"Green" Jobs Booming for Recent Grads
Jobs in the environmental field are rapidly growing for recent graduates. As public knowledge of global warming increases, new jobs are being created in fields such as urban planning, carbon trading, and environmental consulting. Environmental engineers, hydrologists, and urban and regional planners are among the fastest growing professions, and many environmental companies are seeking students from a variety of majors, including math, economics, public policy, liberal arts, and the earth sciences to fill those positions. Employers, above all, are looking for people who are not only smart, but passionate about protecting the environment. Read more
“Navigating Your Career” Webinar
Sponsored by Polytechnic University, the IEEE Spectrum Tech Insider Webinar “Navigating Your Career in Science and Technology” gives those interested in pursuing professions in electrical engineering, bioinformatics, and cybersecurity a look at valuable career tracks. Available “On Demand”, this webinar will provide helpful insight on how to launch your career forward into exciting, high-tech fields. Register now
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New Study Finds IEEE Journals Rank High in Quality Content
IEEE has once again earned high scores from the ISI Journal Citation Reports (JCR), a study that looks at the influence academic journals have on research within their disciplines. Published by Thomson ISI, the report ranks journals by their impact factor – which is the average number of times articles published over the last two years were cited in the most recent year. The 2006 report, released in June of 2007, shows IEEE continuing to lead the field with the high quality and relevant content published in IEEE journals.
According to the JCR, IEEE publishes:
- 17 of the top 20 journals in the field of Electrical & Electronic Engineering
- 10 of the top 10 journals in Telecommunications
- 7 of top 10 journals in Computer Science, Hardware & Architecture
- 7 of top 20 journals in Computer Science, Information Systems
- 9 of top 20 journals in Computer Science, Software Engineering
IEEE also has high-ranking journals in several additional fields of technology including the # 1 journal in Imaging Science & Photographic Technology, the # 1 journal in Automation Control, as well as journals ranked among the top 3 for Artificial Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science - Interdisciplinary Applications, Computer Science - Theory & Methods, Manufacturing Engineering, Nuclear Science & Technology, Ocean Engineering, Remote Sensing and Robotics. Read more
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Young Inventors Hope to Turn Ideas into Success
Students at the University of Nairobi in Kenya hope the knowledge they learned in the classroom will translate into a successful business enterprise. They are currently involved in a club that them an opportunity to find commercial markets for the products and services they have developed. These young designers have created mobile phones that control consumer devices, innovative mobile phone battery chargers, working light aircrafts, novel imaging solutions, and modern mobile robot kits. Their hope is that the recent trend of merging the academic and private sectors to create a profitable commercial entity from ideas generated through education is one that will help transform their creativity into financial wealth. Read more
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IEEE Foundation Grants Awarded for 2007
Thanks to the generosity of donors who understand the importance of unrestricted giving, and in keeping with the mission of the IEEE Foundation to further the scientific and educational purposes of the IEEE, the IEEE Foundation was able to award grants to a variety of initiatives in 2007. Highlights include the creation of a new exhibit at the Women at Work Museum in Attleboro, Massachusetts, USA, to showcase the achievements of women engineers throughout history; the production of the pilot episode of “Nerd Girls”, a television documentary aimed at encouraging a young female audience to consider entering engineering related fields; the creation of the “Museum of the Future”, a non-profit organization that aims to promote science and engineering among the public, especially those that are victims of the digital divide in Portuguese-speaking countries around the world; and providing resources to launch a Turkey-wide Pre-College website contest in which pre-college students will compete to design and develop the best school website. In total, nearly $250,000 was presented to support initiatives from IEEE branches around the world. Read more
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Role of Technology in Preventing Illegal File Sharing Eyed
To address the issue of illegal file-sharing practices among students at college and university campuses, participants in a hearing conducted by the House Science and Technology Committee listed education, the promotion of legal file-sharing alternatives, and technological deterrence as three methods for prevention. The hearing, conducted during the 109th Congress, allowed members of the Science Committee to explore research regarding the growing numbers of college students engaged in illegal file-sharing, as well as the economic and ethical dilemmas associated with the activity. In their testimonies, several participants revealed the benefits of technological devices they used to prevent illegal file-sharing, including traffic-shaping and network-filtering systems. Read more
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Indian Design Facility to Get $20M Donation
A comprehensive set of EDA tools for classroom instruction and academic research, valued at US $20 million, will be donated to India’s RV-VLSI Design Center by Mentor Graphics. The donation, part of the company's Higher Education Program, will allow students to take advantage of India’s growing electronics industry by acquiring proficiency in VLSI design and design-for-manufacturability. The Mentor Graphics Higher Education Program was first created in 1985 with the purpose of providing support to universities and colleges for classroom instruction and academic research. Read more
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I&M Society Design Competition
A new initiative has been introduced by the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society to stimulate thinking among student branches in a fun and interesting manner. The Society is challenging students to submit original design competition ideas that are related to the Society’s areas of interest. The design portion of the competition should not take long for students to complete and is not intended to be a national competition, but rather something engaging for students to collaborate on. In general, each student branch may request funding of up to $250 for its competition. In special cases, however, funding requests of up to $400 will be considered. The deadline for submitting competition ideas is 28 September 2007. Learn more
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Software Seeks False Friends on Social Networking Sites
Software that can recognize false profile pages on social networking sites will be demonstrated at an anti-spam conference later this month. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) developed the technology to differentiate between spammers and true users of a social networking site. The technology works by analyzing MySpace pages for social behavior by studying how personalized a page is, examining the number of shared photos and video clips, and tracking the volume of sent and received messages. Once the software acquires this data, it measures a new set of profiles and can give recommendations about whether or not to accept a request to be a friend from certain profiles. Read more
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The Downside of Patents
A recent article published in the New York Times looks at the real benefits, if any, patents may have for the information technology industry. Two researchers analyzed data from 1976 to 1999 and found that starting in the late 1990s, publicly traded companies saw patent litigation costs vastly outweigh patent profits. Other research has established that patents are typically worth less than US $10,000, not nearly enough money to justify going through the patent process for many companies, especially those with small budgets. Though the current landscape for information technology patents may look bleak, the article does mention that changes are on the horizon. Both Congress and the United States Patent and Trademark Office are considering initiatives to help reform the current patent application process. Read more
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Career Accelerator Forum
Scheduled for 11 October 2007, the IEEE Spectrum Career Accelerator Forum provides a rare opportunity to hear presentations on the inside career track for medical and healthcare technology, as well as computer security, from leading experts. Educational and career advisors will also speak with interested participants about the fast-track to management positions. Learn more
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