IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)
Technology for the Benefit of Humanity // Villanova University, USA / October 23-26, 2024

About Us – 2012

 

Our 2012 committee has:

  • Highly educated and experienced professionals who are volunteering for GHTC
  • Members of professional, civic and humanitarian organizations
  • Highly qualified Technical and Advisory Sub-committees
  • IEEE 2008 President and a founder of GHTC
  • People living in North America, Asia and Australia

 

Conference Chair

Keith Moore

IEEE Senior Member

keith.moore@ieee.org

  • Keith Moore currently works for the US Army Information Systems Engineering Command as a senior engineer at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Keith’s career has taken him all over the world to establish and maintain computer and communications systems. Keith holds a bachelor degree in electrical engineering and a master in business administration and management information systems. Keith maintains professional engineer status as granted by the Arizona State Board of Technical Registration.
  • Keith has served in a number of volunteer and other organizations to work with others for the good of all stakeholders. These experiences have involved organizations including federal and state governments, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, IEEE, local and indigenous churches. Keith has served as a big brother, engineer, missionary, science fair judge, Future City Competition mentor, gymnastics coach, and firefighter/EMT.
  • Keith has championed the IEEE Humanitarian Technology Challenge (HTC) Student Design Challenge competition.Currently, Keith is the Fort Huachuca Section Treasurer and PACE Chair. In the past, he was the Section Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary. In 2009, Keith was the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Industry Relations Officer. With Reliability Society, Keith is involved on the IEEE Standards revision with IEEE Reliability Society.

Conference Vice-chair

Soon Wan

IEEE Senior Member

gimsoon@ieee.org

  • Soon is a Senior Design Engineer in the Research and Development Engineering group at VICOR Corporation (Andover, MA). He works with a team to design and develop high power density DC/DC power converter with innovative technologies and patented topologies.
  • Soon began volunteering for IEEE when he joined IEEE as a student member in 1996. Currently, he is a Senior Member in IEEE. Soon has been serving IEEE GOLD (Graduates Of the Last Decade) Community with young professionals since 2000, when he founded Boston GOLD Affinity Group. He was the 2007-2008 IEEE MGA GOLD Committee Chair.
  • Soon also participates in IEEE humanitarian activities. In order to create awareness among engineering students and young professionals on how they could use their skills and knowledge to aid humanitarian works, Soon has successfully organized the inaugural GOLD Humanitarian Workshop in Boston in 2008. In addition, Soon initiated the GOLD Humanitarian Fellowship Program in 2009. In 2010, Soon was a member of IEEE Humanitarian AdHoc Committee, and a co-responding member to IEEE Humanitarian Technology Challenge, and with the Reliable Electricity Solution Workgroup. Since 2008, Soon is a co-responding member to IEEE Committee on Earth Observation (ICEO), and was working on the IEEE “Water for the World” initiative.

Technical Program Co-chair

Ted Weiler

IEEE Senior Member

tweiler@weilermdd.com

  • Ted Weiler has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Washington, Seattle.
  • He currently serves as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of Washington, Center for Commercialization. This position allows him to use his 35 years of experience in R&D and marketing of a wide variety of medical devices to help UW scientists find the best path to commercialization for their medical device–oriented research. He has been involved in the development and clinical application of unique technologies in ultrasound at UW and ATL (Phillips) and defibrillator monitors at Physio-Control.
  • During 19 years managing R&D for Olympic Medical (Natus Medical), he oversaw the development of a wide variety of products for the pediatric, surgery, and inhalation therapy markets, as well as neonatal neurology products for the detection and treatment of brain injury in newborn infants.
  • Ted has been an IEEE member for 38 years and is currently a Senior Member. He assisted the organizing committee for the GHTC. He is a founding member of HUB Seattle, an incubator space for Social Innovators. He is active in a wide variety of humanitarian, social enterprise activities based in the Seattle area.
Technical Program Committee

