The IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu (IEEE-HKN) honor society is preparing to host the Innovating the Future event on 6 November.
The inaugural one-day, in-person event is designed to provide a forum for IEEE and IEEE-HKN undergraduate and graduate student authors to present their original research papers. A keynote address and thematic presentation sessions are planned as well. Student attendees can network with their peers and gain firsthand experience with the academic publishing process.
To present at the conference, students had to submit an abstract of their research before 1 May. Students whose work was accepted were assigned a volunteer IEEE member to mentor them and guide them through the research writing process, including presenting and publishing their original work.
Those whose paper was accepted by 1 August were invited to present at the conference. The conference proceedings will be submitted for publication in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library.
IEEE Life Fellow Manuel Castro, the conference’s technical program chair, oversees IEEE-HKN’s Innovating the Future program committee. It manages the review process, organizes logistics, and handles the mentoring component.
“This new conference is important to IEEE, as well as to IEEE-HKN,” Castro says, “because it allows student authors to grow in their skills and competencies, and be supported while turning their technical activities into publications.”
“The conference offers me a chance to learn how to communicate my research to a broader audience, gain feedback from other student researchers beyond my institution, and see how my work can be made more accessible.” —David Kwabi-Addo
IEEE Life Fellow Sorel Reisman, a California State University professor emeritus and an IEEE-HKN governor-at-large, says that because the academic research landscape is rapidly shifting, the conference is timely.
“As AI increasingly threatens the integrity of research papers being published in leading journals and conference proceedings, it is essential that future scholars—many of them current IEEE-HKN students—grasp the established standards of legitimate, peer-reviewed research publishing,” Reisman says.
A cornerstone of the conference is its rigorous mentorship initiative, which pairs each author of an accepted abstract with an experienced IEEE volunteer. The mentors provide personalized guidance on organizing the students’ technical content into the correct format for publishing. They also discuss navigating the peer review process, structuring presentations, and preparing the final manuscript for publication.
The impact of the guided process can be valuable for both the mentors and their mentees. IEEE Member Wafa Elmannai, associate professor and chair of the electrical and computer engineering department at Manhattan University, in Riverdale, N.Y., and faculty advisor to the IEEE-HKN Gamma Alpha chapter, serves as a mentor.
“Research is essential to advancing technology and driving innovation,” Elmannai says.
She volunteered to be a mentor, she says, because she has seen how conducting research can transform a student’s future by building their confidence, curiosity, and critical thinking skills.
“Mentoring encourages students to step outside their comfort zones and develop innovative solutions that contribute to society,” she says.
For the students, the conference can be a critical stepping stone. David Kwabi-Addo, an IEEE graduate student member who is researching computational biology at MIT, is president of the IEEE-HKN Beta Theta chapter. He says he views the program as an opportunity to gain experience in producing academic scholarship.
“I submitted an abstract of my research paper because I see the conference as a chance to produce what could become my first conference publication,” Kwabi-Addo says. “The conference offers me a chance to learn how to communicate my research to a broader audience, gain feedback from other student researchers beyond my institution, and see how my work can be made more accessible.”
He says he hopes his participation will highlight the diverse breadth of research that future conferences can showcase.
Conference organizers are holding a series of workshops to guide students through every step of the academic publishing process. The workshops are open to anyone and available on the IEEE-HKN YouTube channel.
Topics previously covered are:
Registration is open to all for this upcoming workshop:
The Innovating the Future program is designed not only to improve the quality of submissions but also to foster long-term professional development and research communication skills to develop the next generation of IEEE authors. The conference is more than a venue for presenting research; it is a launchpad for innovators committed to advancing technology for humanity.
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