The IEEE Region 9 Committee Meeting was held in Lima, Peru from March 12 to 14, 2020. The Regional Meeting (RM) is an event that takes place every year at a headquarters in Latin America and the Caribbean. The participants are the members of the Regional Committee: Section Presidents, Council Presidents, Presidents of regular Committees and members of the Executive Committee, all with the right to vote in the decisions made during this meeting. The agenda that takes place during this meeting is established for the benefit of all IEEE members (students and professionals) and society, which positively impacts the development of the Region and strengthens ties between Latin American countries and the Caribbean.

Alberto Sánchez, IEEE R9 director, welcomed the 90 attendees to the meeting and introduced the special guests: Toshio Fukuda, President of IEEE; Kathleen Kramer, IEEE Secretary; Cecelia Jankowski, Managing Director of MGA; Kukjin Chun, VP of MGA; and In addition, the directors from other regions accompanied us at the meeting including Magdalena Salazar, R8 Director and Akinori Nishihara, R10 Director.

Later, roundtables with specific themes were created: New Section Officers Training, Educational Activities Committee, Governance Committee, Technical Activities Committee, Humanitarian Activities Committee and Industry Engagement & Entrepreneurship. The round tables were spaces for discussion on a wide variety of topics focused on the areas described, as well as the development of strategies and opportunities to offer benefits to the members of the region.

The Societies also had the opportunity to meet and share their strategic plan for 2020. Currently, the ComSoc R9 director is Nury Ramírez, who during her presentation reported the services and resources that the society has for its members, and highlighted the Flagships and Core Conferences of ComSoc; she subsequently announced the Young Professionals and Distinguished Service Awards that will launch in July 2020 and presented to the Board ComSoc R9.

She said that “The primary purpose of our board is to assure that R9 ComSoc fulfills its mission and meets its goals”. The board members of the Board and their areas of responsibility are shown in the table below.

Statistics were also a relevant topic during the presentation, since it is one of the Societies with the largest number of members in the region. However, in March 2020 it had a decrease in members in relation to 2019. The sections with the most members in the region are Ecuador, Peru and South Brazil. With all the aforementioned background, the goals and priorities for 2020 were presented, focused on four specific areas: ComSoc public visibility, technical content, membership and industry engagement.

The goals of 2020 are:

1. Get an understanding of the local needs and expectations (social, academia and industry) in terms of the Communications fields.

2. Increase the visibility of technical experts in communications from different LA countries.

3. Engage a particular company to co-organize an Industry Summit/Symposium according to ComSoc’s format.

4. Increase the number of ComSoc student branch chapters.

5. Promote the active participation of ComSoc local volunteers and chapters (Section and Student Branches) in R9 ComSoc social media.