IEEE ComSoc Kolkata Chapter: Winner of the 2016 Chapter Achievement Award

By Iti Saha Misra - Kolkata Chapter Chair, India

To begin, ComSoc’s Chairperson of the Kolkata Section, Prof. Iti Saha Misra, would like to convey her sincere thanks to the leaders of IEEE ComSoc Global Activities for considering the Kolkata Chapter as one of the winners for CAA-2016. The year 2016 was a very eventful year for the IEEE ComSoc Kolkata Chapter.

DLT speaker Prof. Luiz Da Silva delivering his lecture at the K.P. Basu Memorial, Jadavpur University lecture.

The Chapter organized two DLTs. On 20 June Prof. Luiz Da Silva of Trinity College Dublin delivered a lecture on “Sharing Infrastructure and Spectrum: A Vision for the Future of Mobile Networks” with 65 attendees from academia and industry; and on 29 September, Prof. Anura P. Jayasumana of Colorado State University, USA, delivered a lecture on “Internet of Things: A Pervasive Technology for Innovation”, with 70 attendees. In addition to organizing these DLTs, the Chapter actively participated and provided technical sponsorship for International Conferences, RAIT-2016 at ISM Dhanbad and ICACNI-2016 at NIT Rourkela. The Chapter also organized six IEEE lecture meetings, three out-reach programs, a one-day Industry seminar, and a four-day workshop with the participation of the new ComSoc Student Branch Chapter at MSIT, Kolkata. The Chapter also convened six executive committee meetings, and participated in two IEEE 5G Summits held in Delhi and Patna.

Chapter activities started at the beginning of the year by hosting an IEEE Technical Lecture meeting on 8 January 2016 delivered by Dr. Samik Sengupta, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) with 60 participants, followed by almost monthly programs through the year. In all programs 10 to 20 IEEE members participated. To partially cover expenses the chapter has taken a small amount of registration fees for one DLT and collaborated with other institutes. In 2016 the one-day industry participated program was financed by Moulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, Salt Lake Kolkata, attended by 120 undergraduate students and research scholars.

Sri Ravi Sankar Prasad, Prof. Ramjee Prasad , Prof. Iti Saha Misra at the Lighting of the Lamp for 5G Summit.

Organizing the DLT program on 29 September at Meghnath Saha Institute of Technology (MSIT) had special significance as the newly formed ComSoc Students Branch Chapter (30 students) was the co-organizer of the DLT. Moreover, it was the first DLT program in the MSIT where the young faculty members and students learned about the IEEE Distinguished Tour quality lecture. The DLT lecture topic was on the very relevant upcoming technology of “Internet of Things: A Pervasive Technology for Innovation”, delivered by Prof. Anura Jayasumana.

The concept of the IEEE 5G Summit in Kolkata held on 17-18 March 2017 has been formalized through the ComSoc representation of IEEE 5G Summit at IIT Patna.

The IEEE Patna 5G Summit was the fourth in the series and the first one in India, and has held at IIT Patna on 29 March 2016 that provided a rich platform for industry leaders, innovators, and researchers from the industry and academic community to speak about 5G technology. The then Hon. Minister of IT (India), Sri Ravi Sankar Prasad graced the Inaugural program along with distinguished Professor Ramjee Prasad, Fellow IEEE and Founder President CTIF Global Capsule. Chairperson of the IEEE ComSoc Chapter, Prof. Iti Saha Misra, highlighted ComSoc activities for 5G initiatives around the world. She is one of the members of 5G Summit steering Committee.

RAIT (Recent Advancement in Information Technology) has become the signature conference of ComSoc, technically sponsored by the IEEE ComSoc Kolkata Chapter for the fourth time, (RAIT-2016) organized by The Department of Computer Science & Engineering of Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad 3-5 March 2016, which was a very technically rich and well organized conference, with the conference proceedings published in IEEE Explore.

ICACNI-2016, the 4th International Conference on Advanced Computing, Networking and Informatics, was hosted at NIT Rourkela, Odisha, India on 22-24 September 2016, technically co-sponsored by IEEE ComSoc Kolkata Chapter. There was a special event featuring a ComSoc student paper contest. The first and second prize winners based on quality of work and presentation were awarded Rs. 2500 and Rs. 1500, respectively, along with a certificate by ComSoc Kolkata Chapter.

The ComSoc Kolkata Chapter organized three outreach programs in 2016. In each program the ComSoc Chairperson delivered a motivational speech for the faculty, researchers and students to join IEEE followed, by a technical lecture. One such collaborative seminar program was held on 23 April 2016 jointly with IETE at Tripura State Centre along with 50 students studying engineering.