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Region 8 has 51 IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques soci-ety (MTT-S) Chapters and joint

Chapters, including six MTT-S Student Branch Chapters. The annual meeting of the chairs and other Chapter repre-sentatives takes place in conjunction with the European Microwave Week (EuMW), the most important micro-wave event in Europe. In 2014, EuMW was held in the Fiera di Roma in Rome, Italy, 5–10 October. The Chapter chairs’ Meeting (CCM) took place at the Holi-day Inn Rome EUR Parco dei Medici Hotel on 6 October. This friendly meet-ing brings together Chapter repre-sentatives and MTT-S Administrative Committee (AdCom) officers. It pro-vides an opportunity to exchange expe-rience among the individual Chapters, to share best practices, to clarify what the Chapter wants the officers to do and what IEEE MTT-S administrators should do, and to explain the support

given to the Chapters by MTT-S and the conditions under which it is provided. In brief, the CCM provides an opportunity to teach Chapter chairs how to run their Chapters. Rep-resentatives of all MTT-S Chapters worldwide were invited to participate. In addition, Region 8 Chap-ter officers from the IEEE Antennas and Propaga-tion Society (AP-S), Elec-tron Devices Society, and Electromagnetic Compat-ibility Society (EMC-S) were invited, as most of the MTT-S Chapters are joined with one or both of these Societies.

Approximately 52 participants gath-ered at the meeting (Figure 1), and 16

Chapters from Region 8 were represented: Austria, Belarus, Central and South-ern Italy, Croatia, Czecho-slovakia, France, Israel, Lithuania, Poland, Russia Moscow, Russia Saratov–Penza, Russia Tomsk, South Africa Student Branch Chapter, Ukraine East, UKRI Manchester Student Branch Chapter, and UKRI. In addition, six Chapters

from other Regions were represented. The MTT-S AdCom was represented

by President Robert Weigel and by 2014

Region 8 MTT-S Chapter Representatives Met in Rome on 6 October 2014

■ Jan Machác and Daniel Pasquet

Jan Machác (machac@fel.cvut.cz) is a Region 8 MTT-S Chapter coordinator. Daniel Pasquet is an MTT-S AdCom member and a Region 8

MTT-S Chapter coordinator.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2014.2367961Date of publication: 14 January 2015

Figure 1. The atmosphere in the room was friendly. (Photo courtesy of Alexander Sadovnikov, Russia Saratov/Penza Chapter.)

The CCM provides an opportunity to teach Chapter chairs how to run their Chapters.

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MTT-S President-Elect Tim Lee. The MTT-S Membership and Geographic Activities (MGA) Committee was rep-resented by its chair, Daniel Pasquet, and by cochairs Bela Szendrenyi and Jim Weiler. The AP-S was represented by its president, Tapan Sarkar.

Jan Machác, one of the Region 8 Chap-ter coordinators, opened the meeting by welcoming the guests and all partici-pants (Figure 2). Everyone introduced themselves. The CCM participants were welcomed by MTT-S President Robert Weigel (Figure 3), who stated:

The MTT-S consists of many ac-tive local Chapters that sponsor technical meetings, workshops, social events, and series of semi-nars; host the annual Interna-tional Microwave Symposium or Radio and Wireless Week; and serve the professional and tech-nical needs of members. My sin-cere thanks are due to you all! Then he introduced the MTT-S

AdCom officers. To better reach our goals, the MTT-S has established work-ing groups with the AP-S and the EMC-S. A sister society agreement has been signed with the European Microwave Association (EuMA). MTT-S has over-lapping fields of interests with other Societies and associations because mi-crowaves penetrate into various fields of application. The borders between us and other Societies are becoming softer. It is of interest for the MTT-S to keep/continue our leadership in our tradi-tional fields by gaining leadership or participation in new technologies and

applications that are governed or influ-enced by microwave technologies and by reestablishing our leadership in mi-crowave-governed fields that we share with our colleagues from other associa-tions, divisions, institutes, and faculties.

Roberto Sorrentino, the EuMW general chair (Figure 4), introduced

EuMW and EuMA to the CCM par-ticipants. EuMA is the entity behind EuMW. It is a nonprofit organization based in Belgium, with more than 1,000 members worldwide. Its goal is to promote microwaves in Europe not only by conferences but also through International Journal of Microwave

Figure 2. Jan Machác (far left), the Region 8 coordinator, opens the CCM. At the table from the left, Daniel Pasquet, Ramesh Gupta, and Jim Weiler. (Photo courtesy of Alexander Sadovnikov, Russia Saratov/Penza Chapter.)

Figure 3. Robert Weigel, the MTT-S president, addresses participants. (Photo courtesy of Alexander Sadovnikov, Russia Saratov/Penza Chapter.)

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and Wireless Technologies and EuMA Courses on Microwaves. EuMA runs the RF microelectromechanical sys-tems, MAGEO, and European Radio and Microwave Interest Group Topi-cal Groups. The EuMW is the premier microwave conference event in Eu-rope, comprising three conferences plus workshops/tutorials: the Euro-pean Microwave Conference (EuMC), European Microwave IC Conference, and European Radar Conference. Ro-berto gave the basic statistics for the week. International Journal of Micro-wave and Wireless Technologies (Cam-bridge University Press) is indexed by Thomson Reuters back to 2009 and has an impact factor (2012) of 0.57. EuMA members have online access for free. Almudena Suárez Rodríguez serves as editor.

Tapan Sarkar, the AP-S president (Figure 5), addressed and welcomed the participants in the meeting. Tapan gave a positive reminder about the ne-gotiations between AP-S and MTT-S.