Dr. Mark Henderson

ASME Senior Member

Mark.henderson@asu.edu

  • Mark Henderson is Professor of Engineering and Associate Dean of the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University. He has a M.S. in Bioengineering and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, specifically in Computer-aided Design and Computer Graphics, both from Purdue. His research area is in global teaming, global sustainable technology development and social entrepreneurship. He is a founding faculty member of the new Engineering Department at ASU’s Polytechnic campus, which emphasizes problem-based learning, use-inspired design and a flexible curriculum.
  • He is Founding Director of GlobalResolve (http://globalresolve.asu.edu), an ASU program to help create sustainable communities in the developing world using systems innovation methods, primarily in Ghana, Mexico, India, Haiti and Arizona. GlobalResolve has worked in several communities on clean water, food, health and energy solutions, with the express goal of helping communities use these solutions to create business ventures. He is also a co-founder of InnovationSpace (http://innovationspace.asu.edu), a multi-disciplinary product development course sequence at ASU mixing engineering, business and design. His recent publications center on global design education, design thinking and curriculum development, especially around social entrepreneurship.
  • Henderson is an ASU parent as well as a faculty member, with two graduates and a current junior. He and his wife, Sue, are empty nesters in Chandler, Arizona, where he plays euphonium in the Ahwatukee Foothills Community Band and is a strong supporter of Drum Corps International. He is on the Board of Advisors for Carbon Roots, International, an NGO in Haiti, and a partner in Daylight Solutions, an LLC to produce and distribute small electrical generators for off-grid applications, primarily in the developing world. He enjoys leading ASU study abroad trips to developing countries where students routinely report having inspirational life changing experiences.

Technical Program Committee

Dr. Henry Louie

IEEE Member

louieh@seattleu.edu

  • Dr. Louie received the B.S.E.E. degree from Kettering University in2002, the M.S. degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2004 and the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington in 2008. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seattle University. His research includes appropriate technology for rural electrification and renewable energy modeling.
  • He has been involved with several humanitarian engineering projects in Zambia and co-chairs the IEEE Community Solutions Initiative Wind Turbine Taskforce. He is the IEEE Power & Energy Society Vice President of Membership & Image, and Chair of the Seattle Chapter.

Technical Program Committee

Jery Althaf

IEEE Member

jeryalthaf@gmail.com

  • Jery Althaf is a fellow at the Young India fellowship Program – a one-year fully-funded multidisciplinary post-graduate program. He did his Bachelors Digree in electronics and instrumentation at College of Engineering Trivandrum and worked for a year in Electronics Department at Mahindra and Mahindra Automotives Limited.
  • He has been an active member of IEEE for the past 5 years and also is a member of the International Committee for Earth Observation, Region 10 Humanitarian Ad Hoc Committee. Previously he was a student technical coordinator at Kerala section. During that time Jery initiated student technical awareness conferences and lead a project on rural electrification presented at GHTC 2012. Last year Jery lead Humanitarian Page Contest using crowd sourcing platforms. He is also an active volunteer for IEEE SIGHT and is interested in entrepreneurship.

Registration Chair

Richard Wilkins

IEEE Senior Member

wilkins@ieee.org

  • Richard “Dick” Wilkins is Principal Technology Liaison for Phoenix Technologies. He manages the company’s technical relationship with industry bodies like UEFI, TCG, ACPI, DMTF and others. He also acts as technical point-of-contact with major partner companies as relates to Phoenix’s core system software and firmware products. He has previously held progressively more responsible positions with companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Digital Equipment Corp. and was Director of Engineering for Bsquare, a mobile device products software company.
  • Dick has been member of the IEEE for nearly twenty years. As a senior member, he has chaired the Computer Society Seattle Chapter for several years and is currently Seattle Section chair after serving as secretary, treasurer and vice-chair. He was a founding member of the committee that created the successful Seattle IEEE Wireless Workshop held twice in recent years. He is also active in the ACM and PMI. Dick also shares his experience in technology and project management with students at DeVry University and the Keller Graduate School of Management as an adjunct professor.
  • Dick holds a BA from St. Thomas University, a Masters in Computer Science from the National Technological University and is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at Nova Southeastern University. He holds a patent in highly available cluster computing technology.

