Dear IEEE Members,

We have have had many causes for celebration over the last few months!

Firstly, we are pleased to announce the launch of this brand new website. Also, we would like to celebrate the first anniversary of our formation and mark a year in which we have done very well on many levels. From organizing a range of successful events to creating this fantastic website. But the most satisfying achievement is that we have managed to grow our membership base and have built a very energetic team of WIE Committee volunteers.

Dr Robyn Arianrhod's successful lecture on the life of James Clerk-Maxwell generated significant interest in our group and made the news not only within the IEEE, WIE newsletter but also in the UK http://www.maxwellyear2006.org/index.html. We were also pleased to sponsor a lunchtime lecture by Dr Leslie Cannold, who spoke about women's balancing act of career, family and relationships. To coincide with our website launch on the 25th of October, Prof. Irena Cosic from RMIT University spoke about successful women in science and engineering. In November, we welcomed Dr Genevieve Bell, from the People and Practices Research group at Intel, USA, who talked about the way that religious practices were using modern technology to communicate with people. Our final event for 2006 was a "Festive Season and End of Year Networking Dinner" at Santino's Terrace in Carlton. We have also hosted a variety of other successful networking events including a dinner with Dr. Radia Perlman from Sun Microsystems late last year and a WIE lunch at IEEE TENCON 2005 Conference - have a look at our Past Events page to see what we achieved.

In 2007 we will be organising a whole new set of events. Please visit the Upcoming Events page for more details.

Finally, I would like to encourage you, when you renew your IEEE membership for 2007,
to also consider joining Women-in-Engineering. For student members it is free. For full-WIE membership there is a small fee - it's just the same as joining any IEEE Society. With your support, we will be able to organise more great events with prominent speakers.

We hope you'll enjoy our new website and feel free to send your comments and thoughts !

Best regards, Irena

Irena Atov
Chair, Full-member IEEE Women in Engineering Affinity Group, Victoria
wie.victorian@ieee.org