Contributed by Santhosh Sivasubramani

As the representative of the IEEE NTC YP India, It’s my privilege to share the summary of the First edition of the IEEE NTC YP India webinar series. Two webinars have been conducted each in November 2020 and December 2020 hosting the eminent speakers in the broad domain of nanotechnology. There was active reception, registration and participation to this first step in India on behalf of Nanotechnology Council. The webinar details and the photographs are shared below.

The First webinar was organized on November 21, 2020 10:00 am in India. It hosted Prof. Brajesh Kumar Kaushik, Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee 10 m and Dr. Mudrika Khandelwal, Associate professor, Department of Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad 10:30 am. Prof. Brajesh Kumar Kaushik, Regional Chapters Coordinator R10 India, the inaugural speaker of the webinar 1 has briefly discussed about the Nanotechnology Council and its details as part of his presentation.

Prof. Brajesh has briefly introduced the guests on Spintronics-Perspectives and Challenges “Conventional CMOS technology has reached to the brink of its scaling limits and poses significant challenges for the development of next generation high-speed ultra-low power costeffective memory and processing devices. These spintronics based novel computing approaches find applications in image processing and provides efficient solution to the complex computing problems. ”

Dr. Mudrika has briefly spoke about “Cellulose – the most common biopolymer – is commonly produced by various organisms such as plants, trees, algae, and bacteria. Bacterial cellulose in
particular is attractive owing to its purity, crystallinity, and being composed of a threedimensional network of cellulose nanofibres. However, the most important aspect is the possibility to tune cellulose properties during and post synthesis. We have successfully produced carbon nanofibrous anode by pyrolysis of bacterial cellulose for Lithium-ion batteries and modulated its properties to improve capacity, stability, and rate capability.”

The second webinar was organized on December 19, 2020 10:30 am in India. It hosted, Professor. Kamakoti Veezhinathan for his wonderful session on “Journey of indigenous SHAKTI Microprocessor”. 10.30 am and Dr. Chandra Shekhar Sharma for his wonderful session on “Candle Soot Nanocarbon for Energy Storage Applications”. 11 am. Prof. Kamakoti has briefly introduced the guests with the Open-source processor development initiative by the RISE group at IIT-Madras. The aim is to build an ecosystem of production grade processors, SoC’s and peripheral IP’s. Software Development Kits and IDE’s readily available to build applications on SHAKTI. Various drivers and sensor applications proven on SHAKTI based development boards.

Dr. Chandra Shekhar Sharma delivered a interested lecture on Candle soot. Carbon from candle soot is not only the most facile way to produce nanocarbon but is being explored for a large number of engineering applications including as an electrode for electric vehicles. He discussed briefly some of the latest results from the CARBON Lab, IIT Hyderabad in the talk. Candle soot. Carbon from candle soot is not only the most facile way to produce nanocarbon but is being explored for a large number of engineering applications including as an electrode for electric vehicles. I shall discuss briefly some of the latest results from our CARBON Lab in the talk.

This ends the summary of the activities from IEEE NTC YP India, we believe we will grow and expand our horizons to have many more fruitful opportunities and wide outreach on behalf of Nanotechnology Council.

We welcome all the IEEE Members of R10, India who are young professionals and members of Nanotechnology Council to kindly follow the page for further updates on webinars, technical
activities and networking opportunities.

Linkedin Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ieee-ntc-yp-india

Contributed by José Alvim Berkenbrock

Since October, IEEE NTC YP activities have been developed closely with the membership of Region 7 (i.e., Canada). The local representative for Canada is José A. Berkenbrock (S’20), a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan. In the last trimester of 2020, the activities of IEEE NTC YP Canada were focused on three goals. First was to create a presence on the internet (please, visit: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ieee-ntc-yp-canada); Establishing a connection with local chapters and affinity groups; and organizing webinars under the scope of the Nanotechnology Council.

The Nanotechnology community in Canada is very active. Many IEEE NTC conferences were recently hosted in Canada (e.g., IEEE NANO 2014 in Ottawa) and there is more to come (i.e., IEEE NANO 2021 in Montréal and IEEE NMDC 2021 in Vancouver). One of the goals of Mr. Berkenbrock is to connect with this dynamic community for supporting students and young professionals and strengthening the presence of the Council in the region. Seeking to achieve this goal, a webinar was co-hosted by IEEE North Saskatchewan Section on December 9th with the presence of speakers from across Canada. The theme of this inaugural webinar was “Perovskites for solar cells” with Dr. Saidaminov (University of Victoria, British Columbia) and Dr. Rosei (INRS, Québec) as speakers and Mr. Kahwagi from the Koleilat’s research group (Dalhousie University, New Brunswick) as the Moderator. Briefly, in numbers, the event of about one and a half hours had 80 people interested to attend, 60 subscribed and 24 attendees. Afterwards, all those registered received the link to access the recording and a survey about the event. The survey (5) showed the event attracted people from countries beyond the Americas (e.g., Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, and Portugal) and exceeded people’s expectations. The next webinar is expected to happen in late January with the theme “Microdevices and the Pandemics” (Please, follow our page on LinkedIn for more info).

Another action expected for next year is the formation of the first IEEE NTC Student Chapter in Western Canada. Currently, the Montrealer Chapter (and Student Chapter) are the only outposts of IEEE NTC up here in the North. Mr. Berkenbrock has engaged in different activities looking for attracting students interested in joining what can be the first chapter in Western Canada. The first virtual meeting happened on December 21st and the work for establishing the chapter has left the shores. We look forward to launching this chapter in the middle of the Canadian prairies. The University of Saskatchewan is in Saskatoon – SK (in the Treaty 6 Territory and Homeland of the Métis).