Tutorials Co-chair

Jim Miller

IEEE Senior Member

jimmsl@aol.com

  • Jim Miller is the founder and president of SYNECTICS, Ltd. a Seattle-based company, specializing in strategic planning and consulting for information and communications technology (ICT) with global clients and projects. He has worked with and managed teams for large and small, complex data and communications projects for domestic and international projects in US, Canada, Malaysia, Russia, Iraq, Egypt, and Jordan, including national strategic reorganization and technology plans for Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt.
  • His expertise spans infrastructure design, and development of practical client solutions and applications, including networks for distance education and remote emergency health care, video-conferencing solutions, network disaster management architectures, operational support systems, regulatory affairs, financial planning and analysis, and marketing and management strategies. Jim has corporate as well as startup experience, as founder and principal in 4 companies, where he has developed unique solutions in automated telephone data access, electronic medical records, systemic educational planning, and nation-wide wireless network development.
  • Mr. Miller has an extensive background in developing, demonstrating, and advocating global humanitarian uses of technology. He was the sole technology keynoter at the 50thAnniversary of the Fulbright Association in Budapest where he spoke on technological pollution. He has advocated for global communications subsidies for humanitarian-NGOs at several World Bank, UNDP, USAID, and Arthur C Clarke Foundation sponsored events. He has developed and demonstrated affordable, satellite-based low bandwidth video and Internet connections and techniques in the Amazon, Alaska, and remote locations in the Pacific. Jim is proactive in developing new technologies sustainably in emerging and under-served areas.He holds a BSc in Physics-Math from the University of Arizona. Jim was Computer Society Chair in the IEEE Puget Sound Chapter and is a member of IEEE and the IEEE Communications Society.
  • Jim is an active traveler and enjoys numerous sports as well as reading and participating in the arts and sciences.

Tutorials Co-chair

Shrikant Palkar

IEEE Senior Member

shripalkar@ieee.org

  • Shrikant Palkar is Enterprise Architect at Costco WholeSale. In a career spanning close to three decades he has worked in five countries, as programmer, designer, project manager, process consultant and architect. Shrikant has worked on many multi-year multi-technology business application projects and engineering projects involving embedded systems and software for robotic sensors. As a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Melon University and SEI, he presented several seminars on software processes, measurements and software architecture.
  • Shrikant has a passion for educational activities and has been invited to join faculty at graduate schools in USA and India. Shrikant has presented papers and tutorials at international conventions and conferences in areas of software architecture and process improvement.
  • He has been involved with IEEE activities for the past 15 years. He is actively involved in the Teacher In Service Program of IEEE and is the Co-chair of Seattle Section of the IEEE computer Society and the Student Activities chair for the IEEE Seattle Section. He has participated as judge in the IEEE Xtreme Programming competition. Shrikant is an active member of the Project Management Institute, a life member of the Computer Society of India, and the Indian Technical Education Society.
  • Shrikant has been involved in humanitarian projects from his student days. He spent a full year after obtaining his Master’s degree working with natives in rural India.
  • He wants to use his skills learned in high end of technology for improvement of solutions and practices in resource starved areas.

Publications Chair

Joe Decuir

IEEE Senior Member

jdecuir@ieee.org

 

  • Joe is a standards architect at Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR plc). He has been driving and contributing to public communications standards in Bluetooth, IEEE 802, ITU-T, TIA, USB-IF and WiMedia Alliance for decades. His day job is to develop Bluetooth Low Energy (4.0), particular for Health, Medical and Smart Home applications.
  • Joe currently serves at the Northwest Area chair in IEEE Region 6, coaching Sections in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington. He has served as a Seattle Section Officer, Communications Society Chapter chair and a Student Activities Chair. He has given dozens of presentations to IEEE chapters on communications topics, and organized two Wireless Workshops.
  • This is Joe’s first chance to directly support IEEE’s mission to promote technology for humanity. He also serves as an officer in the Issaquah Citizens’ Corps, part of a US Federal Emergency Management Agency program for volunteer first-responders (CERT).

