What Is IEEE ComSoc Young Professionals?
The IEEE ComSoc Young Professionals (YP) group provides a “technical haven” within IEEE for graduate students and early to mid-career professionals who have received their first professional degree within the past 15 years.
It is an international community whose members are interested in elevating their professional image, expanding their global network, connecting with peers locally, and giving back to their community.
This includes professionals from various sectors of the communications engineering field such as academia, industry, governmental agencies, and the startup community. These groups of vibrant young minds, who are gearing up to shape and lead their organizations, actively contribute as members to both IEEE ComSoc and the IEEE Young Professionals (http://yp.ieee.org).
Young Professionals at IEEE MeditCom 2021
An exciting event was organized at the 1st IEEE International Mediterranean Conference on Communications and Networking (IEEE MeditCom 2021) on 7 September 2021 in Athens, Greece. The event was co-organized by the Communications Chapter and Professional Activities of the IEEE Greece Section, IEEE ComSoc YP, and the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on Information Infrastructure and Networking (TCIIN). The program was supported by the IEEE Student Branch of International Hellenic University, Thessaloniki, and the Communications, Cybersecurity and Internet of Things (CCIoT) research group.
The event was aiming to inspire young professionals through interaction with industry professionals and academics on the benefits of getting involved in various IEEE volunteer, educational, and standardization activities. The two Young Professionals Sessions, “Exploring Exciting Career Paths for Young Professionals” and “5G towards 6G: What Can We Expect?,” featured outstanding panels of speakers from academia, industry, and public administration.
A summary of the YP program is below. More information about both Panel Sessions can be found in the conference program (https://meditcom2021.ieee-meditcom.org/program/young-professionals-session).
YP Panel Session 1: “Exploring Exciting Career Paths for Young Professionals”
This Panel aimed to inspire young professionals by interacting with speakers from industry and academia, all of them successful professionals under than 40 years old.
The panel discussion mainly focused on topics such as “Industry Talks to Young Engineers & Scientists,” “The Long Journey through PhD to Research and Academia,” and “Involvement of Young Researchers with Research Activities.”
The five exceptional panelists were Diomidis Michalopoulos (Nokia, Germany), Charalampos Z. Patrikakis (University of West Attica, Greece), Georgios Z. Papadopoulos (IMT Atlantique in Rennes, France), Aggeliki Sgora (Ionian University, Greece), and Dionysis Xenakis (Fogus Innovations and Services P.C., Greece).
YP Panel Session 2: “5G towards 6G: What Can We expect?”
This Panel featured a discussion on the issues related to the current pitfalls of 5G as well as the expected challenges of the transition from 5G to 6G in the coming years. The Panel discussion mainly focused on the topics of current deployment of 5G networks, the pitfalls of 5G, as well as challenges and applications of 6G.
The five outstanding panelists were Bernard Barani, (European Commission), Symeon Chatzinotas (University of Luxembourg), Merouane Debbah (Technology Innovation Institute, Abu Dhabi), and Panagiotis Demestichas (WINGS ICT Solutions, Greece).