Life Members: a vital valuable part of IEEE Region 8
Life Members are a vital valuable part of our scientific and professional community, our Region and the entire IEEE: they are the living knowledge and experience of our community. They can give an extraordinary contribution in building the community and the future, not only as scientists, technologists, and managers, but also as knowledge sources and role models.
I will focus on creating a personalized experience for each Life Member so that she/he can express her/his competences, collaboration, desires, and aspirations to the greatest extent, becoming an essential glue for the entire community and a role model for the new generations. We should always strive to support them, ensuring that they are fully engaged and integral part of our community, our Region, and the entire IEEE, strongly fostering knowledge and experience transfer to the young generations.
With our extraordinary people, I will focus on this goal. Listening to Life Members in each geographical area of our Region, analyzing the local needs and aspirations, and identifying effective solutions all together in addition to the offer conceived to address their specific needs of Life Members as industry professionals and academic researchers, I will work with groups in our Region, all Boards and organizational units in IEEE, catalyzing our efforts in following main areas:
- Develop more practical knowledge to solve real-world problems and use standards (including methodologies, guidelines, best practices, and successful cases) with the extraordinary contribution, knowledge, and practical experience of Life Members, especially the ones who have been active in the industry.
- Expand the educational activities (including continuing education, EPICS and SIGHT projects, and TISP actions) to expand the available offer both in the technical areas and soft skills (e.g., communications, management, leadership) with the extremely significant collaboration of Life Members.
- Expand active involvement of Life Members especially in the local activities organized by Sections, Chapters, Student Branches, and Student Branch Chapters.
- Expand the support for career planning and building, especially through networking with and mentoring by Life Members.
- Foster participation of Life Members in humanitarian activities and engineering projects in the local community to show the value of technology for improving the daily life of people.
- Further expand the recognition of excellence of Life Members.
Actual specific activities should be identified together with Life Members and all people in each geographical area of our Region, since the most appropriate solutions depend on the specific needs and aspirations of the local professional community.
Even though the list of envisioned activities is long, it is worth noting that different groups in our Region and the entire IEEE are involved so that many activities can be addressed in parallel and synergies exploited in coordinated collaborative efforts across our region and the entire IEEE. The actual initiatives should be anyway analyzed on the bases of the specific needs of each geographical area and the available financial and human resources.
