Ahmed is currently pursuing B.Sc in the Computer Engineering Department of the Arab Academy for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Egypt. He has achieved milestones in competitions and internships related to Data Science, Computing Algorithms, and Embedded Systems & IoT. Ahmed serves IEEE as the R8 Regional Student Representative and Member of the MGA Student Activities Committee. He served IEEE SAC Egypt as the Training & Leadership Officer, IEEE Computer Society Global SYP Congress as Support Coordinator, and IEEE Egypt Section as the Sectional Student Representative. Ahmed has founded and chaired the 1st IEEE Egyptian Student and Young Professional Congress in 2022 and the 1st IEEE Egyptian Student Paper Contest in 2023, took part in organizing the IEEE 119th R8 Meeting in Cairo, and served his local Student Branch through many roles for 5 years, including SB Chair and Secretary, leading his SB to win 5 regional awards in two years. He is an IEEE Brand Ambassador and has served as an Ambassador for IEEEXtreme, IEEEDay, and IEEE R8 Entrepreneurship Week. Ahmed believes that IEEE changed his life in 2016, so he started his IEEE volunteering journey on his first day to college and continues to give back to IEEE.

Khaldoun Taktak is a Network and Telecommunication Engineering Student at the National Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology (INSAT). Besides pursuing an engineering degree, he loves dedicating his free time to reading, volunteering and experiencing new cultures. He serves as a member of the IEEE MGA SAC and the chair of the IEEE Region 8 AdHoc committee on training and leadership support. Previously, he was chair of the IEEE Region 8 Student and Young Professional Congress in 2022 which was held in Tunis, Tunisia and has always been an active volunteer within his Student Branch contributing to the organization of many local events and congresses. As a dedicated and active IEEE volunteer, Khaldoun firmly believes that volunteering and engineering combined together will help advance technology for the benefit of humanity especially when derived from students.

Fay Majid Elhassan, a seasoned IEEE member for nearly nine years, is a trailblazer in the fields of reinforcement learning, sustainable agriculture, and multimodal learning. Currently pursuing a Master's in Machine Intelligence,building on a robust foundation in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. As the Vice Chairman of IEEE Sudan, she plays a pivotal role in leadership, emphasizing diversity and inclusion. Fay serves as the Chair of Digital Communications for the IEEE Region 8 Student Activities Committee and is the Co-Lead of Industrial Engagement for the IEEE East Africa Entrepreneurship Summit, contributing significantly to entrepreneurial initiatives.

Fay's commitment to empowering women in technology is evident as the Co-Founder of the Women in Machine Learning and Data Science Khartoum Chapter and a Google Women Techmaker Ambassador. She actively bridges academia and industry, participating in various

committees within IEEE Smart Village and the African Working Group. Fay's entrepreneurial spirit shines through her role as the Founder of impactful initiatives.

In summary, Fay Majid Elhassan is a dedicated researcher, dynamic leader, and advocate for diversity in technology. Her multifaceted contributions, coupled with entrepreneurial endeavors, showcase a commitment to advancing technology for sustainable solutions and empowering underrepresented voices in the field.

Vera Marković is a retired Full Professor from the Faculty of Electronic Engineering at the University of Niš, Serbia. From 2014 to 2022, she served as the head of the Department of Telecommunications. Her research interests include wireless communications, microwaves, artificial intelligence in telecommunications, etc. She has published over 300 research papers, with over 40 papers published in journals indexed in SCI. She conducted study visits at prestigious universities in Germany and UK and participated in many EU projects.

An IEEE member since 1992 and a senior member since 2015, Prof. Marković has held several leadership positions. Over the period 2007-2019, she served as the Secretary, Vice-chair, and Chair of the Serbia&Montenegro Section. Subsequently, she contributed as a member of the R8 Nominations&Appointment Subcommittee (2019–2020) and R8 Membership Development Subcommittee (2020). Since 2019, she has been a member of the R8 Student Paper Contest jury. Her involvement extends to various roles, such as being a member of the MGA Member Benefits Portfolio Advisory Committee (2020-2021) and an IEEE Global Public Policy Committee Member (2021-2022). Since 2021, she is member of the R8 Student Activities Committee (SAC) and holds the position of R8 Student Paper Contest coordinator. As of January 2023, she serves as the Chair of the R8 AdHoc Committee on Contests, Awards, and Recognitions within the framework of R8 SAC.

