The IEEE Malaysia ComSoc Chapter was first founded on June 26th, 1992. Later, on May 9th 2006, the ComSoc Chapter was combined with the Vehicular Technology Society to form the Malaysia ComSoc/VTS Joint Chapter. The chapter has been organizing range of activities, including guest speakers, workshops, and seminars as well as social functions every year. The chapter takes pride in hosting the IEEE Malaysia International Conference on Communications (MICC) and International Symposium on Telecommunication Technologies (ISTT) during alternate years. The biggest achievement by the chapter is probably the success in hosting one of the major flagship conferences for ComSoc which is the 2016 IEEE International Conference in Communications (ICC) in Kuala Lumpur.

2022 can be considered as a transition year from the pandemic era to the post-pandemic era. As most activities were done online in 2021, 2022 has seen a mix of online, physical and hybrid events. In summary, the Malaysia Chapter has organized a total of 85 activities in 2022 consisting of the followings:

• 24 administrative and strategic meetings.

• 39 technical activities.

• 10 professional development and industry relation activities.

• 10 Pre-U STEM programs.

• 1 humanitarian activity.

• 1 non-technical (social) activity.

• 1 flagship conference.

• 2 technical co-sponsored conferences.

The biggest highlight of 2022 is probably the 2022 IEEE ComSoc School Series Kuala Lumpur, from June 20th to 23rd, 2022. The event was originally planned for a hybrid event, but due to a lot of uncertainties, especially with the traveling restriction, the event was conducted virtually instead. Nonetheless, the event saw a total of 172 registered participants coming from all over the world and the four-day virtual event with the theme of “Artificial Intelligence and Its Impact on Communications” featured 12 talks and two hands-on sessions by speakers coming from eight different countries, including seven from the ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer Program (DLP). The event was officiated by ComSoc President, Prof. Xuemin (Sherman) Shen.

The chapter has also collaborated with other parties to organize events. The major collaborator in 2022 was the Malaysian Technical Standards Forum Bhd (MTSFB) with whom the chapter has organized the Networking High Tea in Conjunction with the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) 2022 on May 17th 2022. During this event, an international forum on the topic of “Digital Technologies for Everyone” was also held with panelist from MTSFB, IEEE Malaysia ComSoc/VTS Joint Chapter, and the Telecommunications Standards Development Society India (TSDSI). There were also two Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed during the event, including one between MTSFB and IEEE Malaysia Section to further collaborate in future events.

The second event that was organized together with MTSFB was the second National Colloquium on Internet of Things (NCIoT) on November 10th, 2022. The event was held at Multimedia University (MMU) in Cyberjaya and was attended by around 80 participants coming from the industries, academia, and government. The theme for the second NCIoT was, “IoT for Smart City Applications.” The keynote for the event was presented by Dr. Gopinath Rao Sinniah, who is the Chairman of Reference Panel for IoT Standardization in Malaysia from MTSFB. Following the keynote was an industrial forum entitled, “The application of IoT for Smart Cities: Challenges and Future.” In the afternoon, the participants were taken for a short visit to the IoT Smart Farm that has been set-up at MMU.

The chapter has also collaborated with MTSFB and IEEE Computer Society Malaysia to co-organize a three-day Network Security Webinar Series from October 17th to 19th, 2022. The webinar was done on three separate days with three different speakers. The first day featured a speaker from the industry in Mr. Norzakimi, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Nexagate, which is one of the cybersecurity companies in Malaysia with the topic, “Web Security Challenges & What Can We Do About It.” The second day featured from the academic in Dr. Muhammad Faiz bin Mohd Zaki from Universiti Malaya (UM) on the topic, “Increasing Network Visibility for Enhanced Network Security Monitoring,” and the final day featured a representative from MTSFB in Mr. Thaib Mustafa, Chairman, Security, Trust, and Privacy Working Group MTSFB on the topic, “Cloud Security.”

Apart from the technical programs, the chapter has also continued to contribute back to the communities by organizing pre-university STEM programs for school students. The program was conducted online through YouTube and Facebook Live during the school holidays. The program had received a very good response from the school children coming from all over the country especially on some of the general topics, such as 5G, Bluetooth, and Satellite. An average of about 1000 students joined each of the online sessions and the sessions have received positive feedback from parents and teachers.

As 2022 was a transition year back to normality, it is hoped that there will be more face-to-face activities to be conducted in 2023. For 2023, the chapter has planned to organize more events that will benefit the members and at the same time expose the importance of the telecommunication technology to the society. In order to attract more members to join the society, we have also planned to collaborate more with other higher institutions and industries.