Tim Lee, 2014 MTT-S president-elect (Figure 6), talked about the Microwaves 101 Web page and activities. The Web site has been rebooted to a design with the use of best practices and for com-patibility with mobile platforms (tab-lets and phones) to provide rich content that is valued by our microwave com-munities worldwide. The reason was to keep the legacy audience coming back and at the same time attract new read-ership. The target audience is the mi-crowave practitioner and also students who want easy access to microwave information. The goal is to achieve the strategic objective of making MTT-S

the primary resource for all involved in microwave engineering. The number of users has increased 20× within one year. Tim asked attendees to visit mi-crowaves101.com and to give us feed-back, to participate in the discussion forums, and to volunteer by writing articles or serving as a reviewer.

Ramesh K. Gupta, MTT-S AdCom member and Education Committee chair (Figure 7), presented the education activities of the MTT-S. The education world map has recently been initiated. If your university is not yet indicated on the map, please send a message to mtt.edu.map@gmail.com. The message should contain the following informa-tion: the name of the university, street address, city, state, country, names and e-mail addresses of microwave profes-sors at this university, as well as their IEEE membership number (professors should preferably be MTT-S mem-bers), and a link to the Web site of the research group or university. MTT-S offers scholarships for undergraduates and graduate students (http://mtt.org/education.html). The undergraduate/pregraduate scholarships present up to ten US$1,500 awards annually for studies or project materials and some additional travel support to attend the International Microwave Symposium (IMS), EuMC, or Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference. The graduate fellowships present up to six US$6,000 awards an-nually with limited travel support to IMS. The Microwave Engineering for Medical Applications present up to two US$6,000 awards annually with limited travel support to IMS.

Following this introductory section, Mike Golio, MGA Committee adminis-trator (Figure 8), provided some educa-tion for Chapter representatives. Mike recalled the IEEE structure. The Chapters have to report their meetings via the L31 forms, using V-tools. This is important as IEEE considers a Chapter as an active Chapter if it submits at least two L31s on technical meetings. The Chapters have to apply to their Sections for the money that they receive for being recognized as an active Chapter. Mike showed how to apply to MTT-S for the annual support of US$1,000 for an MTT-S Chapter or US$500 for a joint Chapter. A Chapter can

Figure 7. Ramesh Gupta, the MTT-S Education Committee chair, presents student fellowships. (Photo courtesy of Alexander Sadovnikov, Russia Saratov/Penza Chapter.)

Figure 6. Tim Lee, the MTT-S president-elect, gives information about Microwave 101. (Photo courtesy of Alexander Sadovnikov, Russia Saratov/Penza Chapter.)

Figure 4. Roberto Sorrentino, the 2014 EuMW general chair, introduces Microwave Week. (Photo courtesy of Alexander Sadovnikov, Russia Saratov/Penza Chapter.)

Figure 5. Tapan Sarkar, the AP-S president, welcomes CCM participants. (Photo courtesy of Alexander Sadovnikov, Russia Saratov/Penza Chapter.)

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get an additional US$500 for organizing a workshop. He explained the conditions for obtaining a travel grant of US$1,500 to attend the CCM. Mike also introduced a new activity under which Chapters can get up to US$3,000 for organizing a workshop. Finally, he introduced the Distinguished Microwaves Lecture (DML) and Speakers Bureau programs. He mentioned particular prizes awarded to members and the MTT-S Outstanding Chapter Award. Then the floor was given to Daniel Pasquet, MTT-S AdCom mem-ber and MGA chair. In his presentation, Daniel explained some aspects of the relationship between Chapters, Sections, and Societies that might not be clear for some members (Figure 9).

The Chapter chairs then spoke, moderated by Wojciech Krzysztofik, one of the Region 8 ambassadors. The

Chapter representatives reported on major events, such as conferences, seminars, workshops, and lectures re-cently organized by their Chapters. Six Chapters presented reports of their ac-tivities on posters.

The CCM was preceded by the meet-ing of Region 8 Chapter ambassadors. It was attended by four ambassadors—Wojciech J. Krzysztofik, Yury Kuznetsov, Jan Machác, and Dominique Schreurs—along with MGA Chair Daniel Pasquet, MGA Cochairs Bela Szendrenyi and Jim Weiler, MGA Administrator Mike Golio, and Region 10 Coordinator Atsu-shi Sanada. The ambassadors reported their activities and shared their experi-ence. The ambassadors’ responsibilities involve getting to know the Chapter chairs and other officers personally and working with them. They aid Chapters

in organizational matters and make periodic visits (nominally, once in two years) to the Chapters. The best way to do this is to organize a DML tour. They also educate Chapter officers and train them on organizing meetings, reporting (L31), applying for support and travel grants, inviting a DML, and so on.

The CCM was followed by a recep-tion and a dinner at the Holiday Inn Hotel, which brought participants of the CCM and participants of the TCC Meeting together with MTT-S AdCom members and EuMA officers. At the dinner, MTT-S President Robert Weigel presented plaques to five of the winners of the IEEE MTT-S 2014 Outstanding Chapter Award. These were Croatia, East Ukraine, North Jersey, Southeast Michigan, and Russia Saratov/Penza.

Figure 9. Daniel Pasquet, the MTT-S MGA chair, explains the relationship between Chapter and Society. (Photo courtesy of Alexander Sadovnikov, Russia Saratov/Penza Chapter.)

Figure 8. Mike Golio, MTT-S administrator, explains the support given by MTT-S to Chapters. (Photo courtesy of Alexander Sadovnikov, Russia Saratov/Penza Chapter.)