Prize may differ from the picture above.

As you may have noticed the majority of the computers in use on campus are Proline PCs so that makes you one of Proline’s valued users. So during the week we will be asking you to visit the Proline Fabeook page and share your Proline experiences with your Facebook friends. This could result in you walking away with one of the 3 Proline Mirage Tablets, two simple steps is all it takes…

1. Like the Proline Facebook Page and get your Facebook friends to like it.

2.Visit the Proline Facebook Page everyday(at least once a day) between 20:00 on Monday 7 May 2012 and 16:00 on Thursday 10 May 2012 and post a response or comment on their page based on the information posted by Proline.

The student branch would like to have an informal meeting with IESSA or a presentation on a topic of IESSA’s choice. Arrangements for such a meeting will be done in the near future.

In the meantime, IESSA has decided to invite Randolf to attend the eighth Congress and AGM with all expenses paid by IESSA.

Randolf is a member of the IEEE Student Society at the University of Pretoria (Tuks). The student branch hosts speakers from all disciplines to inform students about the work and environments in which we will perform our duties as engineers.

It is the society’s aim to expose their members to as diverse a community as possible and to regularly host workshops to increase their skill sets. They also inform the students of their responsibilities as future engineers to commit to a process of life-long learning and, since ECSA requires CPD Points, they offer them the opportunity to join a community which shares that goal.

Tha above article was taken from the IESSA news article.
*an error made on the IESSA news article.
The University of Pretoria’s IEEE Student branch is proud of you Randolf! – Lebogang Madise

UP IEEE Student Branch, EBIT Faculty House, Google Ambassadors

Time: Tuesday, May 8, 2012
5:30pm until 6:30pm
Venue: University of Pretoria – IT Building, Lecture Hall 2-26

Details:
The UP EBIT Faculty House in partnership with the Google UP Ambassadors, The School of IT Society and The UP IEEE Student Branch invites you to a Professional Dvelopment Presentation to be presented by the Google South Africa Business Development Manager, Bryan Nelson.

If you have always wanted to find out what opportunities might be available for students and graduates at Google South Africa, then join us for this exciting event.

Great Google SWAG(Stuff We All Get) will be up for grabs!

EVENT DAY 2: Google UP Mobile (Android) Event
Time: Thursday, May 10, 2012
4:00pm until 6:00pm

Venue: University Of Pretoria – CILL (AIM LABS)

Details:

Have you been wanting to find out why there is so much hype about Google ANDROID? The Google UP Ambassadors in partnership with the UP EBIT Faculty House, School of IT Society and UP IEEE Student Branch invites you to come and explore how Google’s Mobile Platform has chan…ged the Mobile Industry…

The Google Ambassadors will be taking you through:
>Tips for prospective and current Android owners (Do’s, Don’ts, and Must Haves!)
>Demonstrating the power and versatility of Android on some devices.
>The role of Android on the Mobile Industry and its future…

And for the Tech Trendsetters…
>Getting on the Android Market
>Android – Open Source
>Android Development
>Eclipse
>Android Debug Bridge
>Writing a simple application
and much more…

There will be refreshments served, great Android and Google SWAG(Stuff We All Get) up for grabs for all!

Please rsvp at: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/IEEEUP and email Lebogang Madise at melita@ieee.org for more information

Time: 17:30 – 20:00

Check out the flyer, FLYER

It is my pleasure to announce that the winner of the IEEE UP Student Paper Contest (SPC) is Mr. S.D. Barnes with his paper “Secondary User Performance Simulator for Cognitive Radio,” under Prof. Sunil Maharaj.

Once again the SPC was marked by technical quality and engineering excellence. We received six submissions before the submission deadline, but two participants had to withdraw due to personal reasons. Five papers were therefore presented at the competition on 28 November.

The submitted papers were peer reviewed by three judges, where technical quality, novelty, logical flow of exposition, and timing of research were among the judgment criteria; and for the presentations, the judges’ criteria were: effective use of slides, presentation style and effective use of time.

On behalf of the IEEE UP Student Branch as well as our Department, I would like to congratulate Mr. S.D. Barnes, who’s paper will now be submitted to the IEEE Region 8 SPC, where, if selected among the top five papers, he will be invited to present is paper at MELECON 2012. He also received a R500.00 gift voucher with compliments of the IEEE UP SB.

