May Hawaii Section Newsletter

Aloha and welcome to the March issue of the IEEE Hawaii Section Newsletter!  We have many opportunities for individuals to make a difference in their communities and profession through the IEEE. Please note the many  opportunities to serve as volunteers at our activities.  Furthermore, any IEEE member who might be willing to serve as an officer in the  Hawaii Section is urged to contact our nominations chair.  This is an election year and we must come up with a slate of candidates! 

Nominations POC: johnoborland@aol.com

In this issue:

1.              New Members Welcome!

2.              Awards

3.              Calendar of Activities

4.              Additional News and Links

1. New Members in the Hawaii Section

We extend a hearty welcome to the new members of the Hawaii Section of the IEEE. The following members have recently moved to Hawaii: Sergio Jaramillo, Tyler Thornbrue, Ramezan Paravi Torghabeh and Ian Anderson.  The following members recently joined the IEEE: Jimmy Cheng, Joanne Hayashi, Yu Xian He, Jordan Yamada, and Tuan Nguyen.

2 Awards by the Hawaii Section

Science Fair IEEE Competition

Here are the IEEE award winners for the junior and senior research division.

Sr. Division:

Students: BaoXin Liang and Anna S. Chen

Title: Microwave Leakage from Cellphones

School: McKinley High School

Teacher: Kari Yoo

Jr. Division:

Students: Jacob R.I. Oshita and Eric S. Schlitzkus

Title: The Robotics Cane or Not?

School: Highlands Intermediate School

Teacher: Kathy Lin

Congratulations to the winners, and our thanks to our Vice Chair Chris Russell for managing the judging this year. 

3. Calendar of Activities in the Hawaii Section

May 2-3 Meetings on immigration reform as it affects our members (please see Chair's message below):

Sen. Hirono is available to meet with a delegation of IEEE members this coming Friday at 3:15 in her Honolulu office.  We plan to have a preliminary get together on Thursday to discuss the issue. Contact John Camery, john.camery@ieee.org if you would like to participate.

We need to get the names, addresses and titles (if they have leadership roles in IEEE, as well as their professional title) to Sen. Hirono's staff by Tuesday. So, respond quickly.

May 3-4 Activities Sponsored by the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Chapter :

May 3:  Safety Check for Contestants

May 4:  IEEE members are needed as judges that day

It’s that time of year again – the Hawaii Underwater Robot Challenge will be next Saturday, May 4th, from 9am at Kahanamoku Pool at UH Manoa lower campus.  This is a wonderful event that encourages middle and high school students STEM creativity!

We need volunteers to help as judges, divers/snorkel, and general support!  Please contact Mark Rognstad <mrognsta@hawaii.edu> for more information.

There’s a lot of information about this year’s competition on the MATE web site:

http://www.marinetech.org/rov-competition/

May 6: Our monthly EXCOM meeting followed by a tech talk:

The meeting starts at 5:30 pm at Zippy's on Vineyard. It is our monthly EXCOM meeting together with a technical talk.  It's an open meeting for all IEEE members and guests. Come out and help plan activities for the upcoming season and join in the discussion. The address is 59 North Vineyard Boulevard , Honolulu, HI 96817.

More info at: http://hawaii-ieee.blogspot.com/2013/04/excom-meeting-announcemment.html

4.  Additional News and Links

Internship Opportunities for Students

At the annual Business Card Exchange hosted by the UH-Manoa chapter, many students expressed their interest in gaining experience via internships with Hawaii businesses.  If you are aware of opportunities, please feel free to forward your recommendation/openings to:

David Morse, PACE Chair, Hawaii Section david.morse@ieee.org

H1B Visa Issue - A Message from the Chair, Hawaii Section

Aloha,

At the Region 6 meeting last February, members expressed their concern with the corporate abuses of the H1-B visa program that are taking jobs away from Americans.

The U.S. Senate is now close to introducing a major Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill (CIR). IEEE-USA has learned that the bill will include a significant expansion of the EB green card system. The senate will also propose a huge increase in the H-1B temporary work visa program

Here is link is to a recent article from the Boston Globe which does a good job articulating the problems with the H-1B program.  http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/03/30/visa-program-has-been-hijacked-outsourcers/VAg6o9KgS2tuoZ3WbmaqeK/story.html

 Russell Harrison, IEEE-USA, wrote an article describing the proposal in the Senate, which can be found here: http://www.todaysengineer.org/2013/Feb/immigration.asp

 The position of IEEE-USA is that any increase should be made in the EB green card system, not in the H-1B program.  IEEE-USA favors increases in STEM fields, but not increases for companies that are trying to outsource American jobs. IEEE-USA wants our help in contacting our representatives, esp., Sen. Hirono, who they feel is disposed to being helpful.

Please consider what you can do.

Links for further information about IEEE Hawaii:

The Chair's blog: http://hawaii-ieee.blogspot.com/

Hawaii Section's Website: http://ieee-hawaii.org

Hawaii Computer Chapter's Website: http://computer-hawaii.org

Hawaii Communications/Signal Processing Chapter's Website:
https://webinabox.vtools.ieee.org/wibp_home/index/CH06255

Hawaii Oceanic Engineering Chapter’s Website https://webinabox.vtools.ieee.org/wibp_home/index/CH06147

Hawaii Microwave Theory and Techniques Chapter’s Website https://webinabox.vtools.ieee.org/wibp_home/index/CH06253

Hawaii Section on LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4790391

Computer Chapter on LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4821808


Send your newsletter suggestions and questions to  david.morse@ieee.org