At the end of July I had the opportunity to travel to New Orleans for the first ever IEEE Future Leaders Forum. This unique development conference was intended to provide networking and learning opportunities for students and young professionals from across the United States in IEEE. With over 300 attendees, I got to listen to some amazing speakers, such as Vint Cerf, considered one of the fathers of the internet, and Alton Romig of the National Academy of Engineering. In addition to several plenary speakers, many more professionals were brought in to host forums on key aspects for young leaders. These forums had themes that included "inspire," "adapt," "connect", "empower", "solve", and "lead."
The conference took us off of the Tulane campus to experience a dinner river cruise on the Steamboat Natchez, and to Mardi Gras world to look at some inventive artwork and engineering feats. Both of these field trips allowed me to meet and converse with individuals I never expected to interact with, such as a Disney Imagineer, famous sci fi authors, and engineers making breakthroughs in augmented and virtual reality technology.
Through the Undergraduate Partnership Program, which sponsored Texas A&M's delegates at the conference, I was met dozens of other students. We shared thoughts and ideas about how our student branches of IEEE are run at different schools, and I am very excited to bring some of those ideas back to Texas A&M as we continue to broaden our general membership and increase attendance at events throughout the semester.
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