The IEEE Communications Society Harbin Chapter won three international awards at IEEE Globecom 2018 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, December 9–13 2018, which are:

• 2018 Chapter of The Year Award.

• Asia Pacific Region 2018 Chapter Achievement Award.

• 2018 Member and Global Activities Contribution Award, given to the chair of Harbin Chapter, Prof. Weixiao Meng.

The IEEE Communications Society has four regions and 25,600 members currently in the world. China belongs to the Asia-Pacific region, which includes six chapters. As the youngest chapter, the IEEE Communications Society Harbin Chapter contains 147 members from universities and institutions in three provinces of Northeast China. The chapter is a non-profit academic organization aiming to lead the professional career of members, provide academic exchange platforms and service channels for members so as to promote the development of communication theory, technology and industry.

The Harbin Chapter was founded by Prof. Weixiao Meng in 2012, who was also the chair. Associate Prof. Shuai Han served as the vice chair and established the student chair. In the past six years, the Harbin Chapter has made outstanding achievements in academic exchanges, membership services, upgrades, development, and information consultation, and has won consistent commendation from the IEEE Communications Society. This is the first time Chinese academic organizations have won the serialization of international academic activities award. Prof. Weixiao Meng attended the conference and accepted the award from the international academic organization and made a speech.

In the past one year, the IEEE Communications Society Harbin Chapter tried its best to attract more elites and promote the quantity and quality of its membership. In order to enrich the chapter and elevate its international influence, the Harbin Chapter organized a series of recruiting events targeted to faculties and students of northeastern universities in China, which has relative great influence.

The core volunteers have made much effort to enhance the IEEE and the Communications Society. Chapter Chair, Prof. Weixiao Meng, and Vice Chair, Dr. Shuai Han, organized a publicity meeting where they described the history, development and current influence of the IEEE Communications Society Harbin Chapter in detail, which has become one of the routine activities for newcomers every September.

Prof. Weixiao Meng maintained contact with all the EEE and ECE Deans of universities from the three provinces of Northeast China, encouraging them to distribute the recruiting polices to the corresponding areas of their own universities. Faculty members also shared the functions of the IEEE Communications Society with their students and inspired them to start their professional careers with Communications Society student membership.

At the same time, the Harbin Chapter noticed the crucial state of multimedia, so it made full use of social networks for more sufficient propaganda. After contacting professors who are focusing on information and communications engineering in northeastern universities, QQ, WeChat and other social communication groups which are mainly oriented to teachers, master and Ph.D. students, were established among universities and various organizations.

In March 2018 the IEEE Communications Society Harbin Chapter nominated Ms. Qian Chen, a Ph.D. student member, as the student chair, serving an important bridge role between the chapter and all kinds of students. In those groups, the Harbin Chapter issued the relevant notifications for the recruiting events and sent warm invitations to the potential teachers and students.

In order to conveniently organize activities afterward, the Harbin Chapter raised funds to customize T-shirts for the new members and guests, and mailed them to everyone, which were extremely popular among them. Since most of the students had no credit cards, the payment of membership became knotty. A faculty member was willing to pay equivalent dollars online for new student members so that the problem was successfully solved. From these details, therefore, newcomers increased their confidence in the Harbin Chapter.

Due to the meticulous preparation, many teachers and students responded positively. In order to maintain its lasting competitiveness, the Harbin Chapter held more than 10 visiting academic lectures last year and hosted three DLT and DLS in recent years. In addition, they drafted newsletters to ComSoc twice a year. Their Monday Seminar is still ongoing, chaired by student members in Harbin once a week.

Thanks go to the IEEE Communications Society for confirming the achievements of the IEEE Communications Society Harbin Chapter in the last year and awarding the three awards for it. The Harbin Chapter will maintain seriousness, pragmatism and innovation, trying to make greater effort for advanced contributions to IEEE Communications Society in the future.