PES Humanitarian Activity Committee organized PES-HAC Congress where there were 27 speakers, 110 ambassadors, and more than 1400 registered participants from 55 countries.

IEEE PES Humanitarian Activity Committee (HAC) organized first ever PES-HAC Congress on a theme “Sustainable Energy for Smart Future”. The four days long event especially during weekend hours conducted during 23^rd – 24^th and 30^th – 31^st October 2021 fully on virtual mode. There were 27 speakers and more than 1400 participants registered from 55 countries worldwide. The most attractive part was the number of participants (unique ID) joined online each day was on an average 265. The congress was supported by PES-CSAC and humanitarian activity committees of IEEE Region 7, Region 8, Region 9 and Region 10. There were around 110 ambassadors actively participated the congress apart from the regular participants.

The objective of this congress was to make aware and train the young enthusiasts to serve the society with their technological knowledge as per their capacities. On each day, the event was so scheduled to have an interactive training session, keynote speakers’ panel session, refreshing competitions and networking sessions. Active involvement of distinguished speakers, trainers, all working group members, and ambassadors was the driving force and reason behind the grand success of this congress.

During the first day of the PES-HAC Congress, the initial hour was designed to train the participants on “Sustainable EV– incorporating community needs beyond traditional mobility”, conducted by Ashraful Haque, Chair, PES HAC Mentoring Working Group (WG). The next hour was the Keynote Speakers’ Panel Session and we are honoured to have following distinguished speakers to deliver speech on the theme of the congress:

Julio Rumero Aguero, IEEE PES Vice President, Membership and Image
Shay Bahramirad, President–Elect, IEEE PES
Paul Cunninghum, Past President, SSIT
Robin Podmore, Co-Founder, IEEE Smart village

The participants were actively engaged in the successive Pitch Session and a very interesting Online Live Quiz Session led by Walid Bin Habib, Chair, PES HAC Student Activity WG, Nourel Houda Chetoui and Shahabzada Badar.

The day two of the congress started with the training session designed by Alexander A. Anderson, Chair, PES HAC Partnership WG with the active support of Nina Miller and Melissa Sassi. The training focussed on “Humanitarian Technology Project Planning – A Systems Engineering Approach to Holistic Sustainability”. The second session of the day, Keynote Speakers’ Panel Session witnessed a pool of learned speakers:

John D McDonald, Past President, IEEE PES
Ljiliana Trajkovic, IEEE Division X Delegate/Director
Bikash Pal, PES Vice President, Publications

During the Mentoring session, the invited speaker was Anis Ben Arfi, Chair, IEEE Region-7 HAC has shared the humanitarian activities conducted by their region with the young participants to energize them. The Pitch Session and Online Live Quiz Session were arranged like the first day in between.

Day 3 of the congress flagged off with the training session of Alexander A Anderson and moderation support by David Lansdale and Melissa Sessi. The participants got the insight on holistic overview of sustainability through system engineering approach. Next a very informative Panel Session of following Keynote Speakers was held.

Saifur Rahman, IEEE President – Elect, 2022
Luis Kun, IEEE SSIT President – Elect, 2022

A special session was arranged to encourage the members at various stages for engaging in PES-HAC activities. The session offered three segments dedicated for Women in Power, PES Young Professionals and PES Senior/Life Member, and respective speakers were:

Celia Shahnaz, Chair, PES HAC Education WG
Anandhu S Kumar, Chair, PES HAC Event WGee
Tanmoy Roy Choudhury, Secretary, PES HAC

Finally a mentoring session was held where the invited speakers were Abdullateef Aliyu, Chair, IEEE Region-8 HAC and Thiago Alencar, Chair, IEEE Region-9 HAC. They explained various initiatives, events, competitions and projects conducted in their regions focusing on humanitarian technology.

The final day of the congress was started with the training session of PES HAC Chair Shaikh A Fattah. The session was based on the topic “Sustainable Energy – Can you make a plan for Slum Area?”. Participants actively participated and shared their suggestions. In the Keynote Speakers’ Panel we had following distinguished speakers:

Frede Blaabjerg, Past President, IEEE PELS
Yousef Ibrahim, Vice President, Membership Activities, IEEE IES
Ramakrishna Kappagantu, PES Member at Large, Philanthropic
Sampathkumar Veeraraghavan, Global Chair, IEEE HAC

The Mentoring Session was enlightened with the presence of Invited Speaker Jing Dong, Coordinator, HTA, IEEE Region-10. The closing session of the congress witnessed the presence of Julio Rubero Aguero and a special recorded address of Juan Carlos Montero, Past Vice President, Membership and Image, IEEE PES. 2022 Humanitarian Technology Project Design Competition (HTPDC), the flagship event of PES HAC has also been announced during the Congress.

More updates can be viewed:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PESHAC
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PES_HAC
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcVZxdArZ8i7iWJLo79aIhA

Tanmoy Roy Choudhury, Secretary, PES HAC
Email: info.pes.hac@gmail.com