IEEE New Zealand North Section History

IEEE New Zealand North Section History
Established date	1980-12-04
IEEE Region	10
IEEE Council	New Zealand
Geographic region	New Zealand North
Region area
Principal cities
Home page
List of Subsections in this Section IEEE Fiji Subsection History

Are you a member of this section? Please help expand the article by using the edit tab....

Link to Section Homepage

IEEE Geographic Unit Organizing Document - New Zealand North

The Early Years

New Zealanders have made significant marks on technology in the early days, here is quick background on two:

Earnest Rutherford (1871-1937)

Earnest Rutherford was a schoolboy in Nelson New Zealand in 1884. He entered Cambridge University England in 1895 and researched with J.J. Thompson the characteristics of the conduction of electricity through gases. His crowning achievement was the development of the nuclear theory of atoms and the explanation of the structure of the atom. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908 and is the father of electronics as we know it in the science of electrical and electronics engineering.

W.H. Pickering, a Fellow of the IEEE and Member of the US National Academy of Engineering was born in NZ in 1910. He emigrated to the USA as a youth and studied at the California Institute of Technology. In 1954 he became Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory California, initiating early satellite projects including Explorer and later, for NASA, the unmanned exploration of the moon and planets by use of guided space vehicles, a programme which reached its zenith with the Viking mission to Mars in 1976. He visited New Zealand regularly throught his career and retirement.

Background

The original New Zealand Section of the IEEE, initially with just 50 members, was established early in 1968 following an earlier formation of a Tokyo Section in Japan. Many of the 50 members,one was the late Sir John Allum a benefactor and former mayor of Auckland, had been members of either the AIEE or IRE, the two societies which merged to form the IEEE just a few years earlirer.

The petition organizer for the new Section in NZ, Robert Adams, had no easy task in filling the petition, because when first contemplated the number of members resident in NZ was below the necessary 50. Also, because members had addresses scattered throughout NZ, circulating a petition for signature was an exercise in itself. The regional director appointee at the time of seccessful section establishment was Dr. Shigeo Shima of Tokyo, formerly with NHK and for some time now executive adviser with the Sony Corporation. In a congratulatory letter he expressed his delight at having another IEEE Section in his care.

The technical meetings in Auckland which followed were on occasions held conjointly with other technical and scientific interest groups and newsletters were introduced to keep contact with members remotely situated, which included the South Island of New Zealand.

The NZ IEEE Section became a co-sponsor of the annual national electronics conference (NELCON) in 1969 and supported the idea of a standing joint committee of participating societies for the purpose of planning the conference from year to year, an arrangement which still stands. A very successful joint electronics conference was held in 1970 with the Prime Minister visiting an IEEE exhibit which had been arranged to promote membership interest, and to promote co-operation with other societies.

Earlier hopes of like participation in a national power conference have not eventuated, this is a less vigorous technology.

The first visit by an IEEE President, namely Robert Tanner, took place in June 1972. He met IEEE members in Auckland and in Christchurch and meetings were arranged between Mr. Tanner and the officers of kindred societies for the purpose of extending cooperation and understanding.

In 1974 the first technical chapter was formed, namely that of the Industry Applications Society.

In 1975 Robin Harrington of Christchurch approached the executive of the NZ IEEE Section with a proposal that a South Island NZ Section of the IEEE be established.

The proposal could not proceed at the time because there were fewer than 50 members in the South Island. At a subsequent election of officers Robin Harrington became Vice Chairman of the existing New Zealand Section.

In 1978 he put forward a first petition for a South Island Section. This petition was finally approved in 1979 after a boundary adjustment which divided the New Zealand membership into two sections, namely:

• New Zealand North Section; and
• New Zealand South Section.

Since 1970 Sections have been instrumental in arranging visits to New Zealand of several distinguished speakers in the computer, medical and communications fields of interest. Council and Section officers have been pleased to receive visits by IEEE Presidents in 1972, 1976, 1978, 1981 and 1983.

Sections have made an arrangement with the national engineering society IPENZ whereby they share participation at the monthly electro-technology meetings.

The 1992 President, Merrill W Buckley visited members in Auckland enroute from a visit to Australia.

Section Officers

New Zealand Section Officers

Year	Chair	Vice chair	Secretary	Treasurer
1968	Robert Adams	Earnest Davenport	David Hutt	David Joseph
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975		Robin Harrington
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001	Grant Covic	Kevin Sowerby	Bruce MacDonald	Bruce MacDonald
2002	Grant Covic	Kevin Sowerby	Bruce MacDonald	Bruce MacDonald
2003	Kevin Sowerby	Grant Covic	Stephan Hussmann	Stephan Hussmann
2004	Kevin Sowerby	Grant Covic	Partha Roop	Partha Roop
2005	Bruce Macdonald	Michael Neve	Abbas Bigdeli	Abbas Bigdeli
2006	Bruce Macdonald	Michael Neve	Peter Over	Peter Over
2007	Michael Neve	Nirmal Nair	Peter Over	Peter Over
2008	Michael Neve	Nirmal K Nair	Michael Neve	Michael Neve
2009	Nirmal K Nair	Peter Over	Morteza Biglari-Abhari	Morteza Biglari-Abhari
2010	Nirmal K Nair	Peter Over	Morteza Biglari-Abhari	Morteza Biglari-Abhari
2011	Peter Over	Morteza Biglari-Abhari	Aiguo Hu	Aiguo Hu
2012	Peter Over	Morteza Biglari-Abhari	Aiguo Hu	Aiguo Hu
2013	Morteza Biglari-Abhari	Aiguo Hu	Nasser Giacaman	Nitish Patel
2014	Morteza Biglari-Abhari	Aiguo Hu	Nasser Giacaman	Nitish Patel
2015	Aiguo Hu	Nitish Patel	Kevin Wang	Mohan Sridharan
2016	Aiguo Hu	Nitish Patel	Kevin Wang	Mohan Sridharan
2017	Nitish Patel	Mohan Sridharan		Kevin Wang
2018	Nitish Patel	Mohan Sridharan		Kevin Wang
2019	Ahn Ho Seok	Peter Over	Tjing Lie	Tjing Lie
2020	Ahn Ho Seok	Peter Over	Tjing Lie	Tjing Lie
2021	Tjing Lie	Kevin Wang	Seho Kim	Duleepa Thrimawithana