I had the distinct honor of attending IEEE Sections Congress. Sections Congress is only held every 3 years and brings together IEEE members from all over the world to set the direction of IEEE, engage is networking, and get some serious training. Since it is only held every 3 years they tend to pull out all the stops. They had a few speakers that I found to be very outstanding. The first was Grant Imahara from Myth Busters, who is a member of IEEE. Grant detailed his career and experiences. I believe his enthusiasm about engineering helps bring students to the field and some of his projects were really interesting from the application of technology perspective.
The second really impressive speaker was Vint Cerf, VP & chief internet evangelist for Google, a.k.a. the "Father of the Internet". Vint's take on engineering and his very amusing personal stories definitely made the talk captivating. And finally during the Honors Ceremony the 11th president of Inida, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, spoke on the importance of engineering.
After the conference, I hung around San Francisco for a few days and visiting friends and did fun stuff. I went to Golden Gate Park, went Zip Lining, and went Tandem Hang Gliding. Neil had to be there for work, so I met him every night for dinner and enjoyed his company too. It was a great time.
