The industrial Electronics Society (IES) in its recent approach to outreach to professional engineers and students around the world has been met with a positive appreciation manifested in the rapid growth of membership.  As shown in Figure 1, IES is currently a society with more than 10,000 valuable members. The recent rapid growth of membership from 6,793 in 2017 to currently 10,362 is the result of the increasing awareness of IES membership value to engineers and students wherever they are.

Fig. 1: IES Membership Growth (4-year Span)

 

The growth of membership was further boosted through the strategy of the establishing IES local communities around the world. The emphasis in helping and supporting IES members, in their locality, resulted in 60% growth in chapters number within 4-year span, Fig. 2.

Fig. 2: Recent IES Chapters Growth

 

In addition, we also attempted to help those students around the world that have the desire to be engaged with IES but have no means to participate in our central activities. The outreach program to those students has resulted in the growth of IES Student Branch Chapters (SBC) world-wide from 11 to 47 (327% growth), Fig. 3.

Fig. 3: Growth of Student Branch Chapters

 

The growth strategies were accompanied by establishing practical measures to support IES communities around the world. Those measures included:

  • Raising the limit of the Support to Chapter local activities (SCLA) grant from $1,000 to $5,000.
  • The establishment of the new Support to Student Branch Chapter local activities (up to $1000).
  • The establishment of the new Best Student Branch Chapter Award (approved this year by IEEE Technical Activity Board).
  • The establishment of the new Inter-Chapter Competition and, this year, the Students Branch competitions with award certificated and monetary prize.

Those initiatives are the fruits of the membership team coordinated efforts. This team, leaded by Prof. Yousef Ibrahim the VP-Membership Development, includes Prof Lucia lo Bello the WiE leader; Prof Kim Fong Tsang the Membership Champion; Prof Marek Jasiński the S&YP leader and Prof William Dai, the IES SBC’s coordinator.  Also, this rapid growth in IES technical and student branch chapters required more work and inputs from the members of the Chapters and Membership committees. Those efforts are gratefully acknowledged.