Kind Regards,

Herman Myburgh

Counselor, IEEE UP SB

Please attend the elections on the 31 October, 17:30, CEFIM Auditorium (parking).

If you would like to nominate someone, please use this online form, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGF5bTVzSjlCa0hGNC1RaDZhd1VLRGc6MQ&ifq

You may join the committee if you are not a member, however if voted in you must complete the IEEE membership process.

The guest speaker was a professional geek, Dave Russell from Microsoft South Africa, who conducted the tutorial. Dave started of with the tools one needs in order to start developing applications (apps) that will run on the Windows Phone 7 (WP7)platform. Please visit http://create.msdn.com to download WP7 SDK (Software development kit) as well as tutorials on how to get started. Alternatively if you are on campus you can visit http://ieee.up.ac.za/sb11/wp7/ where the software is published on the local university server.

Dave went on to show how one would go about writing a simple “Hello Windows Phone” Silverlight program using Visual Studio 2010. He then demonstrated the XNA way of writing the same program. Remember XNA is a platform for game development for Windows Phone and Xbox.

Various Microsoft goodies were awarded to the audience throughout the tutorial. JLDP Richards who was one of the audience members managed to successfully write a simple Silverlight program towards the end of the tutorial . Below is a picture of Dave, Lebogang Madise and Wiki (JLDP Richards)

Various opportunities from Microsoft (MS) South Africa are available to students interested in developing apps for Windows Phone. One of the upcoming events is the Windows Phone Hackathon contest that will be taking place later this year at the MS offices in Johannesburg. Interested students are to please contact Lebogang Madise who is the Microsoft Student Partner via email on : fruitymo@live.com or leno.mokgaetsi@gmail.com alternatively they can check on the IEEEsb website for more details.

Dreamspark account registration keys can also be obtained from Lebogang, Dreamspark is your porthole to free access to MS software; Get yours now!

A big thank you to everyone who made the tutorial a success by attending.

For more information please visit http://ieee.up.ac.za or contact Lebogang Madise.

This event provided the student branch with an opportunity to launch the Power and Energy (PES) student chapter at the University of Pretoria. Geoffrey, the student branch chair spoke about IEEE day and welcomed the PES student chapter chair, Esrom to speak to all the students about what PES is and the events planned for the year ahead. Jaques van Wyk, the IEEE South Africa Section chairman then gave some feedback from the recent section congress he attended. He had two awards received at the congress to give out; the 2010 IEEE Day photo competition winner, received by Excellent Sithole and the Region 8 2011 Student Branch Website Competition, received by the University of Pretoria.

Next Prof Xia, the director of the Center for New Energy Studies (CNES) at the University of Pretoria and our new PES chapter advisor talked to us about the postgraduate research being done by his research group. One of the many projects he talked about was a transport efficiency project being done involving the control of fully loaded freight trains up to 10km long. As well as using techniques to recover the potential energy stored by these trains when moving down hill. Ongoing contracts and postgraduate research bursaries where discussed.

Our keynote presentation was given by Dr Naidoo the chairman of the IEEE PES Chapter in South Africa. Dr Naidoo talked to us about the need for forward planning in your career. He raised a few points such as, the engineering field of study gives you a ticket to change the world for the better, you should focus on the fundamentals at undergraduate level, studying doesn’t stop at University level, look for challenges and opportunities and don’t let money be your only drive to climb the corporate ladder. He equated your career to a number of S curves; once your S curve matures or becomes stagnant you should look at starting a new path in your career. Dr Naidoo also spoke about how professional society memberships, like IEEE can support your career development.

Once done with the presentations we move outside for some refreshments and had a chance to take some photos for the IEEE Day competition (Please vote). Big thanks must go out to the Student Branch for organising the event and CNES for sponsoring the refreshments at the event.

Here is a quick tutorial of how to find our photos and vote. We have till the 20 October 2011, so vote now. If you see an easier way let us know.

1. Go to www.ieeeday.org, choose photo contest.

2. Choose 2011 gallery

3. Log in with your IEEE membership login details

4. In the Gallery, navigate to page 28

5. Choose these photos, its us.

6. Then vote (like) for our photos, Thanks!