CHAIRMAN MESSAGE 

Dear IEEE Members, 

Wish you all a Happy New year! A Prosperous 2021!

A natural question is: as Chair of 2020, what sense did I have of the year? My response has been: A Sense of Resilience, A Sense of Accomplishment, and A Sense of Gratitude. When we realized that we will be in lockdown for a while, we quickly changed all of our activities to online mode. We continued conducting our Execom meetings once per month. When we understood that this pandemic may continue longer, we started utilizing a plethora of tools to host in-depth workshop in virtual mode, stream them for wider dissemination, and carry out remote programs for students and young professionals.

We conducted a series of workshops on different “Technologies underlying 5G”: edge computing, new radio (NR), AI infusion, multiple-access, IoT machine communication and many more. Our members significantly contributed to IEEE 5G World Forum anchored in Bangalore. From technical sessions to practical demos, all were carried out online in Sept. The second half also saw events around WiFi 6.0 and beyond, Cloud-native computing, Hyper-connected Networks et al. 

Our student branches ensemble organized week-long seminars, each evening hosted by a member college. Our student branches now have grown to 9 from 7 a year back. Ph.D. EDITS program has been a great success. For young professionals, we specifically conducted Research Methodology workshops towards Publications, took new initiative for session on ‘How to write your first Patent’ and launched workshop on ‘What does it take to participate in Open Source’.

Execom members’ and volunteers’ indomitable spirit as well as valuable knowledge have helped us grow our membership base in 2020 by 35% over last year. Our members have been inducted in IEEE Standards Association Governing Council, Indian standard body TSDSI GC, OCF association Chair for IoT Interoperability and so on. Also, two awards spoke volume about our team accomplishments: the first, best large-section chapter award in Bangalore Section; and the second, Best ComSoc chapter award in Asia-Pacific region. 

I am very thankful for entrusting me to continue leading this vibrant society in 2021 also. We will strive to make this society stronger in terms of professional growth and community engagement. My sincere thanks go to all of you for your time and effort. We have started off the year with a 90-minute AGM today (9th Jan 2021) followed by an hour-long execom meeting. Possibilities are galore. Our mindset is expansive. I am looking forward to your continued participation to make Y2021 a unique year! 

Dr. Aloknath De, Chair 2020 and 2021, 

IEEE Bangalore ComSoc Chapter, 

CTO — Samsung India, Bengaluru.