IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - March 2021 - 65

ECCE 2021 will be held in person in Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada with a parallel virtual component to allow
all those unable to travel to attend and enjoy the largest gathering of researchers and engineers in the field of energy conversion. My main goal for ECCE 2021 is to increase industry
participation and as such, the greatest attention to detail is
being paid to the exposition and to activities that can attract
industry participants. Here is a list:
■■The in-person exhibit will be hosted in the Exhibit Hall A
of the Vancouver Convention Center, - West Building featuring 58, 502 ft 2 of usable area (Figure 1). The virtual
exhibit will be held in parallel and will be accessible
before and after the in-person exposition ends.
■■Tutorials will focus on topics of interest to local industry
engineers.
■■Special Sessions will feature more than 50% industry presenters as well as strong academia-industry collaborations on cutting edge technology development. Industrydriven topics will be favored during the selection process.
■■The Plenary Session includes industry leaders from Boeing, Tesla and MagniX, who will present the latest technology and visions for future research and development.
The selection of the virtual platform was done with
the exhibitor's perspective in mind, as virtual booths are
included in the exhibitors and sponsors' sign-up fee and are

available for set up right away. This fee is a mere US$200 and
it purchases the virtual booth and advertisements in the
webpage, technical program, mobile app, virtual platform
and social media. A real bargain for companies wishing to
showcase their latest products and technical development
to the largest group of researchers and industry practitioners that will meet to share state-of-the-art technology in
the field of electrical energy conversion.

Industry-Connected and Diverse
Organizing Committee
In addition to the extraordinary format in which the conference and expo will be delivered, the ECCE 2021 organizing
committee is exceptional for its diversity and strong connection to the industry (Figure 2). Of the 35 members, 13 work
in power industry and one for a U.S. government national
laboratory, and of the remaining 21 team members, who
presently work in academia, most have previous industry
experience or have strong connections to industry sponsors.
A record 12 members of the ECCE 2021 team are women
who met each other at various ECCE Women in Engineering
(WiE) events (Figure 3). I started the WiE committee,
together with my friend Dr. Norma Anglani of the University
of Pavia, Italy, as part of ECCE 2017 with the goal to invite
female colleagues to step up to the organization of ECCE and

FIG 1 Vancouver Convention Center is the first double LEED platinum convention center in the world. (Source: Vancouver Convention Center website)

March 2021

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IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - March 2021

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