IEEE Spectrum August, 2015 - 10

08.15

The Pursuit of Excellence
The 2015 IEEE Honors Ceremony is a winner

G

ood awardS ceremonieS have certain elements in common:

They evoke in us a sense of history, of amazement-who are
these dazzling people and how did they get that way?-and of
pleasure at being able to share their accomplishments, even if
only for a brief moment. The IEEE Honors Ceremony, held at
the world-famous Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City this
past June, had all these elements, along with a good deal of fun.
The ceremony's clever conceit was that one of Thomas Edison's
assistants had somehow crossed the space-time continuum to reveal
that an IEEE precursor organization, the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers, had held a famous dinner at the hotel in 1902. Many turn-ofthe-century electrotech stars attended that fete celebrating Guglielmo
Marconi and his successful shortwave radio transmission of the Morse
code for S, of which then-AIEE president George Steinmetz remarked,
"Instead of sending messages across the seas by cables, he has succeeded
in sending them across empty space through the luminiferous ether."
Professional scientific and technical societies were on the rise in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries, and electrical and communications
geniuses like Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and Marconi were the
Silicon Valley titans of their day. They were known for their spirit and
drive, their passion and intelligence.
The same was apparent at this year's honors ceremony. IEEE gave
23 recognitions for a wide range of brilliant discoveries and innovations. Notable among the recipients was Mildred Dresselhaus [above],
who received IEEE's highest award, the Medal of Honor. She is the first
woman to do so.
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Because of her work on graphite and
carbon-based materials, she is known
as the "queen of carbon." The field of
carbon electronics was born out of her
persistent-and one has to imagine,
sometimes lonely-efforts. Dresselhaus
has been a tireless advocate for women
in engineering and science and a mentor to myriad students. And she's a native New Yorker to boot! (Full disclosure:
So am I.)
IEEE Spectrum presented awards
to two important young companies
we've covered: Daktari Diagnostics and
O3b Networks. O3b stands for "other
3 billion," those people who have no
access-yet-to the Internet.
Daktari received our Technology in the
Service of Society Award, given to celebrate a technology that will greatly benefit the social good. Daktari is developing
a series of simple and portable "lab in a
backpack" kits to help address some of
the world's most difficult health problems-like HIV, hepatitis C, and sickle-cell anemia-
in those areas with the fewest health care resources.
Daktari principal scientist Martina Medkova, accepting the award, said that her long days in the lab
were made worthwhile knowing how much impact
the kits will have.
O3b received our Emerging Technology Award,
for the technology with the potential for the greatest commercial return and broad commercial
impact. The company is building out a mediumEarth-orbit satellite constellation that provides
instantaneous high-volume, low-latency data access to any place in the world. Accepting for O3b,
CTO Stewart Sanders pointed out that he and his
colleagues also felt that what was paramount was
the impact the technology is having on people's
lives and on entire nations. It gives users Internet
access-via satellite-to health care, education, business opportunities, and social networking, access
not previously available.
It's clear that engineers and technologists like these
deserve the red carpet treatment as much if not more
than any collection of Hollywood stars. Congratulations and thank you to all the award recipients for
your difficult, risk-taking, pioneering work and outstanding achievements. -SuSa n H aSSler

IEEE

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum August, 2015

IEEE Spectrum August, 2015 - Cover1
IEEE Spectrum August, 2015 - Cover2
IEEE Spectrum August, 2015 - 1
IEEE Spectrum August, 2015 - 2
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IEEE Spectrum August, 2015 - Cover3
IEEE Spectrum August, 2015 - Cover4
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