Ruben Barrera-Michel is the CEO of HMSM SA de CV, a company founded in 1999 in Guadalajara, México dedicated to provide logistic services to their clients American Airlines, United Airlines and Copa Airlines at Guadalajara’s Airport. He is a consultant of many of these companies too.

He received his B.S.C.E degree from Universidad del Valle de Atemajac (2004) and he had a Master Degree in Industrial Engineering (2007). He has been speaker in many conferences, both national and international, in private and public universities.

In 2009 he was recognized as an outstanding engineer by the governor of Jalisco State and Jalisco Engineer’s Chamber, and received in 2015 the Professional Outstanding Graduated Award from the Universidad del Valle de Atemajac for his contributions to the society.

Vildana is a young entrepreneur with a big experience in Branding and Marketing. Her BOLD IT agency is focused on quality branding and event organization, as well as providing consulting services for rebranding.

During her student days at the department of Graphic Engineering and Design at the Faculty of Technology in Banja Luka, she was an active IEEE Volunteer in her Student Branch where she was Treasurer and Social Media Manager. Since January 2021, she became part of the R8 SAC as an Outreach Coordinator and Electronic Communications Coordinator. She is currently the Chair of the Adhoc on New Initiatives.

Vildana (co-)wrote a few conference papers about the concepts of green technologies in the graphic industries as well as the power of individuals to contribute to society, but she primarily works as a Brand Designer & Strategist.

As an educator and mentor, she loves to share her knowledge and empower young people to work in IT.

Dr. Andrejs Romanovs, MBA, Associate Professor and Senior Researcher at the Information Technology Institute, Riga Technical University (Latvia) is an experienced scientist and academician, interested in modelling of MIS, cybersecurity, AI, IT governance, and digital supply chain management, as well as education in these areas.

Over 20 years academic experiences, as well as 35 years professional experience developing numerous information systems for state and private business worldwide; director of two international Master study programs “Logistics and Supply Chain Management” and “Cybersecurity Engineering”.

An expert in IT of the Latvian Council of Science, RTU Senator, senior member of IEEE, ISACA, Simulation Society and other professional academic/industrial networks. Author of 150+ textbooks and papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings in the field of Information Technology; organized over 50 international scientific conferences; leader of numerous scientific and R&D projects.

IEEE volunteer with Latvia Section foundation (2008), founder of many sustainable IEEE organizational units, i.e. Computer Society Latvia Section Chapter (2010), Latvia Blockchain Group (2018), IEEE workshop on Advances in Information, Electronic and Electrical Engineering (AIEEE, since 2013), IEEE conference on Advances in Wireless and Optical Communications (RTUWO/MTTW, since 2015), International Scientific Conference on Information Technology and Management Science (ITMS, since 2018). Chairperson of IEEE Latvia Section (2012-2013, 2016-2017), Chair and members of different IEEE Committees, i.e. R8 Professional And Educational Activities Committee, R8 Chapter Coordination Committee, R8 Membership Development Committee, MGA Admission and Advancement Committee, MGA Membership Recruitment and Recovery Committee, MGA Chapter Operations Support Committee, Educational Activities Board SEOC Committee.

Dr. Peter Magyar graduated as dipl. electrical engineer (1967) and received the dr-tech degree (1975) from the Budapest University of Technology (BME), Hungary, Staff member of the BME   Department of Automation (1967-91). Recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship (1980-81). Various positions in industrial companies in Germany (1991-2009). Professional activity in the field of electrical engineering, control of electrical drives, power electronics, automobile electronics and control. Retired in 2009.

