IEEE’s Imaginative and prescient, Innovation, and Challenges Summit and Honors Ceremony showcases rising applied sciences and celebrates engineering pioneers who laid the groundwork for a lot of of right this moment’s digital units. I attended this yr’s occasions, held on 4 and 5 Could in Atlanta. Listed here are highlights of the classes, which can be found on IEEE.television.
The summit kicked off on 4 Could 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 Middle Microwaves and Radar Institute in Oberpfaffenhofen, Bavaria. Garcia is CEO of City Local weather Nexus in Atlanta. UCN assists U.S. cities in creating and executing local weather motion and resilience plans.
The panelists targeted 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 similar to his are dealing with is discovering sufficient meals for his or her animals. As a result of sea ranges and temperatures are rising, greater than 80 % 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 harder 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 yr’s IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Applied sciences and Functions, 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 that developed applied sciences that modified folks’s lives have been acknowledged on the 2023 Honor Ceremony in Atlanta.Robb Cohen Pictures & Video
Bridging the digital divide, ethics in AI, and the position of robotics
The IEEE Imaginative and prescient, Innovation, and Challenges Summit acquired underway on 5 Could on the Hilton Atlanta, that includes panel discussions with a number of of this yr’s award recipients about issues associated to info and communication expertise (ICT), profession recommendation, and synthetic intelligence.
The occasion kicked off with a “fireplace chat” between Vint Cerf and Katie Hafner, a expertise journalist. Cerf, broadly often called the “Father of the Web,” is the recipient of this yr’s IEEE Medal of Honor. He’s being acknowledged for serving to to create “the Web structure and offering sustained management in its phenomenal development in changing into society’s essential infrastructure.”
Reflecting on his profession, Cerf mentioned “essentially the most magical factor that got here out of the Web is the gathering of folks that got here collectively to design, construct, and get the Web to work.”
The IEEE Life Fellow additionally spoke in regards to the greatest challenges society faces right this moment with ICT, together with the digital divide and folks utilizing the Web maliciously.
“I don’t need anybody to be denied entry to the Web, whether or not it’s as a result of they don’t have bodily entry or can’t afford the service,” Cerf mentioned. “We’re seeing a speedy enhance in entry lately, and I’m certain earlier than the tip of this decade anybody who desires entry can have it.”
However, he added, “Persons are doing dangerous issues on the Web to different folks, similar to ransomware, malware, and disinformation. I’m not stunned that is taking place. It’s human frailty being replicated within the on-line setting. The onerous half is determining what to do about it.”
In the course of the Innovators Showcase session, panelists Luc Van den hove, IEEE Life Fellow Melba M. Crawford, and IEEE Fellow James Truchard provided recommendation on lead a profitable firm or analysis lab. They agreed that it’s essential to carry collectively folks from a number of disciplines and to make sure the market is prepared for the product in improvement.
As for transferring up the profession ladder, Truchard mentioned folks shouldn’t exclude the position of luck.
“Engineering modifications the way in which the world works.”
“Nothing beats dumb luck,” he mentioned, laughing. He’s a former president and CEO of Nationwide Devices, an engineering-solutions firm he helped present in Austin, Texas. He’s the recipient of the IEEE James H. Mulligan Jr. Training Medal.
With the launch of ChatGPT, generative AI has change into a sizzling matter amongst technologists. The “Synthetic Intelligence and ChatGPT” panel targeted on the ethics of generative AI and the way educators can adapt the instruments in lecture 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 strategy 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 Expertise, in Terre Haute, Ind., emphasised how gender and racial biases stay issues with AI.
As a result of faculties gained’t be capable to cease college students from utilizing instruments similar to ChatGPT, she mentioned, educators want to show them analyze information and inform whether or not a supply is legitimate. Berry is the recipient of the IEEE Undergraduate Educating Award.
Brooks, an MIT robotics professor and cofounder of iRobot, mentioned robots may help mitigate the results of local weather change and will assist in caring for the aged.
“We aren’t going to have sufficient folks to take care of them,” he mentioned, “and it’s going to be an actual drawback pretty quickly. We have to discover a manner to assist the ageing inhabitants keep 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 College, in Houston, is the recipient of the IEEE Frances E. Allen Medal.
Pioneers of the QR code, the cochlear implant, and the Web
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 Web.
The IEEE Company Innovation Award went to Japanese automotive producer Denso, positioned in Aichi, for “the innovation of QR (Fast Response) code and their widespread use throughout the globe.” The corporate’s CEO, Koji Arima, accepted the award. In his speech, the IEEE member mentioned Denso is “dedicated to creating expertise that makes folks completely satisfied.”
About 466 million folks have listening to loss, in response to the World Well being Group. To assist those that are listening to impaired, within the Seventies husband and spouse Erwin and Ingeborg Hochmair developed the multichannel cochlear implant. For his or her invention, the duo are the recipients of the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal.
“We hope to proceed IEEE’s mission of creating expertise for the advantage 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 obtained a standing ovation.
“Engineering modifications the way in which the world works,” he mentioned. He ended with a promise: “You ain’t seen nothing but.”
You possibly can watch the IEEE Awards Ceremony on IEEE.television.
