CONFERENCE PROGRAM REGISTRATION VENUE VISA

IEEE Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) Session


Communication Technology Serving Humanity
Monday, 30 November 2009 ● 18:30 - 21:00 ● Tapa Ballroom 3ى
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18:30ىى Networking with Light Refreshment
19:00ىى Panel Session on Communication Technology Serving Humanity
20:00ىى Posters Presentation

About GOLD Panel Session
A common theme of interest and passion for young professionals is a compelling desire to improve our world, contribute to society, and benefit humanity. The current generation of students, young professionals, and women are driven to join organizations and volunteer their time in support of these worthy activities.
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The GOLD panel session will bring together interested individuals and several humanitarian organizations to discuss opportunities for humanitarian engineering outreach activities. The goal is to inform attendees about variety of humanitarian engineering opportunities available, and how communication technology has served the humanity.ى The session will also inspire people, who will invent the future, to bring vision of utilizing communication technology for humanitarian works closer to the young professionals and students.



GOLD Session Panelists
Communication Technology Serving Humanity

Session Chair: Soon Wan

IEEE Member (GOLD)
IEEE MGA GOLD Committee Past Chair

Soon Wan is the 2009 IEEE MGA GOLD Committee Past Chair. He has chaired the committee for the last two years 2007-08.ى He has been serving IEEE GOLD Community since 2000 when he founded Boston GOLD Affinity Group. Soon received the 2006 MGA GOLD Achievement award for "Outstanding leadership and dedication to improving the Region 1 GOLD program by establishing best practices".

Currently, Soon is a member of IEEE N&A (Nomination and Appointment). He is also serving as the Boston Section Treasurer and Volunteer Coordinator. He is the GOLD representative to IEEE HTC (Humanitarian Technology Challenge), and Corresponding Member to IEEE Committee on Earth Observation (ICEO).

Soon graduated from Ngee Ann Polytechnic (Singapore) as the top student with the highest merit diploma. He received Electrical Engineering Bachelor Degree with Summa Cum Laude at Merrimack University, and again as the top graduate student. Soon is a Senior Design Engineer at VICOR Corporation to design and develop high power density DC/DC power converter with innovative technologies and patented topologies.


Session Co-Chair: Dr. Angela Yingjun Zhang

IEEE Member (GOLD)
IEEE Communication Society GOLD Coordinator

Angela Yingjun Zhang received her PhD degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong. Since January 2005, she has been with the Department of Information Engineering in The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she is currently an assistant professor.

Angela is on the Editorial Boards of IEEE Transactions of Wireless Communications and the Wiley Security and Communications Networks Journal. She has served as a TPC Co-Chair of the Communication Theory Symposium at IEEE ICC 2009, Track Chair of ICCCN 2007, and Publicity Chair of IEEE MASS 2007. Angela is an IEEE Technical Activities Board GOLD Representative, 2008 IEEE GOLD Technical Conference Program Leader, IEEE Communication Society GOLD Coordinator, and Member of the IEEE Communication Society Member Relations Council. As the only winner from Engineering Science, Angela Zhang has won the Hong Kong Young Scientist Award 2006, conferred by the Hong Kong Institution of Science.


Roberto de Marca

IEEE Fellow
Chair of IEEE Humanitarian Technology Challenge

Humanitarian Technology and IEEE

Synopsis: IEEE members are involved in many activities using technology to improve human conditions, worldwide.ى Recently, the IEEE has established a wiki-based website, the Humanitarian Technology Network (www.ieeehtn.org) to record these activities and facilitate networking of interested parties.ى The IEEE Foundation has established a special Humanitarian Technology Fund to collect and distribute money for worthwhile causes.ى In addition, the IEEE has partnered with the United Nations Foundation to select three key humanitarian challenges where application of new or improved technologies could improve conditions in developing countries.ى That project is called the Humanitarian Technology Challenge (www.ieee.org/go/htc).ى This presentation will summarize the status of these efforts, with particular focus on the HTC project and progress being made in solving the three selected challenges.ى Continued and increased involvement of GOLD and student members in IEEE's Humanitarian Technology activities is strongly encouraged.

Biography: Roberto was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Southern California, where he earned a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. Since 1978 he has been on the faculty of the Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, having held several leadership/administrative positions including Associate Academic Vice President. Throughout his career Roberto built an extensive international experience spending visiting periods in universities and industrial laboratories in different countries. Twice on leave he served as Scientific Consultant with AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill. In 2008 he was a Visiting Professor with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and later in the year he held a Guest Scientist appointment with NEC Network Research Laboratories in Heidelberg, Germany.

