Region 8 Student Branches & GOLD Congress - Madrid 2012

SBC is an international event organized by IEEE where more than 400 young engineering students and young professionals from more than 350 universities of Europe, Middle East and Africa meet together to discuss present and future engineering challenges, network and learn more about the IEEE.

The 2012 SBC was one of the most exciting congresses as I was told by the attendees of previous congresses. It was held in the beautiful city of Madrid, and spanned over a period of five days starting from the 25th of July. The five days included a variety of activities, from plenary sessions to technical and non-technical workshops to Gala dinner and city tours.

The primary purpose of the congress is to help engineering students, PhD. students and young professionals gain further insight, enabling exchange of knowledge and skills. The plenary sessions and workshops in the congress will not only put their focus on research and technological developments, but also career issues and the importance of developing the so-called soft skills.

Moreover, attending such congresses can have such a huge impact on students lives and careers, as they get to meet people from different countries and expand the surroundings of their professional and personal networks. It also gives the opportunity to travel to different countries and meet new people, specially from your field of studying. It is truly one of the best benefits of attending such congresses.

As one the UOS IEEE SB Committee members I had the honor to represent my branch in that congress. With the help of different parties including IEEE Region 8, and the University of Sharjah, I got all the help I needed to be in the congress. It was such a wonderful time for me, because it was an opportunity to learn, meet new people, and have fun all in the same time.

The congress was well organized and planned. The first day was all about reception, and then it ended with a lovely welcoming act, where the mayor of the city welcomed all the attendees. In the following morning we all were at the School of Telecommunications of the Technical University of Madrid, where the opening act took place, and for the rest of the day we sat down for some plenary sessions and technical workshops. Later that evening was the Gala Dinner, where everyone was looking fancy and elegant, it was a lovely night with tasty food and exciting announcements.

The third day was a very interesting day. It started with visits to different places, which each person had chosen earlier. There were visits to Barajas Airport, National Institute of Aerospace, European Space Astronomy Center and other research facilities in Madrid. After we got back, lunch was served and then we continued the second part of the technical workshops until six o’clock. Then we went on to prepare for the most exciting night of the congress which was the Multicultural Dinner. It was truly an extraordinary night where all the attendees got to share their country’s food, customs and traditions.

As hard as it was to get up after the multicultural dinner night, on the forth day, we all had to gather up at 8 a.m. and take a trip to a town called San Lorenzo de El Escorial, which is 47 kilometers away from the city of Madrid. There we went to Alfonso XII School part of El Escorial which is one of the Spanish royal sites and functions as a monastery, royal palace, museum, and school. We spent all day there having lots of plenary sessions and non-technical workshops. Three hours before dinner we had the chance to play the game “Gymkhana” - a treasure hunt game which took place all over town. For dinner we had the delicious paella which is rice with either meat, seafood or vegetables. By mid night we all took the buses back to madrid.

Sadly I was not able to attend the closing ceremony in the fifth day, as I had to fly back home that day in the early morning. It was such a wonderful time to spend there in Madrid with the company of amazing people from different countries from all over the world. I was so honored to be there, and I will definitely try my best to participate in the next one, but only that time am confidence that the UOS IEEE SB will have more attendees than before and will be recognized for the work they are doing and will continue to do along the years.

Finally I would like to give another words of thanks for all those who made everything easy and simple for me, from our branch counselor Prof. Ahmed El Wakil and our department secretary Mrs. Ghada Al Tayeb to all the people who were involved from the financial department, and finally my colleagues and fellow committee members who preferred to give me the chance to have this wonderful experience.

IEEE Lunch Party

It was summer time and most students were on vacation, but the UOS IEEE SB kept on going for those students who are having summer courses. On the 1st of July the UOS IEEE SB hosted a lunch party for all the ECE department students.

Serving "Mandi" & "Madhbi", traditional Yemeni dishes, as main courses and having "Tabbouleh" as a side salad dish. The Tabbouleh was specially made by our own UOS IEEE SB member Mohammed Siraj, and it was pretty tasty. For dessert we also had another UOS IEEE SB member, Eman Abdo, showing off her cooking talent. Eman made a very delicious "Lazy Cake", and you can tell by the pictures.

About twenty students joined us in the party. They all liked the food and enjoyed seeing each other, since some of them were not taking summer courses. We were also glad to have Mrs. Ghada Al Tayeb the department secretary with us. It was a good opportunity to gather the students, and take off some of the heat both of the summer and its courses.

