IEEE’s Vision, Innovation, and Challenges Summit and Honors Ceremony showcases rising applied sciences and celebrates engineering pioneers who laid the groundwork for a lot of of at this time’s digital gadgets. I attended this 12 months’s occasions, held on 4 and 5 May in Atlanta. Here are highlights of the periods, which can be found on IEEE.television.
The summit kicked off on 4 May on the Georgia Aquarium with a reception and panel dialogue on local weather change and sustainability, moderated by Saifur Rahman, IEEE president and CEO. The panel featured Chris Coco, IEEE Fellow Alberto Moreira, and IEEE Member Jairo Garcia. Coco is senior director for aquatic sustainability on the aquarium. Moreira is director of the German Aerospace Center Microwaves and Radar Institute in Oberpfaffenhofen, Bavaria. Garcia is CEO of Urban Climate Nexus in Atlanta. UCN assists U.S. cities in creating and executing local weather motion and resilience plans.
The panelists centered on how the local weather disaster is affecting the ocean and methods expertise helps to trace environmental modifications.
Coco mentioned one of many greatest challenges amenities equivalent to his are dealing with is discovering sufficient meals for his or her animals. Because sea ranges and temperatures are rising, greater than 80 p.c of marine life is migrating towards the Earth’s poles and away from hotter water, he mentioned. With fish and different species transferring to new habitats, ocean predators that depend on them for meals are following them. This migration is making it tougher to search out meals for aquarium fish, Coco mentioned. He added that expertise on buoys is monitoring the water’s high quality, and temperature, and ranges.
Moreira, recipient of this 12 months’s IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Technologies and Applications, developed a space-based artificial aperture radar system that may monitor the Earth’s well being. The system, consisting of two orbiting satellites, generates 3D maps of the planet’s floor with 2-meter accuracy and lets researchers observe sea ranges and deforestation. Policymakers can use the info, Moreira mentioned, to mitigate the affect or adapt to the modifications.
Those who developed applied sciences that modified folks’s lives had been acknowledged on the 2023 Honor Ceremony in Atlanta.Robb Cohen Photography & Video
Bridging the digital divide, ethics in AI, and the function of robotics
The IEEE Vision, Innovation, and Challenges Summit bought underway on 5 May on the Hilton Atlanta, that includes panel discussions with a number of of this 12 months’s award recipients about considerations associated to data and communication expertise (ICT), profession recommendation, and artificial intelligence.
The occasion kicked off with a “fireside chat” between Vint Cerf and Katie Hafner, a expertise journalist. Cerf, broadly generally known as the “Father of the Internet,” is the recipient of this 12 months’s IEEE Medal of Honor. He is being acknowledged for serving to to create “the Internet architecture and providing sustained leadership in its phenomenal growth in becoming society’s critical infrastructure.”
Reflecting on his profession, Cerf mentioned “the most magical thing that came out of the Internet is the collection of people that came together to design, build, and get the Internet to work.”
The IEEE Life Fellow additionally spoke in regards to the greatest challenges society faces at this time with ICT, together with the digital divide and other people utilizing the Internet maliciously.
“I don’t want anyone to be denied access to the Internet, whether it’s because they don’t have physical access or can’t afford the service,” Cerf mentioned. “We’re seeing a rapid increase in access recently, and I’m sure before the end of this decade anyone who wants access will have it.”
But, he added, “People are doing harmful things on the Internet to other people, such as ransomware, malware, and disinformation. I’m not surprised this is happening. It’s human frailty being replicated in the online environment. The hard part is figuring out what to do about it.”
During the Innovators Showcase session, panelists Luc Van den hove, IEEE Life Fellow Melba M. Crawford, and IEEE Fellow James Truchard supplied recommendation on the way to lead a profitable firm or analysis lab. They agreed that it’s essential to deliver collectively folks from a number of disciplines and to make sure the market is prepared for the product in growth.
As for transferring up the profession ladder, Truchard mentioned folks mustn’t exclude the function of luck.
“Engineering changes the way the world works.”
“Nothing beats dumb luck,” he mentioned, laughing. He is a former president and CEO of National Instruments, an engineering-solutions firm he helped present in Austin, Texas. He is the recipient of the IEEE James H. Mulligan Jr. Education Medal.
With the launch of ChatGPT, generative AI has change into a sizzling matter amongst technologists. The “Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT” panel centered on the ethics of generative AI and the way educators can adapt the instruments in school rooms. The panelists—IEEE Senior Member Carlotta Berry, IEEE Fellow Lydia E. Kavraki, and IEEE Life Fellow Rodney Brooks—additionally touched on what functions robots may benefit sooner or later. The three have robotics backgrounds.
They agreed that when a picture or textual content was created utilizing generative AI, that reality must be made clear, particularly on social media platforms.
One solution to accomplish that, Berry mentioned, is to implement insurance policies that require documentation. Berry, a professor {of electrical} and laptop engineering on the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, in Terre Haute, Ind., emphasised how gender and racial biases stay issues with AI.
Because colleges received’t be capable to cease college students from utilizing instruments equivalent to ChatGPT, she mentioned, educators want to show them the way to analyze information and the way to inform whether or not a supply is legitimate. Berry is the recipient of the IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award.
Brooks, an MIT robotics professor and cofounder of iRobot, mentioned robots can assist mitigate the results of local weather change and will assist in caring for the aged.
“We aren’t going to have enough people to look after them,” he mentioned, “and it’s going to be a real problem fairly soon. We need to find a way to help the aging population maintain independence and dignity.” Brooks is the recipient of the IEEE Founders Medal.
AI and robots can be utilized to watch the well being of the Earth, take away pollution from water and soil, and higher perceive viruses such because the one which causes COVID-19, Kavraki mentioned. The IEEE Fellow, a pc science professor at Rice University, in Houston, is the recipient of the IEEE Frances E. Allen Medal.
Pioneers of the QR code, the cochlear implant, and the Internet
The night’s Honor Ceremony acknowledged those that developed applied sciences that modified folks’s lives, together with the QR code, cochlear implants, and the Internet.
The IEEE Corporate Innovation Award went to Japanese automotive producer Denso, situated in Aichi, for “the innovation of QR (Quick Response) code and their widespread use across the globe.” The firm’s CEO, Koji Arima, accepted the award. In his speech, the IEEE member mentioned Denso is “committed to developing technology that makes people happy.”
About 466 million folks have listening to loss, in response to the World Health Organization. To assist those that are listening to impaired, within the Seventies husband and spouse Erwin and Ingeborg Hochmair developed the multichannel cochlear implant. For their invention, the duo are the recipients of the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal.
“We hope to continue IEEE’s mission of developing technology for the benefit of humanity,” Ingeborg, an IEEE senior member, mentioned in her acceptance speech.
The ceremony ended with the presentation of the IEEE Medal of Honor to Cerf, who acquired a standing ovation.
“Engineering changes the way the world works,” he mentioned. He ended with a promise: “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
You can watch the IEEE Awards Ceremony on IEEE.television.