As Scientific Director of the Brazilian National Research Council, managing a 300 million dollar research funding program, Dr. de Marca authorized the startup money for the national research network that led the way to the widespread use of Internet in Brazil. He was a delegate to several ITU meetings where the wireless 3G specifications were developed. Recently, he was appointed member of the advisory committee of Finep, the largest Brazilian funding agency/bank for research and innovation.

Dr. de Marca was the founding President of the Brazilian Telecommunications Society. He is an IEEE Fellow and a full member of the Brazilian National Academy of Sciences. He was the 2000-2001 President o the IEEE Communications Society and in 2008 he served as IEEE Vice President for Technical Activities. He is the Chair of IEEEܑs Humanitarian Technology Project Steering Committee.


Robert M. Walp

IEEE Life Fellow
Chair of Humanitarian Communications Technology Committee

Satellite Communications in Remote Communities

Synopsis: Robert M. Walp will examine the early use of satellite communications to connect isolated remote communities with urban centers for medicine, education, commercial and social purposes, as seen by one participant in the process. The evolutionary development of this technology, comprising random and unexpected events and leading to commercial operational systems, will be covered from a personal viewpoint.

Biography: Mr. Walp pioneered the use of satellite communications for less-developed regions at Hughes Aircraft Company. He went to Alaska in the '70s on a NASA project he initiated to bring telephone and television services to rural areas for medicine and education.

Robert became Director of the Governor's Office of Telecommunications in 1975 and directed a program to ensure that every community in the State had telephone and television service.ى This led to the first use of small earth stations for commercial satellite communications.ى

In 1979 Mr. Walp founded General Communication, Inc. (GCI) with other Alaskans and, as President, guided its growth as a competitive telecommunication carrier until he "retired" in 1990. GCI has become the major supplier for all telecommunications services in Alaska.

He was on an IEEE-supported committee that founded the Pacific Telecommunications Council over 30 years ago and was General Chairman for two conferences, held in Honolulu January 1998 and 1999.

Mr. Walp is a Life Fellow of the IEEE, member of the IEEE Communications Society, on the Board of the IEEE Society on the Social Implications of Technology, and was General Chairman for ICC 2003, held in Anchorage, Alaska.ى He is Vice-Chair of the Technical Committee on Information Infrastructure and was Co-Chair of GIIS 2009.ى He is on the Executive Committee of IEEE GLOBECOM 2009.ى Recently, he was appointed Chair of the newly-formed Humanitarian Communications Technology Committee.

He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Physics from the California Institute of Technology.


Mehmet Ulema
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IEEE Senior Member
IEEE GLOBECOM 2009 Technical Program Chair

GAP: Improving Access to Worldwide Telecom Network

Synopsis: Telecommunications services are not equally available to everyone in the world. This disparity, often called the "Digital Divide," receives much talk, but little progress has been made. This talk will focus on the economic aspects and discuss how subsidy funds can be directed to the consumers. When implemented, this concept provides consumers with the purchasing power needed to buy services; thereby it emulates conditions in an affluent region and attracts entrepreneurs to supply services in response to demand. This project requires input from many disciplines. There will be technical analyses of existing and new portions of the net, but there will also be much economic analysis, model building and simulation. Selected representative topics include service needs according to region, technologies and their applications, skills, essential human capital, regulatory and governmental policies, etc.

Biography: Mehmet Ulema is a professor at Manhattan College, New York. Previously, he held management and technical positions in Daewoo, Bellcore, Bell Labs, and Hazeltine.ى He served as the chair of Information Infrastructure and Radio Communications Committees.ى Currently, he is serving as a Technical Program chair for Globecom 2009. More recently, he served as a General co-chair for NOMS 2008, and as the Program chair for a number of conferences including ICC 2006, CCNC 2004, NOMS 2002, and the ISCC 2000. He served on several ComSoc committees including GITC, On-Line Content Board, and Meeting and Conferences Board, Currently he is on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Network and Services Management, the Wireless Network Journal, and the Journal of System and Network Management. Mehmet received his MS and Ph.D. degrees from Polytechnic University, Brooklyn, New York, and his BS degree from Istanbul Technical University.