IEEE M´91, SM´04, F´07, LF´18. Served as a chapter secretary, vice chair, chair (1998-2004) and chapter coordinator (2005-10) in the Germany Section, as well as member and chair (2007-10) of the Chapter Coordination Subcommittee of Region-8. Holder of various positions (2006-20) in the Executive Board of the Industry Applications Society (IAS), at the end director of chapter and membership development (2019-20).  He is recipient of the IAS Distinguished Service Award (2006) and has been elected to the grade of IEEE Fellow for contributions to digital control of electrical drive systems (2007).

Current IEEE volunteer positions: Germany Section chapter coordinator (2021-), R8 Life Members Committee chair and IEEE Life Members Committee R8 coordinator (2021-).

Shivam is an Engineering Lead at ZS Associates in Pune, India, where he leads projects in NLP, graph technology, and content generation for optimizing clinical trials and market research. He also serves as the Chairperson of the New Initiative Committee and an advisor for Students and Young Professionals on the IEEE Computer Society MGA Board and is a part of IEEE CS T&C and D&I Board.​

A distinguished graduate from the Indian Institute of Information Technology Allahabad, Shivam is recognized for his expertise in generative AI, machine learning, and computer vision. He has received notable awards, including the IEEE Richard E. Merwin Scholarship and the 20 in 20 Honoree by IEEE Computer Society.​

Shivam's research includes over 30 projects and 10+ published articles. He is a prolific speaker, having delivered keynotes at more than 50 global conferences. As a visiting faculty at North Cap University, Delhi, he teaches Applied AI and Expert Systems. Shivam's work in generative AI and NLP continues to push technological boundaries, impacting various industries with innovations like semantic search and topic tagging.

Saptarshi Ghosh is a System-On-Chip Design Engineer at Intel, who is working at the leading forefront of technology to enable and design the next generation of AI-enabled Intel Xeon® processors. His dedication and commitment to advancing computing have been recognized both at Intel as well as through the UC Berkeley College of Engineering  where he holds a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences. He currently chairs the Students and Young Professionals Board in IEEE Computer Society, an organization having more than 50,000 members.

Ana Inês Inácio, originally from Portugal and currently residing in The Netherlands, is a Scientist at TNO Netherlands. With expertise in Analog IC Design, she dedicates her time to shaping the future of RF sensor systems for cutting-edge radar technologies.

With over a decade of IEEE membership, Ana has held various volunteer positions, including IEEE University of Aveiro SB Vice-Chair, Benelux YP Chair and R8 Student Representative. She is currently the Region 8 Young Professionals Chair and an active member of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTTS), where she serves as the society’s regional YP representative for Region 8.

In both her professional work and volunteering endeavours, she enjoys transforming ideas into tangible solutions, making unexpected connections and facilitating collaboration among diverse teams.

Emna AMRI, Doctor in Computer Science, is an active IEEE volunteer in France and Region 8, focusing on YP, WIE, and IEEE Computer Society. She currently serves as a lecturer at the CESI Engineering School in Lyon, balancing a career of collaboration between industry and academia.

Emna has worked extensively in health, safety, and environment fields. She has been researching the utility of conventional and deep learning approaches for offshore oil slick detection using multimodal data fusion. Her interests particularly lie in applying machine learning and deep learning in challenging contexts. She was involved in a waste management project aiming to classify and characterize waste using AI solutions. Additionally, she has worked on projects regarding change detection using satellite images for vegetation tracking.

Throughout her career, Emna has contributed to numerous publications, including journals, books, and conferences. Committed to sharing knowledge and contributing to the community, she teaches various modules related to her expertise and remains actively involved in several professional communities. Chair, YP France section

Secretary, Computer Society France section

R8 Representative, IEEE CS DVP ACA Committee

Member, IEEE CS SYP CSS

Seif El HAJJEM is a Tunisian Industrial Engineer who graduated from ENIT, the National Engineering School of Tunis, in 2015. He currently works as an SAP (System Application Products) Functional Consultant at WYNSYS Tunisia, where he has been involved in the roll-out and implementation of SAP for various companies across diverse industry sectors.

