PES-HAC Updates: Final Round of PES-HAC HTPDC 2021
IEEE PES Humanitarian Activity Committee (PES-HAC) has organized the First PES-HAC Humanitarian Technology Project Design Competition (HTPDC) during the PES Day 2021. All the six local rounds and the final round of the PES-HAC HTPDC 2021 were successfully completed in April during the PES Day 2021. In the last issue of the PES Enews, updates on the first three local rounds were provided.
In this issue, the updates on the last three local round and the Final Round are presented. (https://site.ieee.org/pes-day/pes-hac-2/)
Fig.: At a glance PES-HAC HTPDC 2021
During 17-18 April 2021, three local round competitions (LRCs) were held in three countries. In what follows, a brief overview of these local rounds is presented.
HTPD Local Round Competition-04
The fourth regional round of HTPDC was hosted by the PES Morocco Chapter. The event was held on April 17, 2021. At the beginning the welcome address was given by Dr. Ghassane Aniba, SMIEEE, PES Morocco Chapter Chair and Associate Professor, Electrical Department, Mohammed V University in Rabat. He appreciated the effort carried out by the PES HAC to provide this unique opportunity to all participants from three
Fig.: Participants in the LRC-04
continents (Africa, America and Asia) to exchange and discover different proposed project designs and do networking among them. Then Prof. Shaikh Fattah, PES-HAC Chair provided a brief introduction about the PES-HAC HTPDC 2021.
Fig.: Flyer of the Event (LRC-04)
First keynote Talk was delivered by M. Mirand Vladimiro, Fellow of IEEE and PES Distinguished Lecturer. He is the Associate Director, INESC Technology and Science, Portugal, President of INESC P&D Brasil, Brazil and Professor at the University of Porto, Portugal. Title of this talk was “Innovation is cooperation -success stories in the power and energy domain”. Next keynote speaker was Dr. Hicham Bouzekri, SMIEEE and Vice-Chair, IEEE PES Morocco Chapter. He is the Director of R&D and Industrial Integration at the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy (MASEN), Morocco. Title of his talk was “Renewables in the Moroccan energy mix”.
Distinguished judges from Morocco were: Dr. Ghassane Aniba and Dr. Hicham Bouzekri. From the HTPDC committee, Dr. Shaikh Fattah, Dr. Thiago and Dr. Hussain Mahdi provided feedback and suggestions during the competition. Project designs of four teams were presented. The names of the teams and the project titles are listed below:
- RedRangerz.co: FutureCycle: FutureCycle
- PES UFCG: Humanitarian Technology as a form of Inclusion and Scientific Democratization
- SOLUSAC: SOLUSAC – Humanitarian Project
- Jalapeños: Automatic Street Light Control by Detecting Human Movement
Presentations and Q/A sessions were very interesting. From the beginning, there were more than 25 participants. Special thanks to Dr. Shaikh Fattah, Albin Paul, Project Communication Chair, and Sarath S., Communication Lead of Morocco Local Round of the HTPDC 2021.
HTPD Local Round Competition-05
The fifth regional round of the PES-HAC HTPDC 2021 was hosted by the IEEE PES UFPB student branch chapter from Brazil on April 17, 2021. At first a brief introduction to the HTPDC 2021 was provided. Two honorable judges of this round were Frank Lambert, PES President and Dr. Edison Roberto, IAS/PES/PELS Northeast 1 Joint Chapter President.
Fig. Presentation from Frank C. Lambert and the Participants in LRC-05
Fig.: Flyer of the Event (LRC-05)
PES President Frank Lambert shared his experience on the topic “The PES Leadership Challenges during the Pandemic”. He mentioned that his journey as a PES president almost started with the pandemic in 2020. He explained how even in the pandemic, PES and its members are carrying out meaningful activities. The team-name and project title of the five teams participated in this round are:
- IEEE-PES Western Puerto Rico Section: Green light system,
- Amapá Energy: Training and maintenance of oxygen plant systems,
- PESoeiros de GIEEEz de Fora:Light-Planter Box,
- PES Ustentável team: Sustainable gas production for schools,
- UCET IUB Tech: Facility of clean energy and purified water to the life in desert
Moderators of the local round were Mr. Filipe Bulhoes and Ms. Iasmin Monteiros who are the members of IEEE PES UFPB student branch chapter. There were more than 40 participants during the event. The lead of the organizing team of this local round was Sarah Toscano, HTPDC 2021 Publicity Chair.
HTPD Local Round Competition-06
The sixth regional round of the PES-HAC HTPDC 2021 was hosted on April 17, 2021 by the IEEE PES YP Kerala Section from India. Two respected judges of the competition were Professor V. K. Damodaran, Advisor and Moderator of IEEE PES Kerala Chapter and Professor Muhammed Kasim S, Student Contest Coordinator, IEEE PES Kerala Chapter.
Fig. Participants in the event (LRC-06)
Five teams presented the project design in this competition. The name of the teams and their project titles are given below:
- Team Beyond Borders: Footstep Power Generation System for Battery Charging
- Vibrant: EVA – Electric Vehicle Assistant
- VJCETians: Ignite
- Aspire: SUSTAINABLE FUEL GENERATION SYSTEM
- Charging Up 2.0: Charging Up
Fig.: Flyer of the Event (LRC-06)
Professor V. K. Damodaran, Advisor and Moderator of IEEE PES Kerala Chapter delivered a keynote talk titled “Picking Tools for Tackling Humanitarian Challenges: Some Field Experiences”. At the beginning Prof. Shaikh Fattah, PES-HAC Chair briefly presented the objectives of the PES-HAC and the HTPDC 2021. Finally, the vote of thanks was given by Mr. Anandhu S Kumar, PES YP Coordinator, IEEE PES Kerala Chapter. Among the dignitaries, Dr. Sobha Manakkal, Vice Chair of IEEE PES Kerala Chapter was also present.
