Inauguration of the IEEE BRAC University Student Branch

The Inaugural Session of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Student Branch at BRAC University was held on the 6th of July at the Indoor Games room of BRAC University. The whole session turned out to be more interesting and informative than had been expected. Members and non-members alike found the event to be educational and yet enjoyable with the range of different topics that came up in the speeches from the distinguished guests.

The event started with a warm welcome and a brief presentation by the President of the IEEE Student Branch at BRAC University, Mahdin Mahboob. Towards the end of his presentation, he showed ‘IEEE Evolution’, a two-minute promotional video of IEEE showing the history of engineering, which, to budding engineers, proved to be a great source of inspiration!

Late National Professor Jamilur Reza Choudhury, Vice Chancellor of BRAC University, whose leadership, vision, and patronship made establishing the IEEE Student Branch possible.

Following that, the student branch was officially inaugurated amidst rounds of applause when Professor Saifur Rahman, Chief Guest of the event, launched the student branch website. Prof. Rahman is the Director of the Advanced Research Institute at Virginia Tech and is also the former Vice President of the IEEE Publications Board.

The Special Guest on the occasion was Professor Aynal Haque from BUET who was then serving as the Chair of the IEEE Bangladesh Section. Professor Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, Vice Chancellor of BRAC University, was also present and chaired the event. Professor Sayeed Salam, Chairperson of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Professor Mumit Khan, and Associate Professor Dr. AKM Azad from the same department were also present on the occasion, speaking about the importance of an IEEE membership and expressing their feelings about the new student branch at BRACU. Mr. Mahmood Hasan, Registrar of BRACU, and faculty members from different departments of the university were also present.

Afterwards, Prof. Aynal Haque gave a detailed lecture about IEEE and its background, which was followed by a PowerPoint presentation. His lecture had been very informative and the concept of IEEE was made clear to the audience.

The next speech was delivered by Prof. Saifur Rahman, and with his charming presence and interactive speech, the entire hall literally went into ‘pin drop silence’ mode. His speech was very interesting and informative to say the least. He caught everyone’s attention with his beautiful examples of why students should become members of IEEE and how they will be benefited from it, as well as the important aspects of networking through such a large organization. He mentioned that IEEE is not only for nerds alone, but it also had businessmen, lawyers, and even dancers as its members!

The event concluded with the ‘Vote of Thanks’ by the Secretary of the IEEE student branch, BRAC University, Nabila Naushin. She specially thanked the Chief Guest and the Special Guest for making time from their busy schedules and being present at the event, and thanked all others who helped establish the student branch. Finally, she called for refreshments and soon after that, a documentary titled ‘Future World’ was shown, thus bringing the event to an end.