Cloud Computing Seminar

In April 24th, Mr. Sami Caracand, CEO at Cloud Concept gave a seminar titled “What is Cloud Computing?”. The seminar started by playing a Youtube video to introduce the topic.  Mr. Caracand then talked about how both applications and platforms have moved throughout history from Mainframes, to Client/Server, and finally nowadays to the Cloud. After that, he moved and talked about The Cloud Computing Model, its features, and advantages. Mr. Caracand stressed on how the cloud serves companies of every size, and he gave examples of different companies. He continued by relating the different cloud models (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) that applies to some famous services like Amazon, Net-suite, and others. Finally he gave an insight on the major cloud computing customers in the region.

UAE Connected .. IEEE Reached

The 19th of April is a very memorable day in the history the the UOS IEEE SB. It was the day we hosted the "UAE Connected .. IEEE  Reached" event; the event that the IEEE UAE Section ExCom honored us by coming to our university, and giving us further insight about the IEEE institute. In return, it was a very delightful visit for them also, as they were witnessing an original UOS IEEE SB event with all its surprises.

The event, which was hosted by committee members Najla Essam and Omar Ahmed, and kicked of with the branch promo video, which is available on our youtube channel. Next, Rami Shublaq, Branch Chair, gave a touching opening speech talking about his first days in college and joining the IEEE three years ago.

Following the opening speech was a presentation by Eng. Maryam Al Thani, IEEE UAE Section Chair. For the first part Eng. Al Thani spoke about the history of the IEEE and the role of IEEE in the engineering field. Next, she talked about the history of the UAE section and how she came to be on the ExCom board, and she also mentioned the activities of the section from conferences to competitions and workshops. The second part was on behalf of Dr. Bouthina Al-Tlili, IEEE UAE WIE Affinity Group Chair. She introduced the WIE to the audience and talked about its main goal which is empowering women's role in the engineering field.

After the presentation, it was time for a small break. In the break we tried to boost up the audience's energy with a short humorous video clip. We also had a small competition on twitter, where we asked a question about the previous presentation and the audience had to reply to our tweet with the correct answer to win a prize.

The next presentation was by Dr. Fadi Aloul, Chair of UAE GOLD Chapter. Dr. Aloul talked about UAE's GOLD role as part of the IEEE UAE Section and how does someone become a gold member. One of the roles he talked about was making connections between freshly graduated IEEE members, and help them in searching for a suitable job. Another role of GOLD is to inspire, energize, empower, and engage young professionals to envision and realize their dreams.

With all the presentations done, it was time for our little surprise, that was specially devoted to our guests. It was a video of international IEEE Student Branches greeting the UAE Section with the phrase "Hello UAE". It was such nice idea that was suggested by the brach secretary Ahmed Salhin, who decided to contact all the IEEE Student branches so we can come up with this awesome video. Our guests really enjoyed that one.

Then came the part that engaged the audience with our guests. It was the Questions and Answers Part. The audience had a lot of questions about the IEEE, and thankfully they got them all answered by the UAE Section. After the questions were done we announced the winners of the twitter competition, and also the winners of the raffle draw which was prepared earlier. The event ended with a group picture involving our guests, branch counselor, committee members and the audience. Right after that everyone was invited to have a delicious lunch meal.

It was truly a day to remember, and it was such a privilege to have the UAE Section visit us. Its also worthy of mentioning that this was not the first time the UOS IEEE SB invite the UAE Section as they were invited before back in 2008, and had a similar exciting event.

Internet Security Seminar

In line with the objectives of the UAE Computer Emergency Response Team “aeCERT”, to spread awareness on Information and Communication technologies,the UOS IEEE Student Branch organized a seminar in collaboration with aeCERT on Monday 16th of April about "Internet Security.”

The seminar, which was delivered by Eng. Eman Al Awadhi, Network Security Engineer, included a presentation highlighting a range of topics. First an overview about aeCERT and its objectives in addition to a discussion on the risks associated with e-mails, passwords theft, and how to choose passwords that are hard to guess by hackers. The presentations also discussed phishing, a cyber-threat in which attackers pretend to be someone or some entity known to the user and then attempt to obtain information that they can misuse. How spam e-mails are used to spread viruses was also discussed. 

Eng. Eman shed light on security issues pertaining to social media due to the large number of users; she explained how hackers attempt to extract information to steal money directly from bank accounts, use social media accounts to spread spam, or blackmail individuals and organizations. The seminar also highlighted the ways that mobile phones can get attacked, and explained the protective measures people can take.  

The topic was very interesting to the audience and they had a lot of discussions with the guest speaker afterwards.

