In order to serve IEEE WIE communities and members during the COVID-19 pandemic, from April 2020 IEEE Turkey WIE decided to design a virtual strategy and adapt to the conditions of a pandemic.

It is only when we’re faced with a pandemic such as the latest COVID-19 outbreak that we can truly assess if our plans are flexible. It may be impossible to meet in person, but it is actually also another opportunity to connect and collaborate to overcome challenges together. We have 3 main virtual events by IEEE Turkey: E-Tea Talks, E-Learning Ports, Virtual Empowering Women Summit.

Instead of waiting for the day when physical events and gatherings are possible again, we have already organized a series of these virtual events, and actually, we learned and experienced that going virtual actually offers many advantages.

E-Learning Ports

  • Every month there is a new “E-Learning Port” that consists of several sessions/training and each port with a different technical or professional theme.
  • Up to 30 participants need to apply and were selected to attend each “E-Learning Port”.
  • Participants receive a “certificate of attendance” after completing the tracks of each port.

E-Tea Talks

E-Tea Talks connects volunteers and experts worldwide at the virtual platform mostly in a panel discussion format. We have connected IEEE volunteers addressing several organizational units and technical societies’ volunteers worldwide in these panel sessions. These panels are still available to watch on-demand on our YouTube Channel.

  • April – August 2020: Organized several E-Tea Talks every week
  • From August 2020: Plan to host at least 1 E-Tea Talk per month

Empowering Women Summit 2020 will be held December 8-10 and December 15-17 as a virtual event with three hours of daily content, and in total of more than 12 keynote talks, addresses from experts which will be broadcasted for everyone as part of the program.

For all these initiatives, we closely collaborated with several IEEE Organizational Units, Technical Societies and also other NGOs, corporate partners and stakeholders from Turkey.

Impact

  • Connecting experts and volunteers worldwide,
  • Recognizing volunteers and experts with knowledge, skills and experience to inspire others to progress in their own lives, careers, professional and personal development.
  • Networking and reunion opportunity on the virtual environment
  • Supporting our volunteers both professionally and personally, for the women in the tech community
  • Collaboration opportunity with other NGO’s and stakeholders

Resources

We used virtual tools and platforms to plan these events. Most of the events were live-streamed on IEEE Turkey WIE YouTube Channel