By Usman Munawar, Shahid Zulfiqar and Ahsan Saeed

IEEE IS the worlds largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community through IEEE’s highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities.

IEEE, pronounced “Eye-triple-E”, stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

The concept of research has evolved ever since the evolution of mankind. People from all races have strived to find the purpose of their existence and that, obviously, led them to discover the idea of research as a vital part of the process of understanding any subject. Over the course of time, many organizations were established and IEEE is one of the top organizations that are serving humanity with advancement in technology. We all know that IEEE has many functional units at regional, country, section and branch level and IEEE GOLD and student members from Pakistan are really working hard in a spirit of spreading the positive aspects of technology; they have initiated a platform in this regard named as IEEE Research Development Programme Pakistan (IEEE RDPP).

Lets get familiarized with what is IEEE RDP Pakistan and what activities are being planned from this platform. IEEE Research Development Programme Pakistan (IEEE RDPP) is an initiative of IEEE GOLD and Student Members from Pakistan to promote the concept and idea of research work at undergraduate level. This project is also being supported by Microsoft and Google, Pakistan. The basic aim and purpose of creation of IEEE RDPP is to facilitate and help the willing students at undergraduate level with their research work and providing them with everything from helping material and expert’s advice to the funding for their papers and getting them published in the international journals. Also providing them with technical knowledge in the form of workshops, seminars and national conferences hence, giving them with an opportunity to get recognized by the intellectuals through scholarships, awards and certificates.

In Pakistan, at present, the IEEE membership retention is decreasing day by day and this is the problem of students in many other countries as well. Volunteers and student members have questions about their memberships and the services offered to them in return. These questions, when not answered completely, compel a member to discontinue his/her membership, hence contributing in lower membership retention. The scope and goal of RDP is not only confined to promoting the trend of research but also to look after, and provide solutions to, the issues and insecurities of the members. For the purpose, the executive committee of IEEE RDP Pakistan has decided to introduce few awards of some international worth, to encourage the hard working and dedicated volunteers.

The motivation for this step is the very fact that very few awards are offered by the sections, each year which are normally taken by the branch executives, even if they are not as much active as a hardworking student member of their branch. Not only this, IEEE RDP Pakistan has already discussed their plan with the representatives of other countries as they plan to expand this really useful initiative to other countries and expect the establishment of RDP in all the active sections worldwide. Few of the countries, that have shown positive and prompt response to this call of IEEE RDP Pakistan, include India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Greece, Jamaica and Ukraine with an awaited response from them for collaboration with IEEE RDP Pakistan.

The IEEE RDP officially launched at Pakistan Student Congress PSC 2012, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology on September 9, 2012 and the first series of awards has distributed on the closing ceremony. To know more about IEEE RDP, catch up the executives of IEEE RDP Pakistan at the official Facebook page of IEEE Research and Development Program Pakistan.

By Web Team

Technology Times Web team handles all matters relevant to website posting and management.