Alumni Journey

A Chinese proverb says: "To know the road ahead, ask those coming back," to that end our Student Branch was so enthusiastic to organize “Alumni Journey” one of the most anticipated event that took a lot of planning and handwork. The UOS IEEE student branch organized this event on Thursday the 12th of April in the college of engineering, in collaboration with some professors and graduate students. 

The journey started with a welcoming speech by our branch chair “Rami Shublaq.” Where he welcomed the audience and defined the true meaning of being an electrical and a computer engineer. After that we invited four of our ECE department graduates to share their experience with the students and talk about the challenges they faced after graduating.

Eng. Mahmoud Nabag, Bachelor in Electrical Engineering, was the first graduate traveler who shared with the attendants his experience. His talk was about whether to go for a masters degree or join the industry. He explained the major difference between the practical life and the academic life and how that someone should pursue the best thing that suits him/her.

Following that we were excited to listen to the second graduate traveler Eng. Fatma Ali, Bachelor in Electrical Eng., who shared the aspects of her job as a Flight Operations Engineering Specialist in Emirates Airlines. She illustrated some of the capabilities and responsibilities that an engineer should have. In addition to that she gave some steps regarding the problems that could face the engineer in his/her future after graduation and how to deal with them in a clever way.

Our next traveler was not ordinary, but a very unique one, who has been through all kinds of life’s obstacles. He had his Ph.D. in 1981, from the University of Southern California Los Angeles. Prof. Ma’ammar Battayeb, from our ECE department, provided a brief background about his scientific life, in addition to that he gave some advice to students on how to get straight A’s in their university courses.

We continued with our alumni’s, and it was the time for Eng. Muzzamil ElFatih, Bachelor in Electrical Engineering, to give a speech about his experience in working at SEWA “Sharjah Electricity & Water Authority.” He gave a brief about his duties as an electrical field engineer in the power plant. Although he did not have the solid background at the beginning of his career, but the continuous training courses he got specially from experts coming from abroad companies made it possible for him to engage in the field and draw his path as a successful skilled engineer.

We were also so excited to have Dr. Bassel Soudan as our next speaker. Dr. Soudan is also one of the experienced travelers and was really a big influence on all the students in this journey. He had his Ph.D. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology, USA in 1994. Dr. Soudan shared with the attendants his story in INTEL company and how he had to adapt to different types of working environments. He encouraged the student to diversify in the department electives and combine between the hardware and the software courses, especially for those who want to continue their academic life.

Next it was the time for our last traveler for this event “Eng. Osama Alkoky” Bachelor in Computer Engineering, who also shared with us his experience in doing his masters degree while he was working in different companies in the industry at the same time. He explained that it is an extremely difficult task and one should not go for that unless it is really necessary. He also provided the students with some tips or actions that they can follow during the job interviews. 

At the end of our journey we gave the opportunity to the audience to engage with our guests in an open discussion session hosted by Rana Osama, committee member, and Omar Ahmad, branch’s treasurer. With the students asking questions regarding the major, interviews and advices on how they can approach their dream jobs. Our guests were really helpful and tried to give the students the best advice they need to continue through their own journey.

Then we moved to the most thrilling part of the event, the entertainment part. It was a competition between two teams, electrical students vs. computer students. Najla Essam & Sara Al Naqbi were asking general knowledge questions related to electrical and computer Engineering. It was such an exciting competition with each student cheering for his/her team. At the end the computer engineering team won the competition, entitling them for the bigger prizes.

The event was a huge success, everyone was laughing and enjoying their time, along with some serious discussion on future related issues, and the feedback was so cheerful.

PCB Workshop

The Printed Circuit Board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate.

Due to the PCB's importance in engineering field, UOS IEEE Student Branch organized a “PCB workshop” on the 11th of April. The workshop was given by “Baraa Al Jelani”, where he provided the students with a good background information about the PCB.

Baraa started the workshop by giving the theoretical part, where he explained what PCB Design is, how to use DipTrace Software, and he talked about the different types of welding.

In the following session it was time for the students to get their hands dirty in the practical part. It went through six steps starting by using the DipTrace software to draw a door ajar alarm schematic and checking the components connections, then it was transferred to PCB layout to be ready for printing on transparent papers using the laser printer, after that the circuit paper was put on the Light Sensitive PCB to be exposed by the Ultraviolet Exposure Machine, Last but not least the PCB was cleaned using some Alkaline Solution, e.g. NaOH, and rinsed by water to put it in the FeCl3 Solution, finally the components like (The Battery, Resistors, Capacitors, Speakers and the magnetic switches) were all welded on the PCB.

The students followed the steps carefully and they were happy with the result. It was quite an amazing experience for the students to be involved in such a workshop.