- by Oleg Stukach

History

Tomsk IEEE Chapter was established on January 1, 2000. On June 14, 2000 two Student Branch was founded in Tomsk (Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics and Tomsk Polytechnic University).
YP Affinity Group in Russian Section was established on December 20, 2001 (Russia) 2003 (Siberia)

Where is it

Tomsk, one of the oldest Siberian towns, was founded in 1604 on the high right bank of the Tom River. It is historical city of 400 years old. At present, there are 500 thousand inhabitants in Tomsk. Modern Tomsk is a large, generally acknowledged Russian educational and research center. There are six State Universities, more than 20 Research Institutes of the Academies of Sciences and Industrial Branches' Institutes of the Russian Federation. For each ten thousands of Tomsk inhabitants there are eight Professors, 15 assistant professors (Ph. D's), and more than 750 students. There are plenty of historical landscape (Siberian taiga, cedar forests), cultural and architectural objects that are able to fix attention of a visitor.

Chapter's statistics

We have growth potential due for students and post-graduate students. There are 17 Members, 1 Senior Member, and 34 Student Members in Tomsk now. We spend many efforts for attract of students in IEEE and to involve to the Chapter activities.

We have stabilized our annual activity, having each year about 10 different events, including the technical co-sponsorship some our conferences on electron devices, communications and control. The average meeting attendance in 2001-02 was about 50-60. Every meeting is open for both IEEE members and other visitors. The main our aim is to increase a quality of conferences.

Conferences and events

SIBCON - IEEE-Siberian Conference on Communications and Control (odd years)
SIBINFO - All-Russian Student Paper Contest on Information Security

Awards & Recognition

Our Chapter awarded by "Certificate of Appreciation" for contributions made as first Siberian MTT Chapter. We receive the MTT-S subsidy for 2002.

We have e-mail list: http://subscribe.ru/catalog/tech.siberia. By means of our list the participants regularly receive the information on scientific conferences, programs, research grants, and news of Tomsk Chapter and Student Branch. The main emphasis is laid on information about
IEEE benefits and where to publish students' scientific papers.

We are receiving many letters from students and scientists who are interested in IEEE activities and IEEE membership. Today there are more than 1000 list subscribers, and 60 % of them live outside Russia. This shows the great opportunities the Web provides for the description of IEEE activity in the Siberian region and growing interest in the IEEE. We are sure that the list promotes our activities very well.

At present the "Subscribe.ru" service is the best holder of more than 2000 e-mail lists in the world. The service "Subscribe.ru" allows the maintainer of e-list to receive a profile of subscribers with generalized statistics of questionnaires, which each subscriber fills out. Statistics of our list shows that there are about 40 percents of subscribers related to radio engineering and electronics. Half of the subscribers are between 18 and 25 years of age, 17 % are women, the third part holds an M.S., and only one tenth another scientific
degree.

There are no doubts that the list has established and enhanced new contacts between participants, and increased IEEE membership by means of Siberian savvy resources.

Our events in 2001-02

SIBCON'2001 - IEEE-Siberian Conference on Communications
SIBEDEM'2002 - Conference on Electron Devices
Participate in 3-rd Student Branch Congress (Egypt, May 1-5, 2002)
Participate in European Microwave Week (Milan, Italy, September 2002)
Student Paper Contest on Information Security SIBINFO'2001, SIBINFO'2002

Projects and 2003 plans

We receive the IEEE Foundation grant #2001-051 for 2002-2003. We work hard for fulfill this grant successfully. Other activities of
Chapter are following.

SIBCON'2003 - IEEE-Siberian Conference on Communications and Control
SIBINFO'2003 - Student Paper Contest on Information Security

Some proposals

1. IEEE offers two ways of membership in the Institute - as employee (dues $112 or $56) and as student ($14). It is necessary to open the YP membership, so we сan attract the more young scientists and businessmen, for which dues about $30 will be feasible. Russian post-graduates have less more money than students. With the YP assistance it is possible try to help them to decrease the membership due and societies. So if we shall allocate in IEEE one more layer - YP, the YP becomes independent with their own advantages, contests, awards etc. Up to now it is especially urgently, as main strategic aim of IEEE is increasing a membership base.

2. Already we offered for ComSoc proposal of the certification program. The proposal was considered, but we did not hear any response. In MTT-S to make it is much more easy. We offer the program of MTTS-certification of the training manuals and rates. A stamp "approved by MTT IEEE" will confirm a high quality of the certificated materials and correspondence to the IEEE standards. But as far as IEEE do not read the books and journals in national languages and can not evaluate materials, these rights MTT transfer to the MTT Chapters. The financial questions of certification required an additional discussion.

Conclusion

Now more than ever we able to create a useful links between people from different MTT Chapters all over the world. We hope this links will remain stronger so we can work together to develop new activities that would assist us running our MTT Chapters in a better way.