In addition to his professional endeavors, Seif dedicates his free time to volunteering for IEEE. He has held multiple positions within the organization, starting as the Chair of the IEEE ENIT Student Branch in 2013-2014 and progressing to the role of Vice Chair Member Activities for the IEEE Tunisia Section in 2021-2022. Currently, he contributes as a member of the IEEE Region 8 Young Professionals Subcommittee and the Chair of the IEEE Consultant Network Tunisia Affinity Group.

Raghav Thanigaivel is a Senior Engineer at Telus and is responsible for the automation of their 4G and 5G Wireless Core Networks. Previously he was stationed at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the USA, to develop software for Wireless R&D activities in the Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) division. He is also a former employee of IBM India, where he worked on Systems Engineering software development for AT&T USA.

He holds a Masters Degree in Telecommunications from University of Colorado Boulder, USA and a Bachelors Degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Amrita University, India. He is an IEEE Senior Member, a Professional Engineer in Canada and has obtained multiple certifications, including IEEE's very own Wireless Communications Professional (WCP) credential.

In his spare time, he volunteers with various entities such as the IEEE and the York Region Amateur Radio Club. He is currently the Coordinator for IEEE Canada Young Professionals Committee and the Chair for Global Young Professionals Awards Subcommittee. He possesses an Advanced Qualification Ham Radio License and is also an Advanced Operations Drone Pilot & Flight Reviewer in Canada.

Eszter Lukács is Client Services Manager and works with IEEE Xplore Digital Library customers located in Europe and Israel. She has more than 20 years of experience in the information industry and joined IEEE in 2013. She offers free online or on-site seminars mainly about IEEE Xplore Digital Library and trains the user communities, including librarians, engineers, researchers, students and faculty. Eszter supports initiatives and information needs of IEEE Student Branches. She gained her Magister degree in Linguistics from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; she speaks German, English, and Hungarian and is based in Berlin, Germany.

Nehad El-Sherif, M.Sc., P.Eng., MBA, SMIEEE is the Founder and President of MNKYBR Technologies Inc., a Canadian company specialized in R&D and engineering services. El-Sherif is a Professional Electrical Engineer with experience in software & hardware design, new product development, product certification, business development, product management, sales & marketing, and electrical safety. He authored and co-authored IEEE peer-reviewed papers, technical articles, white papers and delivered technical presentations at various industry conferences. El-Sherif is a senior member of IEEE (SMIEEE), an executive board member of IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS), and a member of IEEE Technical Activities Board (TAB) Committee on Standards (TCoS) and IEEE Standard Association Standards Board (SASB) Standards Review Committee (RevCom). He serves on NFPA Code Making Panel 2 (CMP-2) for the continued development of the National Electrical Code (NFPA 70), CSA Z462 (Workplace Electrical Safety Standard) technical committee, as well as various UL and CSA product safety certification standards technical panels. El-Sherif received several awards and recognitions including the 2024 IEEE IAS Electrical Safety Committee Excellence in Prevention through Design Award in Tucson, AZ and the First Place Prize Paper Award at the 2023 IEEE IAS Pulp and Paper Industry Conference in Spokane, WA. He earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Ain-Shams University, Cairo, Egypt and an MBA from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada. El-Sherif is a sessional lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan and holds two patents.

Abir Tabarki is a member of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society . With roles including IEEE AESS Board of Governors member and Student Representative, Vice Chair of the AESS Tunisia Section chapter, and founder and former Chair of the ESPRIT University AESS Student Branch chapter, Abir is also 2022 Tunisia section IEEE Day ambassador and IEEE Education week ambassador.

Software engineering leader with more than 20 years of experience leading global organizations focusing on creating and managing complex AI/ML solutions. With robust technology and software management, I steer the organization through complex technical landscapes, ensuring the seamless integration of innovative strategies into our products and services.

