Our student branch, in collaboration with other student branches in Montreal (Polytechnic, Concordia, UQAM, ETS and INRS) organized the competition in Polytechnic on Friday, October 19th. McBoolens from McGIll University ranked 2nd in Canada!

After registeration, we held another workshop in MC603 on October 16th from 5:30 PM to 9 PM which is managed by Elias, who participated in the two previous IEEEXtreme competitions. In this workshop, he examined the students on a mini virtual competition. Also, he was constantly gave feedback to the students on their code during the competition.

Our IEEE McGill student branch and WIE McGill branch were actively involved in organizing and volunteering in IEEE Day held on 2nd October 2018 at Polytechnique Montreal. We were actively involved in official meetings to discuss and finalize agenda for IEEE day. We were responsible for distributing the posters in McGill, UQAM, INRS and other universities to encourage more people to be a part of this event.

Our McNaughton Officer/graphic designer, ELias Al Homsi, who has participated in IEEE extreme contest of 2016 and 2017 ran an info session and a workshop about IEEEXtreme in MC603 on Friday October 28th. The participants were students from McGill, Polytechnic, Concordia and UQAM. In the info session, he discussed the rules in addition to the notes that participants should have in mind during the competition. In the workshop, he solved multiple sample questions from the previous years.

Our student branch editor, Borna Sayedana, participated in Mcgill students Orientation for Fall 2018 on August 30th on behalf of IEEE McGill Student Branch in Thompson House. He introduced IEEE and our student branch events to a large number of new coming students. Another orientation was hold by Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department on September 18th. Our student branch chair, Nima Akbarzadeh, introduced IEEE Montreal section, YP and WIE in addition to the student branch activities for new comming ECE graduate students.

Our student branch chair, Nima Akbarzadeh, participated in IEEE Multi-generational Workshop and Student Congress which was held on September 14th up to September 16th. in Mississuaga, Ontario on the bahalf of IEEE McGill Student Branch. It was a great experience where he met IEEE life members and other student branch chairs. Also, there is a chance for collaboration with other IEEE student branches in the future.

There is a pre-product startup looking to hire a student to aid our team with Android development. They are building an innovative mobile application that significantly reduces communication inefficiencies. Their product allows people to collaborate more effectively and has applications in private messaging, social media, and tech-support. The position would be part-time and the candidate would be reporting directly to, and learning from the CTO, Paul Steenkiste and the Lead Android Engineer, Chris Kudlack. The startup is located in San Fransico (Silicon Valley) and the student would be working remotely.

We are greatful that our student branch could make a link between several McGill students with the start-up.

The fourth session of ITTT was held on 28th of February 2018. The topics was Computer Vision and it was presented by Khimya Khetarpal, PhD student in Computer Science department.

The third session of ITTT (Informative Talks on Technical Topics) was held on 25th of January 2018. The topics was Reinforcement Learning and it was presented by Jayakumar Subramanian, PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering department.

The second session of ITTT was held on 25th of January 2018. The topics was Machine Learning and it was presented by Mohammad Alobaidi, PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering department.

The first session of ITTT (Informative Talks on Technical Topics) was held on 25th of January 2018. The topics was Game Theory and it was presented by Mohammad Amini, MSc student in Computer Science department.

The IEEE Consumer Electronics Chapter at Montreal Section is pleased to announce a panel discussion to examine how Artificial Intelligence (AI) may impact Consumer Electronics (CE). The CE industry sector includes emerging technologies for enabling smart homes, autonomous vehicles, wearables, augmented reality and virtual reality. Montreal is now recognized as a world leader in the area of Artificial Intelligence.

The fifth IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing (GlobalSIP) was held on 14-16 November 2017 in Montreal. Our student branch was actively participated in organizing the Conference which was held in Hotel Bonaventure.

On 2017 GALA and AGM for the IEEE Montreal Section, our student branch actively participated in helping Young Professional group for preparation and organization of the event. Our new members (Nima Akbarzadeh, Dima Kayyali, Bill Zhang) and old members (Jhelum Chakravorty, Mohammad Afshari) took several responsibilities in the event.
Furthermore, we would like to express our honour as Prof. Gregory Dudek, McGill University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was the recipient of the 2017 IEEE Montreal Section Gold Medal Award.

The competition was held on McConnell 602 Engineering Building in McGill University, on October 14, 2017. There were 3 teams joined. The invigilation for the event was conducted by Dr. Carlos Condo from McGill University, who devoted his 24 hours for the security of the event and to meet with the participants’ needs. Also, volunteers from McGill IEEE Student Branch helped with the invigilation during the event, devoting from their time. Food and drinks are provided for each participant during the event.
One of McGill University’s teams, CodeStudio, has ranked 1st in R7 region in the competition. We congratulate Andrei Purcarus Craciun, Sebastian Pilarski and Fan Ma for this prestigious achievement! Another team of McGill University, Samosas, has ranked 4th in R7 region. We would like to thank their effort as well.

