A Prehistory of the IEEE Fukuoka Section

Report from the IEEE Fukuoka Section: A Prehistory of the IEEE Fukuoka Section

Up to 1998, IEEE Region 10 had the following distribution of members

Country	#Sections	#Members
India	10	6,586
Korea	4 and 1 sub-section	3,573
Australia	7	4,904
New Zealand	2	595
Japan	1	9,200

Japan is noted for having the third largest section in the world (called the Tokyo section). It was decided to partition this one section into smaller sections. The advantages of such a partition are

1. Japan can send more representatives to IEEE meetings and to the Region 10 meeting
   
2. More money will be returned to Japan ($3/member + $1,500/Section + $150/Chapter)
   
3. More distinguished visitors can be invited to present throughout Japan
   
4. More relationships could develop between the IEEE and Japanese IEEE members
   

This created two questions 1) Into how many sections should Japan be partitioned? and 2) How should the sections be managed after the partition? To answer these questions, a foundation committee, chaired by Ei-ich Ohono was established. Each area in Japan sent delegates. Prof. Kazuo Ushijima of Kyushu University represented the Kyushu/Okinawa area.

Initially, five sections were proposed as follows

Section	Cities
North Japan	Hokkaido(131)/Tohoku(369)
Tokyo	Shin-etsu(136)/Kanto(5801)
Chubu	Tokai(489)/Hokuriku(124)
Kansai	Kansai(1279)
West Japan	Chugoku(217)/Shikoku(92)/Kyushu(314)

However, later it was decided to partition Japanese members even more finely and to use single-city names for the sections, as follows. Also, to make it easier to identify members with sections, it was decided to use postal codes in this refinement. The final partition is shown in the table below.

Date	Event
1998.02.18	The first study committee
1998.02.18	First report at a general meeting in the Tokyo Section
1998.04.22	Interim report to the officers meeting in the Tokyo Section
1998.06.25	Due date for the basic plan for each area and each chapter
1998.07.15	Final report of the study committee at the IEEE officers meeting in the Tokyo Section
1998.07.08	Organized new Section foundations preparation committee and made action plans
1998.09.22	Nobuaki Kumagai, the chair of the Tokyo section sent the petitions for establishing 8 new sections to the HQ.
1998.11.13	Approved the establishment of sections at the RAB.
1999.02.24	Report at the general meeting of the Tokyo section

According to the above agreement, the IEEE Fukuoka Section submitted the petition of its establishment that was signed by more than 50 members. This petition was approved by a Region 10 Meeting on Nov. 13, 1998. At the same time, IEEE Region 10 appointed Prof. Kazuo Ushijima of Kyushu University as the Interim Chair of the Fukuoka Section. Then, the Fukuoka Section established its Section Bylaws, which was later approved by Region 10. According to the Section Bylaws, all section officers must be elected. The founding Section officers were elected as follows.

Chair: Kazuo Ushijima (Kyushu University)
Vice-Chair: Hiromasa Ikuno (Kumamoto University)
Secretary: Tetsuo Nishi (Kyushu University)
Treasurer: Yuji Kawane (ISIT)

At this time, the members of the Fukuoka Section were distributed as follows.

Level	#Members
Fellows	6
Senior Members	19
Members	293
Associates	40
Students	25
Total	383

At the beginning, it was important to have reliable officers and a strong financial base. Our office was provided by the Institute of Systems, Information Technologies and Nanotechnologies (ISIT). ISIT is an affiliated organization of Fukuoka City and was established in 1995. To provide a strong financial base, we established the Japan Council to support the activities of the new 8 sections.

The IEEE Fukuoka Section Chair for 1999 – 2000

Kazuo Ushijima