As the chair of the ComSoc and Signal Processing joint chapter in Austin, we have opportunities to reach out to the community and industry. National Instruments is a major industry leader in Austin and ComSoc and National Instruments have collaborated on many conferences and events. Our chapter continues to participate annually in National Instrument Week and support the section at the IEEE booth. Early in 2019, the chapter helped the ComSoc Summer School organizing committee by promoting the Summer School with speakers and promoting the event.
The 5th Edition of the IEEE ComSoc Summer School was held on 16-19 July 2019 at National Instruments Corporation, Austin, Texas. It was designed to help kick-start the careers of over 24 new professionals, Ph.D. candidates, and researchers in wireless communications from around the world.
The event featured a highly interactive classroom environment with an intense focus on learning the cutting-edge trends in communications technology, as well as laboratory tours, demonstrations, hands-on workshops, poster presentations, and networking activities.
The four-day program consisted of 14 lectures by world-leading professors, industry leaders, and executives. The program focused on applications in specific industries including commercial cellular wireless service, automotive V2x and autonomy, and defense funded research. The workshop featured Massive MIMO and mmWave technologies to create real-world wireless testbeds using Software Defined Radio (SDR) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) techniques.
Among the speakers were James Kimery, NI Marketing Director of Wireless research, who spoke about Evolving 5G and the Challenges Ahead–5G 2.0. Sarah Yost, a senior manager at NI, provided an interactive demo using FPGAs and SDRs to create real-time testbeds
We were pleased to have three speakers from the Central Texas section, including Dr. Brian Kelly from the University of Texas in San Antonio, who spoke on Software Defined Radio Open Platform, and Dr. Heena Rathore, from Hiller Measurements, who spoke about “Deep Learning Based Security Solutions for the Internet of Medical Things”. Finally, I had the opportunity to share my experience and provided a keynote on “Collaborative IoT, 5G and AI Empower Building Smart Solutions towards Smart Cities”.
The event was very successful. The students had a great time networking and had the opportunity to visit some attractions offered by Austin.