The Final Round Competition and Award ceremony were held during 24th and 25th April from 7 AM to 10:30 AM ET where 250 and 170 participants attended, respectively.
Final Round of PES-HAC HTPDC 2021
Day-01 of Final Round:
On the first day of the Final Round, at the very beginning, Julio Romero Agüero, PES VP, Membership and Image discussed the lessons learned in project design. He briefly explained the major steps in project design and shared his experience. Next the Inaugural Keynote Talk was delivered by Frank C. Lambert, PES President. The title of his talk was “Microgrid for Thoman Community in Haiti”.
Fig.: Frank C. Lambert Delivering the Keynote Talk
During his talk Frank covered the real-life experience in implementing a notable humanitarian technology project at Haiti. He stated the technical details and emphasized the critical issues and student engagement during the project implementation. Next the judges of the final round were introduced: Dr. Ghassane Aniba, SMIEEE, PES Morocco Chapter Chair; Dr. Celia Shahnaz, IEEE PES Women in Power (WiP) R10 Representative; and four Judges from the HTPDC Steering Committee Dr. Shaikh Fatth, Dr. Thiago Alencar, Dr. Hussain Mahdi, Dr. Tanmoy Choudhury, and Ashraful Haque.
Fig.: Judges of the Final Rounds (Day-1 and 2) of HTPDC 2021
Each team then presented the updated design with technical details, feasibility, sustainability, scopes and future plan. Each design presentation was followed by a question-answer session. Ashraful Haque, Chair, Project Mentoring HTPDC’21 coordinated the session along with Dr. Tanmoy Roy Choudhury, Project Publication Chair. Albin Paul, Chair, Project Communication Team, HTPDC 2021 and Sarah Toscano, HTPDC 2021 Publicity Chair were supporting along with their team members. In fact, judges provided valuable feedback for the successful future implementation of the projects.
Fig.: Final Round Judges and Key Members of the HTPDC 2021
Day-02 of Final Round:
On the second day of the Final Round, at the very beginning, Frank C. Lambert, PES President, discussed various major issues in project design for the participating teams. The most attractive round in the second day was the Flash Round where each team was asked a single question and that question was selected from the questions raised by other teams. To answer a question, a team was allocated only 2 minutes time. After the Flash Round, Julio Romero Agüero, PES VP, Membership & Image gave the concluding remark.
Fig.: Invited Speakers/Guests in Closing and Award Ceremony
Next session was the Award Giving Ceremony where distinguished guests were present. Juan Carlos Montero, Past VP, Membership & Image delivered a recorded presentation where he described the necessity of a humanitarian activity committee in PES and how the PES-HAC was launched. Next, Chaitali Naik, PES-Day Chair 2021 shared her experience and emphasized the impact of HTPDC in PES Day celebration among the young members.
Fig.: Participants in Closing and Award Ceremony
The first Invited Speaker of the Closing Ceremony was Jessica J. Bian, PES President-Elect. She discussed the importance of humanitarian activity in PES and praised the leading role of PES-HAC in pioneering such an effective competition. The second Invited Speaker was Sampathkumar Veeraraghavan, Chair, IEEE HAC. The title of his talk was “Leveraging humanitarian engineering programs to address sustainable development challenges”. He shared various challenges in implementing humanitarian technology projects and possible solutions and informed about the funding opportunities in HAC/SIGHT. Finally, Saifur Rahman, PES Past President offered a congratulatory address. He inspired the project participants for their contributions and explained the importance of member engagement in humanitarian projects.
At the end, the name of top three winning teams of the 2021 HTPDC was declared by Prof Shaik Fattah. Two teams jointly secured the first position: Team Tyro and Proyecto luz Verde UPRM and the third position was won by Jalapenos:
Team Tyro: S. Banik (Team-Lead), M. R. K. Hamim, S. Salekin, and M. Ferdous
Team Proyecto luz Verde UPRM: Dr. E. O. Rivera (Team-Lead), J. M. Cabrera, A. B. Rivera, C. F. Fermin, T. P. Ruiz, M. C. Morales, M. C. Martinez, J. S. Fernandez, F. S. Viera, Dr. M. C. Siritiche, Dr. F. A. Rengifo, and Dr. L. O. Exclusa.
Team Jalapenos: J. Benedict (Team-Lead), V. Dahiya, A. Das, A. Tripathi, and V. Sagar
Fig.: Top Three Projects
The final ranking was prepared based on the evaluations in the local round, improvement demonstrated after the local round competition, performance in the final round and flash round. The ranking of the top ten teams was published.
Videos containing the presentations of the top ranked team are available in the PES-HAC YouTube Channel
Fig.: Facebook Live snapshot: Jointly First Prize Winning Two Teams
Brief description of the projects were submitted by the teams and combined for a quick reference. More descriptions can be found here.
The final day event was shared on Facebook Live.
You may visit the Facebook page to get regular updates regarding PES-HAC initiatives.
Volunteer Opportunity at PES-HAC:
If you are interested to serve the committee of PES-HAC, please apply here before May 31, 2021.
Shaikh Fattah, Chair, PES-HAC HTPDC 2021
Dr. Ghassane Aniba, PES Morocco Chapter Chair
Sarath S., Communication Lead of LRC-04
Sarah Toscano, HTPDC 2021 Publicity Chair & Communication Lead of LRC-05
Justin Varghese, Communication Lead of LRC-06