IEEE HAC & SIGHT interactive session with Bangladesh Section student branch, YP and WIE leaders

IEEE Bangladesh Section held its 2019 Student Branch Executive Committee and Counselors Summit on 29 March in Dhaka. Student Branch Chairs, Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group Chairs and Counselors from 34 Student Branches of IEEE Bangladesh Section (BDS) were present. The Student Branch Chairs presented  their activities posters, containing the best practices of their branches in 2018.  Because IEEE BDS encourages each student branch to carry out humanitarian technology projects every year, the summit was a great platform to conduct an interactive IEEE HAC & SIGHT information session with those present.

Professor Dr. Celia Shahnaz, IEEE Bangladesh Section Chair and IEEE SIGHT Communications Chair presented the inaugural keynote on “Leveraging impactful technology for the benefit of humanity through IEEE Engagement: IEEE BDS and SIGHT vision 2019.” She shared about SIGHT’s funding opportunities and benefits of joining SIGHT to have an impact on local community through humanitarian technology.

Professor Dr. Shaikh Anowarul Fattah, IEEE Humanitarian Activity Committee (HAC) Education Chair, conducted a session on social impact analysis of humanitarian technology projects. Last year, different student branches organized several workshops on humanitarian technology project design focusing on sustainable development. This year, students were introduced to the importance of analyzing the social impact of a project. They were encouraged to design humanitarian technology projects targeting industry engagement or entrepreneurship. The fundamental concepts and importance of social impact analysis was presented with the Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology used as an example. For a better understanding of the SROI calculation, a sample project of water purification system was taken into consideration. During the interactive session, students worked to complete the calculation by themselves. Other participants from YP and WIE were very much inspired to implement such an analysis for their own projects in the future.