Partner Program Chair

Lise Johnston

IEEE GOLD Member

lise.johnston@ieee.org

  • Lise Johnston works in the electrical architectural design field. She works on everything electrical that goes into a building: from lighting, security systems, communications, to power distribution. Previous jobs had her working in contract and project management.
  • Currently, Lise is the Editor-In-Chair for the IEEE Potentials Magazine, and IEEE Student Activities Representative to MGA GOLD Committee.
  • Her interests include green buildings and sustainable design, renewable energy, smart grids, playing the piano and traveling.

Chair Student Poster Contest

Ramesh Nair

IEEE Member

rameshnair@ieee.org

    • Mr. Ramesh Nair is a Graduate Student Member of IEEE from 2013 and has been a student member of IEEE since 2009. He is currently pursuing his Master of Science (MS) in Computer Engineering with specialization in VLSI Design from University of Cincinnati, OH, USA. His research areas includes Physical VLSI Design, Digital Logic Design and Front End VLSI Design. Mr. Ramesh was a member of the research project ‘Intelligent Home Navigation System for the Elderly and Physically Challenged’, which was funded by the IEEE Foundation, NJ, USA during the period 2010-11. He has published a book chapter and 6 conference papers for various international conferences. He has also attended 5 International Conferences in this small span of time.
    • Mr. Ramesh is also a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and the IEEE Computer Society (CS). He was the winner of the IEEE Computer Society Richard E Merwin Scholarship during the year 2012. He has won the IEEE Kerala Section 2011 Outstanding Student Volunteer Award, 2011 SAC Excellence Award of IEEE Kerala Section, 2010-11 IEEE Student Enterprise Award and the IEEE Region 10 Paper Award 2011. He has played a major role to the Humanitarian aspects of IEEE by initiating events such as the All Kerala Humanitarian Technology Contest (AKHTC), and also volunteering for IEEE SIGHT (Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology) both at the Region 10 and Global level. He has held various volunteering position in IEEE including the Student Representative and Executive Committee Member of IEEE Kerala Section during the year 2012.

Chair Photo/Short-Video Contest and Webmaster

Inessa Pearce

IEEE Member

inessaprc@gmail.com

  • Inessa has an engineering degree in Chemical and Electrochemical Technologies and professional experience with Siemens Medical Systems (medical device R&D) and Boeing Commercial Airplanes (Electrical Technology Group).
  • She has been involved in several humanitarian fields for many years. She financially supports the education of two orphaned children in Africa through Childcare Worldwide (childcareworldwide.org). She is also a member of a local nonprofit group that benefits community and low-income people. It promotes environmental responsibility by reducing waste. Inessa is a member of engineeringforchange.org (E4C). As a GHTC committee member, she works with the technical program, promotion, publicity and as the Webmaster.
  • Some of her many personal interests and activities include raising her spirited 11-year old daughter, science, history, gardening, sports, sailing, wine & food, piano, travel and diving.

Advisory Committee

Paul J. Kostek

IEEE Senior Member

p.kostek@ieee.org

  • Paul J. Kostek is the Principal of Air Direct Solutions, a systems engineering/project management consulting firm. He works with companies in defining system architecture, system requirements, and software development standards.
  • Paul received his BS from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.Paul was the IEEE-USA VP Communications & Public Awareness and on the IEEE-USA Board of Directors in 2007-2009. And also has served as chair of the IEEE Individual Benefits and Services Committee and a member of the IEEE-USA Government Fellows Committee.
  • In 1999 Paul was the President of IEEE-USA, and a member of the IEEE Board of Directors. He served as President of the IEEE Aerospace & Electronics Systems Society in 2000-2001 and Chaired the American Association of Engineering Societies in 2003. Paul was the Chair of the 2006 IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference and was General Chair of the 2004 IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference. He is an AIAA Distinguished Lecturer, an IEEE-USA SPAC Speaker, and a member of IT Technical Advisory Committee at the Seattle Central Community College.
  • Paul is a Senior Member of the IEEE, an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a member of the International Council on Systems Engineering, SAE, and the Project Management Institute.

