Dear Members,
Welcome to our February 2024 IEEE WIE Newsletter. I am excited to work for you with the 2024 IEEE Women in Engineering Leadership
For WIE members’ awareness, engagement, and knowledge, IEEE WIE has prepared a document/report highlighting IEEE WIE Program Values and Statistics in 2023.
IEEE WIE Membership and AG Status
IEEE WIE Membership: There were 46,983 WIE Members as of December 2023, a 14.7% increase in WIE membership Year-over-Year (YoY) with a 17.7% change in Higher grade membership and a 13% change in student membership.
IEEE WIE Affinity Groups: There are 1,227 WIE Affinity Groups and WIE Student Branch Affinity Groups as of the year-end December 2023. There continues to be steady growth in WIE AGs/SBAGs with 59 new groups (9 AGs & 51 SBAGs WIE AGs) formed in 2023. The statistics for Section WIE AG in 2023 is:
R1: 2
R6: 1
R8: 4
and R9: 2 – an attestation of the effort in forming the Section WIE AGs in regions with low membership. For comparison, in 2022, there were 7 Affinity Groups formed and 32 Student Branch Affinity Groups for a total 39 new WIE affinity groups.
A Recap of Important IEEE WIE Happenings
Congratulations: IEEE WIE events were conducted and reported in vTools by local WIE Affinity Groups and WIE Student Branch Affinity Groups world wide, Time duration: From January 1 through December 31,
2023: 4,931 events, 2022: 4,556 events.
Congratulations! the IEEE Board of Directors has approved the IEEE History Committee’s recommendation that the proposal below be approved as an IEEE Milestone with the following citation:
Title: A-0 Compiler and Initial Development of Automatic Programming, 1951-1952
Citation: During 1951-1952, Grace Hopper invented the A-0 Compiler, a series of specifications that functioned as a linker/loader. It was a pioneering achievement of automatic programming as well as a pioneering utility program for the management of subroutines. The A-0 Compiler influenced the development of arithmetic and business programming languages. This led to COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) becoming the dominant high-level language for business applications.
For more information visit the milestone page on ETHW.
Congratulations to Kate McDevitt to serve as a proposer of the milestone. It is a great honor that I, Celia Shahnaz, served as an advocate of the milestone (as an IEEE History Committee member and the Liaison from IEEE WIE to IEEE History Committee).
Congratulations to IEEE WIE Climate Tech Big Idea Pitch Competition winners and honorable mentions.
It is a great moment for IEEE WIE to introduce IEEE WIE Family Cares Grant Program (FCGP) in January 2024 to support persons of any gender with primary responsibility for caring for family members (children, seniors, disabled) so to attend IEEE conferences. Strongly appealing to all to share it to your networks for an outstanding outreach, visibility and success.
IEEE WIE hosted the first girls in STEM panel during the IEEE STEM Summit on Oct 24th, 2023, View the panel session here: IEEE Women in Engineering WIE Panel 1
IEEE WIE STEM Grant Program in partnership with IEEE EAB Pre-university Education Coordination Committee (PECC) has attracted 215 applications. Thanks to WIE leaders/volunteers who signed up as judges. Stay tuned for the result announcement!
The 2023 WIE Virtual Awards Ceremony took place on December 19th 2023. Congratulations to all winners previously announced and Sadhana Attavar, 2023 Outstanding Committee Volunteer of the Year Award Winner (announced during the ceremony).
Specialty: brief trainings from Past IEEE award Board Chair, Karen Panetta and IEEE MGA award Chair, Celia Desmond
298 Registrations, 88 participants, 64 views
Congratulations to the 2023 recipients of the IEEE WIE International and the IEEE Frances B. Hugle Scholarships winners!
Thanks to IEEE WIE team to have impactful engagements in Climate Change Assessment and Sustainability at IEEE WIECON-ECE 2023, Kerala, India (R10), and at IEEE EMBS student branch chapter, Lebanon (R8).
IEEE WIE Senior Membership Elevation Drive has been going strong with high momentum and queries about our posts in Collabratec and LinkedIn. SM elevations, Year-to-date (Jan-December, 2023), 2023 – 159 , 2022 – 64, Percentage Change: 148%
As part of IEEE WIE Fellow Elevation Drive, we have collected testimonials from 2024 class of IEEE Fellows who are IEEE WIE members, thanks to Georgia Tourassi, Ana Garcia Armada, and Hong Chen.
Also, IEEE WIE has organized a webinar –Am I Qualified to be Considered for an IEEE Fellow? – Presented by Don Tan, 2023 IEEE Fellow Committee Chair on 11 January 2024
Registrants by Region: Total Registrations: 245, Region 1 – 11, Region 2 – 4, Region 3 – 10, Region 4 – 13, Region 5 – 13, Region 6 – 20, Region 7 – 14, Region 8 – 41, Region 9 – 7, and Region 10 – 67. We had 45 who did not provide a location. Total Attendees: 193, Total views as of February 1, 2024 – 176
Click here to view webinar: https://ieeetv.ieee.org/video/am-i-qualified-to-be-considered-for-an-ieee-fellow
IEEE WIE has planned the first partnership with IEEE HKN and has sponsored the following Panel
Panel theme: Promoting Diversity and Inclusion –in Path ways to Industry
Date: Friday, February 23rd — 10:00 am – 10:50 am NY time, For details, visit, https://pathways.hkn.events/
IEEE WIE Special Funding: In 2023, 19 WIE affinity groups were approved to receive special funding for a total of $6,900 in funding. (R6-1, R7-1, R8-3, R9-4, R10-10)
IEEE WIE Initial Funding: In 2023, 9 WIE affinity groups were approved to receive initial funding for a total of $1,800 in funding. (R8-2, R9-2, and R10-5)
IEEE WIE Travel Grants: In 2023, 8 WIE members were approved to receive a travel grant for a total of $5,000 in funding. (R1-1, R2-1, R8-1, and R10-5)
Apart from continuing on the 2023 reflections (please visit IEEE WIE Chair’s messages of 2023 IEEE WIE Newsletters), 2024 primary directions are:
1. Implementation of IEEE WIE Family Cares Grant Program and soliciting donations;
2. Relaunch of IEEE WIE ILC for 2025;
3. IEEE WIE AG Revitalization Program;
4. IEEE WIE Upskill Program for students to YP retention and elevation;
5. Continued/solidify partnership with IEEE OUs: IEEE HKN, History Committee, SA, Foundation, LM, HTB/SIGHT, TAB, REACH, MOVE, Smart Village, EAB PECC, SOEC, EPICs in IEEE, Entrepreneurship & Future Directions Committees;
6. Realization of WIE Pledge among OUs to promote Diversity and Inclusion;
7. Charters for IEEE WIE Magazine and IEEE WIE Forum USA East;
8. Enhanced Industry Engagement and Entrepreneurship Programs for WIE, and,
9. Strategy Refresh and reassessment of IEEE WIE Programs to engage regions with less participation for capacity building.
Thank you all for your extraordinary contributions to IEEE WIE!
Celia Shahnaz