He started his student career as an electronic engineer but has always been drawn toward more fundamental studies. It was during his master's thesis that he became passionate about electrochemistry and decided to steer his focus in that direction. With his Ph.D. thesis, he fulfilled this shift in focus and gained the necessary experience to contribute to the incoming Green transition in Europe

He is currently working as an R&D Engineer in the field of emerging solid-state Iontronics technology, which exploits ions for the transport and treatment of electric signals. Thanks to a profile with a strong focus on device conception and optimization, he has the opportunity to accumulate expertise in a broad range of ionic devices, from solid-state super-capacitors to ionic-gated synaptic transistors.

Stoyan Nihtianov (M’93-SM’98) received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electronics from the Technical University in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1980 and 1987, respectively. From 1987 till 1995 he was an Associate professor at the Technical University in Sofia, teaching and researching in the field of smart sensors and sensor systems. Since 1995 till 2000 he was with the Laboratory of Electronics, University of Technology - Delft, The Netherlands, where he was a senior research fellow engaged in the research and development of methods and electronic equipment for non-destructive testing. Since 2000 he is with the high-tech company ASML, The Netherlands, in the position of a senior research fellow. Since 2003 he is also a part-time professor in the Electronics Instrumentation lab of TU Delft, The Netherlands, leading a research group working on industrial electronic instrumentation. Stoyan Nihtianov has authored or co-authored three books and four book chapters, more than 150 peer-reviewed journal and conference scientific papers in the field of sensors and sensor interface electronics. He holds 24 patents.

Stoyan Nihtianov served as a chair of the technical committee on MEMS@Nanotechnology of the Industrial Electronics society (2013-2014). He is an AdCom member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society and represents this society in the IEEE Sensors Council. He is also an associate editor of IEEE TIE and a topical editor of IEEE Sensors Journal (Sensors Interface Electronics).

He has been multiple times a member of the technical program committees of the IES flagship conferences: IECON, ISIE and ICIT.

Stamatis Dragoumanos earned his B.Eng. degree in computer engineering and informatics, an M.Sc. degree in computer science and technology, and a B.Eng. degree in chemical engineering at the University of Patras. He also earned an M.Sc. degree in computational fluid dynamics from the National Technical University of Athens. In 2019 he graduated from the Rutgers Business School Mini-MBA in Engineering & Technology Management.

He is a software engineer and developer with 18 years of working experience in software development, and he is currently a software architect at the Computer Technology Institute and Press “Diophantus”, Greece. He also has 12 years of experience teaching programming languages, algorithms, and data structures to students of a variety of ages and education levels.

He is an inquiry-based learning enthusiast, and he strongly believes that soft skills development is one of the most important concepts that is missing in today’s educational system. He is also a certified Soft Skill Trainer by Erasmus+ and a certified Professional Scrum Master by scrum.org.

Stamatis Dragoumanos is a senior IEEE member, a VOLT graduate, an HKN member, and a STEM champion. He is currently serving IEEE as the chair of the IEEE EAB pre-University Education Coordination Committee, as a member of the editorial Board of the Potentials Magazine, and as a member of the Institute Editorial Advisory Board.

Costas Stasopoulos was born in Cyprus, a European Union member state. In 1983, he moved to the United States where he studied Electrical Engineering at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. He received his B.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1987. In 1992, he received a Master's in Business Administration (MBA), with a concentration in Management, from the Maastricht Business School of Management, Netherlands.

Upon completion of his studies in the US, he worked for a year at the Agence France-Presse (AFP), an international news agency, as an Electrical Engineer and then for three years at the Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques (SITA), the world's leading service provider of integrated IT business solutions and communication services for the air transport industry.

In 1991, he moved on to the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC), the major electricity provider of Cyprus, responsible for the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity in Cyprus. There, he held various Engineering Specialist and Management positions in different departments, acquiring experience and knowledge from various areas and disciplines. He currently holds the position of Acting Area Manager, overseeing more than 430 employees. In recent years, he was the Manager for the Forward Planning, issuing of Terms for Electricity Supply, and for the Methods and Programming Departments. He has successfully managed several projects, including GIS and large Photovoltaic and Wind Farm plants. He has formed policy regarding renewable energy and grid connections and took part in many working groups and committees. His main interests include Renewable Energy, Smart Grids, Innovations, and Start-ups.