Advisory Committee

Ed Perkins

IEEE Senior Member

Region 6 Director

e.perkins@ieee.org

  • Edward G. Perkins received BSEE and MSCS degrees from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), and an MS ECE degree (2004) from Portland State University.
  • He currently consults in IT Governance, risk management and risk auditing; process automation; and technology documentation. He has over 30 years industry experience, in electronic design automation, program and project management, mixed-signal test development, design services management, chip architecture development, software development, and real time systems programming.
  • He has worked as design services manager for a telecom start-up, as a program manager in the Virtual Test Division of IMS in Beaverton, Oregon, 16 years at Digital Equipment Corporation, 10 years in the central engineering CAD department where he was responsible for management of CAE services and support to engineering groups worldwide and before that as a principal software engineer in real-time operating systems.

Advisory Committee

Michael Andrews

IEEE Senior Member

Region 6 Director-Elect

michael@andrews-associates.com

 

  • Mr. Andrews is Managing Partner of Andrews & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in linking strategic plans to Emergency Planning, Continuity of Operations, Business Mitigation, Response and Resumption Planning and Operational Readiness for business, schools and government entities. He is also President of Sound & Optics Systems, a technology corporation responsible for developing products that reduce criminal acts and support emergency response.
  • Mr. Andrews is a Senior Member of IEEE and is currently serving IEEE members as the Region 6 Director-elect, Member and Geographic Activities Chair/Representative on the IEEE Humanitarian Technology Challenge, Phoenix Section PACE Chair and Phoenix Section Intersociety Liaison. He is also the Arizona Regional Coordinator for the National Engineers Week Future City Competition.
  • Mr. Andrews’ commitment to the community includes the Future City Competition, SMART Education Foundation and the SMART Competition, Salvation Army, Williams Institute for Ethics and Management and Arizona Leader Force. He was awarded an IEEE Millennium Medal for outstanding achievements and contributions to IEEE and the IEEE-USA Robert S. Walleigh Award for Distinguished Contributions to Engineering Professionalism Award. He is an honoree of the Hon Kachina award for his volunteerism and a recipient of the AIA-Arizona Award of Distinction for promoting architecture and city design.

Advisory Committee

Dr. Lew Terman

IEEE Fellow

IEEE President 2008

l.terman@ieee.org

  • Lew Terman joined the IBM Research Division in 1961. In 1964 he began pioneering work in semiconductor memory and participated in the program that resulted in the first IBM MOSFET memory products. Continuing in the Research Division, he worked on and managed groups in advanced semiconductor devices and technology, and chip, circuit and high speed processor design. He was recognized with six IBM Outstanding Invention and Contribution Awards, and three IBM Corporate Awards. From 2001 – 2003, he was President of the IBM Academy of Technology. He then returned to the IBM Research Division and served as Associate Director of the Systems Department until retiring in 2006.
  • An IEEE volunteer for over 40 years, Lew was a member of the IEEE Board of Directors for six years and served as IEEE President in 2008. During his presidency he initiated a major IEEE focus on humanitarian goals. He was also a founding contributor to the IEEE Humanitarian Technology Fund, and is a strong supporter of its focus of applying technology to societal problems. Discussing IEEE, Lew has said “IEEE is a great organization. I am proud to be part of IEEE’s goal of advancing technology for humanity, and contributing to its impact on society in general.” The GHTC is the 7thIEEE conference which Lew has been involved in founding.
  • In addition to serving as IEEE president, Lew was president of the IEEE Electron Devices Society 1990-91, the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society 1998-1999, and was the IEEE Vice President of Technical Activities in 2001 and Division 1 Director 2004-2005. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, received the 1995 IEEE Solid-State Circuits Technical Field Award, and is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

