IEEE Region 3 Young Professionals Program

Are you an early career professional wondering if there are any special benefits for you as a young professional in IEEE? Well, there are many special benefits! One major benefit is providing membership to a program called IEEE Young Professionals.  If you are within the first 15 years since graduation from your first degree, then you are automatically a member of IEEE Young Professionals (YP)!

Many young professionals find it difficult to fit into the traditional IEEE fabric. This is the main reason IEEE created the IEEE Young Professionals Program.  As an IEEE YP member, you get the unique opportunity to be a member of the local Young Professionals Affinity Group (AG) or even have the opportunity to create one if your section does not already have one. All the Young Professionals in your section will belong to this affinity group and it will be a great platform to network with the other Young Professionals in your section.

To create this local Young Professionals Affinity Group, you only need six Young Professionals in your section. In Region 3, all Sections are therefore eligible to have a local YP AG. To maintain the active status of the local affinity group, the requirement is to report a minimum of two events annually.

At present, we have only 11 Young Professional Affinity Group out of the 41 Sections in Region 3. The names of these eleven Region 3 Young Professionals Affinity Groups are given in Table 1 and the geographic locations of the existing Affinity Groups are shown in Fig. 1. If you are from one of those Sections and would like to get more involved with your local Young Professionals Affinity Group, please contact the Section or the YP Affinity Group officers. The Region Young Professionals committee can also help you find contacts.

Table 1 : The membership number for existing Region 3 YP AGs as of December 1 2019.

Figure 1: The existing Young Professional Affinity Groups of IEEE Region 3 are shaded in Cyan  

Now, if you are in one of the 29 sections without a Young Professionals Affinity Group, we can help you make a new one. In fact, you can make the new Affinity Group just by filling out an online form and the process could be completed in less than 15 minutes! 

Interesting Statistics

• 5607 Young Professionals in Region 3 
• 11 Young Professional Affinity Groups serving 2882  members
• 30 events in 2019
• 60% of the Young Professionals are members
• 40% of the Young Professionals are graduate student members

Benefits to Young Professionals

• Opportunity to be active within IEEE in small leadership roles that a require minimal time commitment
• A Platform to Network with other Young Professionals of the Section and Region
• Get funding from IEEE to fund your local activities. IEEE provides significant funding to the YPs, but most funding programs require an active YP AG to be eligible to apply.
• Opportunities to be recognized for your volunteering– YP program has many awards for deserving Leaders. Last year a volunteer from the Gainesville Section won a Global YP leadership award.
• Attend Conferences and network globally – In the last 12 months, the Region 3 provided seven funded opportunities for Region 3 Young Professionals to attend two Global IEEE Professional development and Leadership Conferences, IEEE USA-EVO and IEEE Rising Stars.
• Get involved in the larger IEEE movement – Your activities at the local level will help sharpen your soft skills and give you a platform to reach other IEEE platforms such as societies and Region. All these Units are always on the lookout for proven, highly capable, passionate young professionals for leadership positions.
• Widen and strengthen your professional networks, develop your careers, all while having a lot of fun!

Region Young Professionals Activities

The Region 3 Young Professionals strategic plan shared in this link has identified five pillars for success (this is a live document and all comments are welcome).  Based on our strategic plan we have developed programs to provide new region direct benefits to our members. Note that even if you do not have a Young Professionals Affinity Group in your section, you can still participate in the below Region direct initiatives.

Table 2 : Ongoing Region direct Initiatives 

Call for Volunteers

The IEEE Region 3 YP team is only a few months old and we are looking for volunteers to help with the existing region direct programs, to create new ones and to support the Section YP AGs. If you are interested in volunteering for the Region 3 Young Professionals Committee, please reach out.

Our Public Channels

We encourage you to subscribe to our public channels to keep updated about our activities.

• IEEE R3 YP YouTube Channel
• IEEE R3 YP LinkedIn Page
• IEEE R3 YP Facebook Page

Region 3 Young Professional Leadership Network

Region 3 YP leaders and volunteers are invited to subscribe to the R3 YP Network (Email list). It is maintained by the Region 3 Young Professionals Committee and used to share important information with the volunteer leaders.

Making a new YP Affinity Group

You only need 6 members to make an Affinity Group and it is an efficient process that is completely online. If you plan to submit a petition, you can access it in this link. 

Speed away to Success with IEEE Young Professionals

I believe that in our professional journey, volunteering for IEEE is the speedboat that can drive you towards excellence and a larger paycheck! Take advantage of this opportunity available to you as part of your IEEE membership benefits.

Have any feedback for us? Share your thoughts by using this Survey. Have any questions or need support? Contact us at ieee-r3-yp@ieee.org