A Busy 2015 for IEEE ComSoc in Eastern Canada

By Anader Benyamin-Seeyar - Chair, IEEE Montréal Communications and IT Chapter, Fabrice Labeau - IEEE Montréal Section Chair, Canada and Mouhamed Abdulla - Vice-Chair, IEEE Montréal Communications and IT Chapter

In 2015, IEEE ComSoc Chapters in Eastern Canada had an active and dynamic year. We brought some of the best technical speakers across the world from Australia, Asia, Europe, and North America, to IEEE members that are interested in telecom-related technologies and research. Overall, we had the pleasure of inviting 15 outstanding telecommunication experts from government, academia and industry. The speakers are leaders in the field, and a number of them are IEEE Fellows.

The IEEE Montréal Section was a champion in initiating many of these events. Then, based on the availability and interest of the invited speakers, we coordinated visits to IEEE Sections and research institutes in neighboring cities. Indeed, one of the advantages of IEEE Sections and ComSoc Chapters in Eastern Canada is the close cooperation among volunteers. Specifically, the IEEE Sections in Montréal, Ottawa, Kingston, Québec City, and St-Maurice demonstrated an example of teamwork in adequately managing these technical events.

Logistically, we had exceptional speakers that were invited as IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturers (DL). With this privilege, ComSoc covers airfare expenses for these high-profile speakers. Local expenses were naturally covered by the particular Section and Chapter. Of course, aiming for a Distinguished Lecturer Tour (DLT) to a certain city and its neighboring IEEE Sections is more impactful while remaining economical to the Society. We are proud to report that this is exactly what we achieved in Eastern Canada during 2015. In addition to DL/DLTs, we also had speakers who were invited through sponsorship via the IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Speaker Program (DSP). This program has a fixed financial support that is practical for local expenses and generally excludes travel costs. Yet, even for DSP lecturers, we were able to organize tours to nearby cities. Furthermore, we had speakers who were in the region under research visits. Through networking relations, we were privileged to have them visit our Sections and present their most recent findings to IEEE Members in Canada. Some memorable pictures from throughout the year with DL/ DLT/DSP speakers are included with this article.

As expected, despite the different angles of research, the common theme among the majority of these technical seminars focused on the definition, expectation, and the eventual realization of the much anticipated 5G wireless network. Of course, the subject matter of optical communications was also treated. An overview of the seminars is listed below:

IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer Tours (DL/DLT):

IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Speaker Tours (DSP):

IEEE ComSoc Invited Speakers:

  • Prof. Matthew Valenti (West Virginia U., USA), “Coverage and Rate in Finite-Sized Device-to-Device Millimeter Wave Networks,” Mar. 23, 2015 (https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/33209).
  • Prof. Pierre Duhamel (Supélec, France), “Robust Reception of Multimedia: Joint Source, Protocol, and Channel Decoding,” Jun. 04, 2015 (https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/34684).
  • Dr. Pierre Siohan (Orange Labs, France), “Multi-Carrier Waveforms: State of the Art and Challenges in a 5G Perspective,” Jun. 08, 2015 (https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/31935).
  • Drs. Sergey Andreev/Olga Galinina (Tampere U. Technology, Finland), “Intelligent Connectivity Enablers for Converged Heterogeneous 5G-IoT” and “Analytical Performance Evaluation of Cooperative and Multi-Radio Concepts,” Jun. 09, 2015 (https://meetings.vtools.ieee. org/m/34875).
  • Prof. Pablo Piantanida (Supélec, France), “The Wiretap Channel with Generalized Feedback: Secure Communication and Key Generation,” Sep. 10, 2015 (https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/35839).
  • Prof. Bharat K. Bhargava (Purdue U., USA), “A Mobile-Cloud Pedestrian Crossing Guide for the Blind,” Sep. 29, 2015 (https://meetings. vtools.ieee.org/m/35864).
  • Mr. Charles Rousseau (Radio-Canada, Canada), “Spectrum Issues for North American Broadcasters” and Mr. Guy Bouchard (CBC, Canada), “Potential Interference from IMT Devices to C-Band Satellite Broadcast Services,” Oct. 05, 2015 (https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/36153).
  • Dr. Marco Breiling (IEEE BTS DL, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, Germany), “Terrestrial Broadcast vs. LTE-eMBMS: Competition and Cooperation,” Nov. 19, 2015 (https://meetings.vtools.ieee. org/m/36603).

Overall, we would like to acknowledge the wonderful volunteers that assisted in any capacity to make these events possible. Special thanks to IEEE Societies that were co-sponsors of these seminars, in particular: IEEE Information Theory Society (ITSoc), IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS), IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS), and IEEE Broadcast Technology Society (BTS). Moreover, Concordia U., McGill U., U. Québec, ÉTS, and INRS were all gracious to provide facilities for these seminars.

The momentum of our successes will hopefully continue. We already have exciting plans for outstanding speakers in 2016. One such planned event is our first DSP Invitee, Prof. Martin Haenggi (U. Notre Dame, Indiana, USA), who will visit and offer a Distinguished Lecture on “Stochastic Geometry for 5G Cellular Network Modeling and Analysis” for Montréal and Québec City February 18–20, 2016. Stay tuned!