Advisory Committee

Rich Baseil

IEEE Consultant

r.baseil@ieee.org

  • Richard Baseil is a technology management consultant for IEEE. Most recently, he has been involved in IEEE’s multi-year Humanitarian Technology Challenge project to define and solve some pressing humanitarian problems in developing countries, through the application of technology.
  • His 35 years of experience includes working for The RAND Corporation, The MITRE Corporation, and Cisco Systems. He retired as a Vice President and Managing Director in Telcordia Technologies’ Professional Services organization, stemming from Bell Laboratories and Bellcore. Mr. Baseil is accomplished in Business Management (Profit & Loss), Product and Market Development, Organizational Development and Management, and Technology Innovation. He has practiced and managed Systems Engineering, Requirements, Process Analysis, Quality Auditing, Testing, Supplier/Contract Management, Sales Operations, Marketing, and Program Management work. He has served as advisor to suppliers and to purchasers, individually and in-group advisory settings, and has facilitated consortia.
  • He has served on National Research Council Committees advising the U.S. Department of Defense, the FBI, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and he currently teaches Electrical Engineering and Engineering Economics courses at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
  • Mr. Baseil holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, Magna Cum Laude and Summa Cum Laude, in Electrical Engineering from the Newark College of Engineering.

Advisory Committee

Dr. Tony Marjoram

UNESCO (retired)

t_marjoram@yahoo.com

 

 

  • Tony Marjoram has a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (1969-72). During this time he became so interested in the role of science, engineering and technology in humanitarian development he then took a year off to travel overland to India. On his return he completed an MSc on Science and Technology Policy at Manchester University, followed by further research and work on a project on marine resources (1973-80).
  • Technology and development interests continued and he joined the University of the South Pacific, working first at the Centre for Applied Studies in Development, and then the Rural Development Institute. In 1987 he became a Senior Fellow at the Development Technologies Centre of the University of Melbourne, gained a PhD and published a book on technology and development in the Pacific islands. In 1993 he joined UNESCO as the engineering and technology specialist for Asia and the Pacific, based in Jakarta, moving to UNESCO headquarters in 1997 to manage the engineering program in the Division of Basic and Engineering Sciences. One of his last major activities was the production of the first UNESCO Engineering Report, focused on development.
  • Tony departed UNESCO in 2011 and returned to Australia, looking forward to build on his experience and work on engineering, technology, innovation and development.

Publicity Team

Verona Wong

vwong@ieee.org

  • Verona Wong is a Senior Product Verification Engineer at semiconductor firm PMC-Sierra, Inc. in Vancouver, Canada. She works with a global team of engineers to develop ASICs for clients like HP, Huawei.
  • Verona began volunteering for IEEE in 1996 as a student member. Since then, she held various positions related to student activities and GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) in the IEEE GOLD Committee, Region 7 and Vancouver Section. She led Region 7 GOLD Affinity Groups into winning multiple GOLD Awards. In addition, she initiated several successful programs like the GOLD 10th Anniversary Celebration Project and the STEP (Student Transition and Elevation Program). When she was the IEEE GOLD Vice-Chair in 2007, she organized the GOLD Summit at Sections Congress 2008.
  • By volunteering for IEEE GHTC, Verona thinks that IEEE will be more relevant to members and communities.

