WESYP 2023 will feature talks from various experts and companies, such as:

– “Sustainable power – innovations in Switzerland“, presented by Nico Hensgens from RUAG AG.

Nico Hensgens, originally from Luxembourg, has studied electrical engineering and information technology at ETH in Zurich, with a focus on power electronics and control theory. After graduating he moved to Spain where he pursued PhD studies in industrial electronics at the Polytechnical University of Madrid. He then worked in a Swiss start-up company in various research, development and management positions. In 2020 he completed his Executive MBA here at EPFL after which he joined RUAG where he is now leading several new innovation projects all in the area of green energy technologies and sustainability.

– “IEEE Power and Energy Society“, presented by Albin Paul from IEEE R8 PES.

– “Engineer your career – interactive talk“, presented by Izabela Kramarz.

Long-term career planning isn’t just important; it’s essential. It provides direction, maximizes opportunities, and helps achieve professional goals and aspirations. It’s like having a roadmap for success in a constantly changing job market. Let’s discuss how long-term thinking can empower you to proactively shape your career path, navigate challenges, and ultimately create a fulfilling and prosperous professional journey. Let’s engineer your career.

Izabela is an executive coach and business transformation consultant with global experience in corporate financial services. Over the past 25 years, she has built a reputation as a trusted leader, developing talented teams, and serving as a mentor and coach for international, cross-functional professionals. As a relationship-driven collaborator, Izabela works across the enterprise to develop innovative solutions to complex business challenges. Her extensive executive-level experience in finance, corporate strategy, change management, and M&A integrations for market-leading financial institutions globally has equipped her with practical tools and insights to accelerate a collaborative, change-friendly transformation in individuals and teams on a global scale. As a coach, she combines her business acumen, ambitious execution, and delivery strategies with the principles of trust, relationship-building, and growth.

– “Growing your personal Brand in IEEE”, presented by Vildana Hrnjic.

Vildana is a young entrepreneur with a big experience in Branding and Marketing. During her career, Vildana worked as a graphic designer and marketing expert for several companies and organizations. Over time, she became an expert in various fields and devoted herself mostly to design and marketing where she has almost 10 years of experience. Her agency BOLD IT is focused on quality branding and event organization, as well as providing consultant services for rebranding.
During her student days at the Department of Graphic Engineering and Design at the Faculty of Technology in Banja Luka, she was an active IEEE Volunteer in her Student Branch where she was Treasurer and Social Media Manager. Since January 2021, she became part of the R8 SAC as an Outreach Coordinator and Electronic Communications Coordinator. Currently, Vildana is the Chair of the Adhoc Committee “New Initiatives” in the R8 SAC.
Vildana (co-)wrote a few conference papers about the concepts of green technologies in the graphic industries as well as the power of individuals to contribute to society.
She also works as an independent Brand Designer & Strategist. As an educator and mentor, she loves to share her knowledge and empower young people to work in IT.

WESYP 2023 will also feature several technical sessions such as:

– “Surfing the next wave of accelerated computing with AI and Quantum” by Peter Messmer from Nvidia.

Accelerated computing has enabled a new wave of high performance computing applications, including large language models and quantum computing simulators. In this presentation I will walk though some of the most recent developments and show how a full stack approach can enable scientists to focus on their science and be productive on these systems.

Peter Messmer is the director of EMEA HPC Devtech at NVIDIA. He and his team work on tools and technologies to help clients use the NVIDIA compute platform to accelerate their scientific discovery processes. Activities include the acceleration of HPC codes, including seismic applications, as well as visualization and interactive digital twins, including Earth-2. Peter holds an MSc and PhD in physics from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, with a specialization in kinetic plasma physics and nonlinear optics.

– “Introduction to AMD Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform” by Stanislaw Klinke from EBV Elektronik

During the presentation the main features of the new class of Heterogeneous System On Chip from AMD will be discussed:
+ General Architecture Overview and its advantages
+ AI Engines Features
+ Tool Flow
+ Examples of usage

Stan Klinke has extensive experience with design and verification of the very complex System on Chip devices with cooperation of the multi-national design teams, and deep expertise in the logical synthesis and static timing analysis of the multi-million gates applications using different technology and vendors. He has an in-depth knowledge in RTL Coding, logical synthesis, static timing analysis as well as advanced low-power design techniques. Beside a wide range of technical skills he has the unique ability to share his knowledge and enthusiasm in his field of interest with the audience.