Costas, was the Region 8 Director in 2015 and 2016 and the chair of the Industry Engagement Committee chair in 2013

He studied between 1999 - 2006 Electrical Engineering at Politehnica University of Timisoara with a diploma stage with a 6-month contract at the ""Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation"" IPA in Stuttgart, Germany. In 2005, he started as Hardware Engineer at Siemens VDO, Timisoara. Since 2010, he joined the Interconnection Techniques in Electronics (TIE) contest as General Industrial Co-Chair and the IEEE International Symposium for Design and Technology in Electronic Packaging (SIITME) as Conference Co-Chair. In 2011, he started as Head of Department for Hardware and System Engineering. Between 2012 - 2019 he was Associated Lecturer and coordinator for the external class Development of Electronic Products. Between 2015-2022, he was heading the Product Development Center, Camera and Interior Sensing Timisoara. In 2020, he co-organized and hosted the kick-off for the IEEE Hungary & Romania EPS & NTC Joint Chapter. He started in 2021 as IEEE Romania Section Industry Ambassador. He was nominated in 2021 as the Secretary of the Working Group Microelectronics under the Aegis of the Romanian Academy.

Ahmad Hably (Senior Member, IEEE) received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon, in 2004, and the M.S. degree and the Ph.D. degree in automatic control from the Grenoble Institute of Technology, Grenoble, France, in 2005 and 2007, respectively.

After one year as a Researcher [Attaché Temporaire d’Enseignement et de Recherche (ATER)] with the LIRMM Laboratory, Montpellier, France, he joined the Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, as an Associate Professor with the Grenoble Image Parole Signal Automatique Laboratory (GIPSA-Lab), Automatic Control Department. He was the head of the COPERNIC research team of PSD pole of Gipsa-lab (2020-2024). He is the head of the international master MARS at ENSE3 engineering school. His research interests include electrical vehicle integration to the grid, nonlinear and predictive control, optimization techniques for energy systems, environmental mobile robots and airborne wind-energy systems.

Emre Ayranci is the Senior Director of Engineering at Murata pSemi in San Diego focusing on 5G and beyond RF front end chips with over 40 granted and pending patents, after experiences at Intel, Broadcom, Marvel, German Aerospace Center and a startup as a lead designer for 10-100Gb/s wireline and wireless transceivers. 

He is the Future Networks Steering & Strategy committee SSCS rep and World Forum general co-chair, IEEE YP past chair, R6 SPC chair and MGA SAC Vice Chair. He has served at several IEEE leadership positions such as SSCS Secretary/ Governance Chair, SSCS YP Committee Chair, IEEE YP Vice Chair/TAB YP rep, Benelux YP and Professional activities Chair, Denmark student rep, founder and chair of Technical University of Denmark and Sabanci University student branches.

Valentina Palazzi received the M.S. degree in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in industrial and information engineering from the University of Perugia, Italy, in 2014 and 2018, respectively. During her PhD, she did a research period at the Tyndall National Institute, Cork, Ireland, at the Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, and at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA. Currently, she is a researcher with the High Frequency Electronics Laboratory at the University of Perugia, Italy. 

Her current research interests include the design of RF components, wireless sensors, radar front ends, wireless power transfer technologies, additive manufacturing processes, and conformal electronics. 

Dr. Palazzi is an elected member of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technique Society (MTT-S) Administrative Committee. She is the chair of the IEEE MTT-S Young Professionals Committee, the past chair (term 2022-2023) of the IEEE MTT-S Technical Committee- 26 “RFID, Wireless Sensor and IoT”, and Early Career Representative of the URSI Commission D ""Electronics and Photonics

Theodoros is, currently, PhD Candidate in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of the Democritus University of Thrace, and has received his Engineering Diploma with Integrated Master from the aforementioned Department. As an active IEEE volunteer, he strongly believes he can create a valuable impact on humanity and society via engineering through volunteerism, and, thus, he is, currently, the Humanitarian Activities Chair in IEEE Region 8. He has served various IEEE OUs including MGA SAC, his Region as Student Representative, as well as his local Student Branch by chairing it once, mentoring it twice, and distinguishing it as Exemplary four times.

