IEEE Canadian Foundation Grant Report by Jieyi Rong, Carleton University Student Branch Chair
I was the event chair of IEEE Connects! 2009, a networking dinner function. It was a joint event with IEEE Ottawa University Student Branch and IEEE Algonquin College. We had 150 attendees at the Sheraton Hotel. Three speakers including Ibrahim Gedeon(CTO of Telus), Alexander Macklin (Engineer turned successful Intellectual Property Lawyer), Jennifer Ng (female engineer who had an interesting journey towards engineering). There were eleven sponsors and 40 company representatives and faculty members. We got a lot of good feedback. The event website is www.ieeeconnects.com

During the planning process of "IEEE Connects!", I was facing problems of getting more sponsorship, due to the economic situation right now; most companies are not hiring new grads and would not prefer to attend our function although most of them were very satisfied with us last year. Therefore, I had a meeting with my team and spread the hundreds of companies contact to each one of them. However it did not work, because of the old contact or general contact we have. After that, I went to the IEEE Ottawa Section meeting, asking all the executives for contacts at their work place, as well as asking OCRI to post our request on their E-newsletter to all the start-up companies. The turn-out was good. Sometimes when I ask some of my executives to do a task, they either have problems with the task, or simply just don't want to do it because it's not their responsibility. I always tell them that it's not about what position you are in, it's about what you did while you are part of IEEE Carleton Student Branch. I made sure that every executive in the branch participated in planning a function. This provides them with more practice and opportunities to speak in front of a big crowd, to contact industries formally and to work as a team.

For more information contact the Carleton University Student Branch Counselor, Calvin or visit the Carleton Student Branch web site .

ICF Webmaster note: congratulations to Jieyi for telling this story about how to suceed and conquer adversity - also for the IEEE 125th Cake - a great way to remind everyone about IEEE's 125th aniversary.