Section History Committee

IEEE Vancouver Section's new History Committee has achieved remarkable success during the past few months.

IEEE Milestones Program

A few months ago, we proposed three electrical and computer engineering accomplishments for consideration for recognition by the IEEE History Committee as IEEE Milestones:

• First Television Broadcast in Western Canada, 1953. (CBUT, Mount Seymour)
• First Radio Astronomical Observations Using VLBI, 1967. (DRAO, Penticton)
• First 500 MeV Proton Beam from the TRIUMF cyclotron, 1974. (TRIUMF, Vancouver)

All three have been examined and approved by both the IEEE Milestones Coordinator and an advocate appointed by the IEEE History Committee. If the nominations are approved by the full Committee, the final step will be approval by the IEEE Board of Directors. Dedication of a bronze plaque at a public ceremony at the site of each accomplishment will follow later this fall.

Section History

Our next major activity is to prepare a short Section History in preparation for the Section Centennial in 2011. Several resources are available, including staff at IEEE History Centre, our Life Members, and six boxes of IEEE Vancouver Section Records that are held in the Special Collections Division at UBC Library. The collection "consists of records generated in the course of the merger and in the first months of the IEEE (1962-1963), as well as of the documentation of the two previous societies which constitute two sub-fonds : IRE (1950-1963) and AIEE (1911 - 1963). The fonds consists of minutes of meetings, as well as of annual report and publications and is arranged in three series : series one dealing with minutes of meetings (1963), series two consisting of annual report (1062-1963) and series three being a miscellanea of publications and leaflets (1960-1963).

The sub-fonds IRE and AIEE are subdivided in numerous series." If you're interested in joining the Section's History Committee and contributing to this effort, please contact me at your earliest convenience.

Dave Michelson, dmichelson at ieee.org