McGill PGSS organized the Fall Orientation on August 31, 2017 at Thompson House, where McGill IEEE Student Branch and WIE together arranged for an information desk for the new graduate students. Council members welcomed the students, explained the motto of these two student organizations and the benefits of becoming members of the same. They motivated the interested students in keeping themselves up to date with the events at the university level and beyond and provided them with the step-by-step guidance towards a systematic way of becoming a useful cog in the giant wheel of activities pertaining to technogy and innovation.

One of the main objectives of the McGill IEEE student branch is to organize industrial and research lab visits. The executive committee managed to organize and conduct a site visit to the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center (MUHC) on August 20, 2017. The purpose of the visit was to introduce the Research Institute's facilities as well as their most recent research on the artificial pancreas to the visitors. This research project is supervised by Professor Ahmad Haidar from McGIll University. The focus of this research is to create an external artificial pancreas (a device that acts like a pancreas) that automatically adjusts blood sugar levels for individuals with type 1 diabetes. This is accomplished through co-infusion of insulin and pramlintide, a synthetic analog of amylin. Amylin is a hormone that is usually secreted from the pancreas with insulin in response to food to help control blood sugar, but is not produced in patients with type 1 diabetes. The purpose of this study is to see if the use of pramlintide with insulin can improve day-and-night blood sugar levels compared to insulin on its own. This 3-hour tour started by a presentation by Prof. Ahmad Haidar which included an introduction about type 1 diabetes and the artificial pancreas. Later students took a tour within the research lab to see the artificial pancreas and they were explained the algorithms used to monitor and control the glucose level in the blood.

McGill IEEE Women in Engineering, shortly after its official launch, held their first event by the panel titled: "Being a Women in Engineering: Challenges and Opportunities". The panelists were Prof. Tal Arbel and Prof. Milica Popovich. During the event, the panelists shared their relevant experience, enlightened the audience by answering their questions related to the potential opportunities and challenges. The event was continued by a networking event.

To raise more attention and to have a newly updated logo for the Branch, we held a logo contest that was open to all McGill students from all disciplines. The event lasted for three weeks. The jury (Furkan Ercan and Mohammad Hossain Mohammadi) has decided to nominate the design made by Olivier St-Martin Cormier, a Ph.D. student in ECE department. We congratulate Olivier for submitting an awesome logo for the branch with a strong background.

In order to get more active members to the Branch, we held an information desk session by the entrance of McConnell Engineering Building, one of the most common pathways, where we introduced our Branch and newly founded Women in Engineering affinity group. We obtained a lot of interest especially from the undergraduate students, by explaining and demonstrating the benefits of being a IEEE student member.

On October 14th, we had four teams participated in the IEEEXtreme 9.0 Programming Competition, organized at ETS. Our branch was involved in forming student teams, actively volunteering in event organization with other participating IEEE Student Branches (from Concordia University, UQAM and ETS) and invigilating during the competition night. Throughout this 24-hour competition, our student branch supported the present McGill teams by providing regular food breaks. Primary invigilator was Prof. Francois Coallier from ETS, who stayed in the competition area during the entire competition. This year, t-shirts were distributed to each participating team member. In the end, our team, CodeStudio, ranked 1st in region R7 teams by providing regular food breaks. Primary invigilator was Prof. Francois Coallier from ETS, who stayed in the competition area during the entire competition. This year, t-shirts were distributed to each participating team member. In the end, our team, CodeStudio, ranked 1st in region R7 and ranked 103th among 2000+ teams in the global scope. We had CodeStudio competing in IEEE Xtreme 9.0 last year, and they ranked 2nd in the region. We congratulate them by heart! We also present our gratitude to IEEE Montreal Section for financially supporting this competition.

On November 23, 2016, McGill IEEE SB helped with the organization held by the IEEE Montreal Section – Industrial Application Society’s event - “Practical Aspects in the Design & Analysis of Electric Machinery for Power Traction Applications” by Mircea Popescu from Motor Design Limited.

On November 24, 2016, McGill IEEE SB helped with the organization details held by the IEEE Montreal Section – Consumer Electronics Meetup. It was the first event of the newly founded chapter, and it was a successful and interesting event for the participants. A networking session was also held during the event.

In October 2016 annual banquet of IEEE Montreal Section, our student branch actively participated in helping with the details of the organization of the event. Our members Jhelum Chakravorty, Furkan Ercan, Mohammad Afshari, and Jiachen Liu took the responsibilities of printing and distribution of badges, welcoming and orienting the guests, and organizing the permissions for the photography venue.

On October 4th, 2016 the McGill IEEE Student Branch celebrated IEEE Day and the new academic year through an IEEE Benefits Information Session (presented by Furkan Ercan), and a cake ceremony. In this IEEE membership drive, students joined for a meet networking session and signed up as new members. A picture was also submitted to IEEE Day Annual Photo Contest 2016.

This year, to represent our student branch, Furkan Ercan (as the secretary of the SB) participated in the 2016 annual IEEE Student Congress that was held in Mississauga, Ontario on 16-18 September. On this three-day event, our representative has not only actively represented our branch, but also he initiated contacts from academia and industry, as well as exchanged ideas on volunteering activities that would prepare our student branch with full of activities for the upcoming year.