– “Towards an Ubiquitous IoT” by Patrick Maechler from u-blox:

New technologies enable the internet of things to become truly ubiquitous with connected devices in even the most remote corners of the world. In this talk I will introduce the latest developments from satellite communication to low power technologies and high precision positioning that will enable the next generation of IoT devices.

Patrick Maechler is a Senior IC architect at u-blox, where he defines next generation ICs for the company’s world-leading positioning and IoT devices. He received his MSc in electrical engineering and his PhD from ETH Zurich, where his research was focused on compressive sensing and sparse signal processing.

– “AI in Telecommunications: Use Cases, Challenges and Future Opportunities“, presented by Joana Soares Machado.

How is AI transforming the Telecommunications industry? Whether you make a phone call, browse the web, or ask for customer support, AI is behind the scenes! This talk will present an overview of different AI/ML use cases in Telecommunications, including Anomaly Detection, Network Performance Optimisation, Conversational AI, and Product Personalisation. You will also gain insights into current challenges and learn how to operationalize these ML pipelines with MLOps best practices and open source tools. Finally, you will hear about future opportunities in this field.

Joana Soares Machado is an Expert Data Scientist at Swisscom. As part of the Data, Analytics and AI department, she develops ML solutions to automate the real-time monitoring of Swisscom’s business processes and IT services. She holds a Master’s degree in Communication Systems from EPFL, where she previously worked as a research scientist in the domain of applied machine learning in privacy and security. Joana is an active IEEE volunteer and served as chair of the Young Professionals Switzerland and as vice-chair of the EPFL Student Branch.

WESYP 2023 will feature two ethics sessions:

– “Ethic and Sustainable Conversational AI” by Diego Gosmar, with the following abstract :

Voice technology is moving to a next level by using Generative AI to deploy Conversational AI and Voice Analysis solutions. As a result, new opportunities arise together with new challenges: when we talk about the combination of Voice and AI it’s not just about a new way of communicating, instead we are dealing with a human biometric feature unique to us. Therefore, it’s important to understand how to deal with it, in terms of bias and discrimination, privacy and identification, and several other ethical implications.
We will look at some best practices and guidelines to be aware of the main potential Conversational AI and Voice Insight risks, thus to deploy such applications ethically and responsibly, including case studies, video demos and coding examples of Generative AI responsible applications for Conversational AI sustainable use.

Things attendees can take away from my talk and implement at your company:
1. What are the opportunities behind Conversational AI and Insight AI for Conversation Analysis?
2. What are the risks behind such technologies?
3. How to tackle Voice Analysis and Conversational AI deployment ethically and responsibly
4. How to use Generative AI responsibly for Voice Conversational AI applications

– “Ethics in emerging technologies” by Dr. Ning Wang.

Dr. Ning Wang will lead us through various aspects of ethics in emerging technologies and inspire us to rethink our engineering practices. The presentation will be followed by the moderated discussion.

Ning is an ethicist and a political scientist based at University of Zurich since 2017. She has a broad research interest in the ethics assessment and responsible governance of emerging and future technologies, such as robotics, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence. Through empirical studies, she aims to address the ethical, social, legal, and regulatory challenges new technologies pose to society, explore responsive analytical approaches in the understanding and evaluation of them, and propose practical governance tools for the design, development, and use of them. Conceptually, she is interested in exploring philosophical notions such as identity, agency, autonomy, responsibility, justice, and the good life. Methodologically, she seeks to draw on insights gained through trans-disciplinary research in co-creation processes.

WESYP 2023 will feature several workshops, such as the following:

– “IEEE Region 8 Humanitarian Activities (HuAC) Committee and R8 EPICS joint workshop” by Theodoros Panagiotis Chatzinikolaou and Samarth Deo, from IEEE HuAc and IEEE R8 EPICS.

– “IEEE R8 Entrepreneurship – Developing your business idea – IEEE programs that support entrepreneurship” by Rosa Delgado from IEEE.

This is a workshop on entrepreneurship in the world full of technology giants, thriving startups and AI taking control.

Rosa Delegado has a background in electrical engineering and communication, and extensive experience in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) technical and policy setting areas. She works on conceptions of new business and applications based on newest technologies and is engaged in technical evaluations. She led negotiations with Governments, private sector and international organizations, and was elected member of the Board of Directors of several recognized Internet related-organizations in the last few years. She is also a speaker at international conferences and published articles in international journals.