Chair Student Paper Contest

Publicity Team

Rob Vice

IEEE GOLD Member

IEEE Senior Member

vice@ieee.org

  • Robert Vice is a Staff Hardware Engineer and Project Manager with Measurement Computing in Norton, Massachusetts USA. Rob’s interests are in the design of data acquisition devices implementing microcontrollers and FPGA’s for embedded systems in the test and measurement industries. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer systems Engineering from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts.
  • Rob is the IEEE Boston Section Chair, past Humanitarian Lead for the IEEE Student Activities Committee, past IEEE Boston PACE Chair, past Region 1 SPAC Coordinator, past Region 1 Northeast Area GOLD Support Coordinator, past Chair of the Boston Section GOLD Affinity Group (2008) and various other positions within the Boston GOLD Affinity Group since 2007. He is also a member of the Computer Society, Reliability Society and Instrumentation & Measurement Society. Working with the GOLD Affinity Group, he has organized various aspects of conferences and career fairs including the 2008 Humanitarian Workshop and STEP (Student Transition and Elevation Program) events. He also lead the charge for the Student Poster Contest at the 2012 Global Humanitarian Technology Conference and the Student Paper Contest Chair for 2013. Additionally, Rob blogged at various IEEE events from IEEE-USA Annual Meetings and the 2012 GHTC Conference. His experience in the Humanitarian/International Development space come from the approach of the IEEE versus direct involvement in the field.

Willow Brugh

Bloggers Team

  • Willow is an organic chat client, spanning a multitude of subcultures and putting like-minded (but differently disciplined) people in touch. This has led to a passion for hacker and maker spaces as places for education and indicators of resiliency in disaster. These places must be nurtured and pushed forward, to take a lead role in creating engaged citizens to take us into the future. She co-founded of Jigsaw Renaissance, a learning and making community in Seattle; co-founded and past director of Space Federation, linking together hacker and maker spaces; and currently direct Geeks Without Bounds, an accelerator for humanitarian projects. In 2013, Willow embark on a new adventure as a research affiliate at Center for Civic Media out of MIT.

GHTC-SAS Conference

Coordinator

Satish Babu

IEEE Senior Member

Vice President, IEEE India Council

sbabu@ieee.org

  • Satish Babu is the Chair of IEEE Kerala Section, India and a VicePresident of IEEE India Council. In IEEE Computer Society, he is the R10 GUOC Coordinator, the global DVP Coordinator, and Member, Nominations Committee (2012).
  • Satish spent over 15 years of his early career working with a co-operative of small-scale fishermen, where he was involved in technology and business development. He has been a programmer, designer and trainer since his college days, and promoted an IT Company in 1999 where he was working until 2011. He has been cited in the IEEE Annual Report of 2005 for the work he and his colleagues from Kerala Section had carried out in South India after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.He is currently the Director of the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), Trivandrum, India. He is also the President-elect of the Computer Society of India (CSI) and would be President for the year starting 1 April 2012.
  • He has travelled widely around the world, and is interested in a wide range of subjects from music, math and flying, to social applications of technology.

GHTC-SAS Conference

Coordinator

Wah Garris

IEEE GOLD Member

myintwa@ieee.org

 

  • Wah Garris is originally from Rangoon, Burma, now called Yangon, Myanmar. She came to the U.S. to finish her education. Her professional experience in International Aviation Operations Management, Systems Integration, Robotics, Automation and Control in various manufacturing sectors, such as Air Force Base, Corporate Banking Technology Change Initiatives at an Enterprise level, Joint Venture Strategic Project Management and Delivery.
  • Wah received Bachelor of Computer Engineering from Auburn University, AL. She is also certified with Project Management Certification, PMP, and Advanced Certificate in Marketing management from Oxford University.
  • Wah is the Bank of America Atlanta LEAD for Women Mentoring Program Advisory Board, IEEE Southeastern US and Jamaica coordinator for Graduates Of the Last Decade (GOLD) program, and the Peachtree City Citizen’s Police Academy & Community Emergency Response Team.
  • She is now married and lives in Peachtree City, Georgia which is a planned city where anyone can go anywhere in the city with a golf cart. Her role model is her mother who has been also in an International Business and Aviation field for over 35 years. Wah enjoys traveling around the world, tasting different varieties of food, spending time with family, reading and music.