The SIGHT year has officially begun! We have received our funding from the IEEE Humanitarian Ad Hoc Committee and are ready to start this year's programming in earnest. 

 

We hope you will get involved, whether through a local SIGHT group, at a SIGHT event, or even taking part in our Facebook group. There is much in store!

 

Kartik Kulkarni, Chair, IEEE SIGHT Steering Committee

The 2014 SIGHT Steering Committee has been named! This year, there are three subcommittees to help the program develop: Operations, Projects, and Engagement.

This month we will feature the Engagement Subcommittee, headed by longtime humanitarian activities volunteer from IEEE Region 7 (Canada), Alfredo Herrera. 

The central questions that the Engagement Subcommittee will grapple with in 2014 are:

• "How do we help collaboration between SIGHTs and their communities, within volunteers, and between SIGHTs?"
• "How do we help knowledge sharing among SIGHTs?"
• "How do we create and present engagement opportunities?" 

• Welcome Mount Zion College and KMCT College SIGHTs from Kerala, India and Uttar Pradesh Section SIGHT.
• Last month, SIGHT had a chance to explain its growth and upcoming projects to the Region 9 (Latin America) Executive Committee.

• Madras SIGHT's  National Level Student Competition on Renewable Energy had 1099 students from 335 teams out of 103 colleges in 14 states participate!

 Join the SIGHT Facebook Group and stay up-to-date on the latest news!

Please let us know what you would like to read about in upcoming SIGHT newsletters.

Send your suggestions and ideas to Holly Schneider Brown, SIGHT Program Manager, at h.s.brown@ieee.org. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Kerala, India SIGHT groups partnered with Young Professionals (formerly known as GOLD) and Women in Engineering to conduct their first SIGHT camp March 28 and 29. 

 

Their aim was to understand the problems faced by the tribal community in Kerala; identify solutions and structure an implementation through well-defined techniques; and motivate pre-university tribal students to learn math and science through well-proven TISP methods. 

 

SIGHT members traveled to a tribal village and met with locals and leadership on the first day. On the second day, they discussed their findings and identified potential projects to be carried out in 2014.

 

Later this year, SIGHT will release a SIGHT Camp Handbook to help other groups create a similar experience in their own location. Stay tuned! In the meantime, you can read the draft report of Kerala's SIGHT camp.

In last month's survey, we asked you to describe what "humanitarian technology" means to you. Take a closer look at what words were used most frequently in your responses.

 

Other important aspects for some respondents were "promoting equality," "realizing potential," and "creating opportunity." 

 

Moreover, volunteers such as Hassaan Idrees from Karachi SIGHT stressed the personal nature of humanitarian activity in comparison with the "impersonal quality of technology." 

 

How does this resonate with your own experience? Are there any words or concepts missing? Tell us more at sight@ieee.org! 

 

In our next issue, we will look at your answers to the survey question "What groups/kinds of people do you most want to benefit and why?"