Georgios (George) Papadimitriou studied at the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the National Technical University of Athens. Currently, he is working for HILTI, Global IT in Switzerland as an Enterprise Network Engineer. Previously he worked for Nokia Research & Development at their Technology Center in Athens, Greece. Since 2012, he volunteered as the Chair of the National Technical University of Athens IEEE Student Branch, the IEEE Greece Section’s Student Representative and the Region 8 Projects and Initiatives Coordinator fostering student collaboration and leading fruitful projects across the Region. In 2018 he was appointed to his second role in the Student Activities Committee as the Regional Student Representative and as a member of the Region 8 Strategic Planning Committee.

Simay Akar is a sustainable energy expert and a multi-award-winning entrepreneur in the energy industry. She is the CEO and founder of AK Energy Consulting, a firm that provides a wide range of environmental consulting services to achieve sustainability goals; from conducting environmental impact assessments to developing and implementing carbon management plans and a comprehensive range of supply chain solutions for clean energy technologies.

Simay has a strong background in photovoltaic manufacturing, battery storage, and renewable energy systems, having worked in multicultural enterprises in several countries.

In addition to her professional accolades, she is an IEEE Senior member, HKN Member, IEEE VOLT Graduate, IEEE Educational Activities TISP Champion, IEEE Impact Creator, and an acknowledged volunteer since 2007. Simay is a Middle East Technical University graduate, from Ankara, Turkey, and participated in the Energy Innovation and Emerging Technologies Program at Stanford University.

Simay is passionate about advancing cutting-edge battery technologies, promoting sustainable energy solutions, and empowering the next generation of energy leaders.

Lwanga Herbert, is a Technology promoter, innovator, researcher, entrepreneur and enthusiast best known for promoting technology, innovation and entrepreneurship for the benefit of communities and society as whole. Additionally, he puts his emphasis on promoting those technologies that address humanitarian challenges that prevail with diverse communities and the world at large. Lwanga Herbert currently serves a Global chair of the IEEE Humanitarian Technologies Board (HTB) that focuses on supporting impactful and ethically informed volunteer-led initiatives, programs and projects, and mutually beneficial partnerships, as well as to inform policy formulation that harness technology and innovation to address societal challenges in a responsive, effective, and sustainable way. Previously (2021 - 2022) he served as a Chair of IEEE SIGHT. He is also a co-founder of Logel Science Foundation, a non-profit organization which focuses on conducting research, development and innovation activities whose end results are aimed to benefit humanity. The organization also uplifts the efforts of upcoming innovators and technologists to ensure that they transform communities through concrete engineering and technology approaches.

In his career development, he also co-founded LOG`EL GROUP Ltd a technology company which emphasizes use of local talent to develop technology solutions that address locally based challenges and concerns. Through this approach, the local talent is bound to grow and develop as it addresses societal challenges using a home grown approach. Previously, he has won different awards among others which includes the Ugandan Presidential Innovation Award 2005 – that focused on rewarding young innovators

Samarth Deo works as the Head of Software group within MACH R&D at Hitachi Energy AB in Sweden. After graduating in 2014 from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden; he joined ABB AB as an R&D Software Engineer. In 2018, he stepped into his first management role as the R&D Manager for the Firmware & SDK team. In his current role since 2022, Samarth leads six R&D teams (about 120 engineers) in development and maintenance of the state-of-the-art control platform- MACH (Modular Advance Control for HVDC, also referred to as the brain of HVDC transmission systems). The control system is used in all HVDC and FACTS deliveries around the world. 

On the IEEE front, Samarth has served on several IEEE leadership positions, including Chair of the EPICS in IEEE committee and Chair of IEEE Sweden Section, besides others. He has won numerous awards, including the IEEE Region 8 Exceptional Young Professionals Award in the past. He was appointed as the Chair of the AdHoc on EPICS in IEEE within Region 8 this year. Samarth is an avid photographer and a passionate cook at home.