to make it convenient for institutions to support and manage costs for authors and simplify the publishing process by paying for APCs in advance. IEEE now has new options for any size organization, designed to make it easy for institutions to assist their authors and demonstrate their support for open access. You can view a list of approximately 500 institutional agreements on IEEE Open to find out if your institution has an agreement with IEEE.  

As you can see, IEEE has expanded its open access options significantly in recent years and continues with several new OA publications coming soon in 2024. This evolution is an indication of IEEE’s ongoing support and commitment to open science and in enabling all authors to continue to publish in the publication of their choice to share their research with the scholarly community.

For more information on IEEE open access solutions, please visit open.ieee.org.

Smart Cities Taking the Lead to Create TC 2.0

The IEEE Smart Cities Technical Community is leading the way as the first pilot for the TAB Technical Community 2.0 (TC 2.0) Ad Hoc. The TC 2.0 Ad Hoc Committee with the Smart Cities pilot continues to learn from each other and build the TC 2.0 infrastructure, governance, and framework together. Participation in a TC 2.0 is open to anyone with interest in the subject area, including non-IEEE members. 

As a TC 2.0 entity, Smart Cities is empowered to grow and innovate within a lightweight, operational framework that reduces the burden on the TAB infrastructure and supports long-term sustainability, and continued success.

TC 2.0 aims to offer a new option for an overall structure and business process for new and emerging areas across Technical Activities, to assist in the support and consolidation of IEEE activities across a broad set of technical, socio-economic, and ethical focus areas. TC 2.0 aims to support the IEEE 2023 focus areas of innovation, coordination, cooperation, and communications.

Smart Cities originated as an initiative within IEEE Future Directions with funding from TAB and the New Initiatives Committee (NIC). The Smart Cities Technical Community brings together a broad array of IEEE’s technical societies and organizations helping to advance state-of-the-art technologies for the benefit of society and to set the global standard by serving as a neutral broker of information amongst industry, academic, and government stakeholders.

The IEEE Smart Cities mission is to foster technological innovation and excellence in smart city technologies and systems for the benefit of humanity and society. As a community, IEEE Smart Cities envisions being a leading professional organization that engages stakeholders in the development of sustainable, resilient, equitable, and privacy-respecting smart city technologies and systems that address diverse community needs.  The volunteer and expert-led IEEE Smart Cities Technical Community will achieve this vision as a cross-disciplinary platform for research, development, technical standards, and professional educational materials. 

There are six (6) IEEE partner organizational units who contribute to the Smart Cities Technical Community strategic and operational activities. Included are Industry Applications Society, Power and Energy Society, Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society, Intelligent Transportation Systems Society, Council on Electronic Design Automation, and Council on RFID. Further, potential new partners are in the process of joining the technical community.

Sign-up to Stay Informed

Here are some of the products and services that have been developed and made available.

·  Newsletter with original articles.

·  Live webinars on topics focused on smart and sustainable cities leveraging new technologies and solutions.

·  Annual flagship conference and other co-sponsored events.

Upcoming Events and Awards 

Currently, Smart Cities has an open call for city/municipality projects that have successfully leveraged smart city technologies and innovation. If you have successfully completed a project by March 2023 that highlights smart cities technology and innovation, please apply (by June 30, 2023) to be considered for the 2023 IEEE Smart Cities Award. Contest finalists will receive a qualified endorsement from IEEE to establish your projects credibility for implementing future projects. 

In addition, contest finalists will have the opportunity to showcase their project at IEEE International Smart Cities Conference (ISC2) 2023. For more information on how to apply, Smart Cities Contest 2023.

ISC2 is the flagship IEEE Smart Cities event which brings together practitioners, city policymakers and administrators, infrastructure operators, industry representatives and researchers to present technologies and applications, and to share their experiences and views with current and future Smart Cities applications. In its ninth year, the conference includes keynote and panel session discussions, tutorials given by experts on state-of-the-art topics, and special sessions on emerging topics with the aim of complementing the regular program. ISC2 2023 will be held in Bucharest Romania, 24-27 September.

Please reach out with any questions and comments via Kathy Grise, k.l.grise@ieee.org.