The next generation of IEC leaders

Go ahead, Get ahead

The IEC Young Professionals (YP) Programme brings together upcoming expert engineers, technicians and managers from all over the world, who aspire to become more involved in the IEC and help shape the future of international standardization and conformity assessment in the field of electrotechnology. For this month’s e-tech magazine, we introduce the three 2016 Leaders of the IEC Young Professionals Programme who were elected by their peers in Frankfurt and we show how YPs can continue to develop within the IEC Family. 

Introducing the 2016 Young Professional Leaders

The three 2016 Young Professional Leaders are:

• Chan-keun Park, Republic of Korea
• Alan Sellers, UK
• Polad Zahedi, Canada 

Chan-keun Park

Chan-keun Park studied electronic engineering in Kwangwoon University. In 2005, during his senior university year, Park joined Samsung SDS as an electronic engineer and demonstrated talent in software and hardware development. Since 2008, he has been working at Korea Testing Certification (KTC) as a safety test engineer with work based on the series of International Standards IEC 60335 on household and similar electrical appliances and IEC 60950 on information technology equipment. He has an interest in new technology fields such as wireless power transfer, the Internet of Things, wearable devices, virtual reality and others. 

Park is an expert in Maintenance Team (MT) 15: Electrically heated blankets and similar appliances, of IEC Technical Committee (TC) 61: Safety of household and similar electrical appliances; in Technical Area (TA) 14: Interfaces and methods of measurement for personal computing equipment, and TA 15: Wireless Power Transfer, of IEC TC 100: Audio, video and multimedia systems and equipment. He is responsible for R&D projects which include standardization in new fields of technology to encourage industry advancement. Park is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Ajou University. 

Alan Sellers

Alan Sellers graduated from Aston University in 2008 with First Class Honours in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science. He started his career at a small engineering company where he worked for five years. He developed and tested simulator training devices for the aerospace and defense market and stumbled into the world of standards and conformity assessment. Sellers then moved to a large global industrial process control manufacturer and worked as part of a small team responsible for the global approvals of hazardous area products used in flammable atmospheres. 

Sellers began to contribute to standards development with a particular focus on industrial process control and functional safety. In early 2016, Sellers started work for Dyson. As an integral part of design teams, he is responsible for providing expertise and advice to support product development to satisfy global approvals, standards and legislation. He participates as an expert in Joint Working Group (JWG) 13: Safety requirements for industrial-process measurement, control and automation equipment, excluding functional safety, of IEC TC 65: Industrial-process measurement, control and automation, and in Working Group (WG) 12: Electrical sensors, of IEC TC 72: Automatic electrical controls. He is also an IEC YP representative on the Conformity Assessment Board (CAB) WG 17: Cyber Security. 

Polad Zahedi

Polad Zahedi is a Process Control Engineer with Ontario Power Generation Inc. His main areas of expertise are modeling and simulation, process control design and analysis, instrumentation and control implementation and software categorization. He has also held management, operations and project management roles within the company. Zahedi obtained his Bachelor in Computer Engineering from Western University, where he was the Gold Medal recipient in his programme. Zahedi received his Masters in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto. 

Through his experience with programmable logic controllers (PLCs) in his Research Assistant position as well as his internship in a design agency, he was introduced to IEC International Standards. He is a Canadian National Committee member and an expert in IEC Subcommittee (SC) 65B: Measurement and control devices. Zahedi has numerous publications on power plant process control analysis and I&C design and implementation, and he is hoping to expand his publications into standards-related research. 

Continuing in the work of the IEC

The following IEC Young Professionals have been selected as YP representatives on the IEC Standardization Management Board (SMB) and CAB WGs. For the SMB:

• Xiaonan Shi, IEC 2016 YP from Japan, is YP representative in ad hoc Group (ahG) 70: Review of Systems activities
• Mandar Sinnarkar, IEC 2011 YP from India, is YP representative in the Directives Maintenance Team
• Marion Gottschalk, IEC 2015 YP from Germany, is YP representative in the Systems Resource Group (SRG)

For the CAB groups:

• Edward Hong, IEC 2016 YP from the US, participated in the Lake Forest, California, meeting of WG 11: Systems issues
• Siarhei Nazaranka, IEC 2016 YP from Belarus, and Alan Sellers, see above, are participating as YP representatives in WG 17: Cyber Security
• Jemima Jackson, IEC 2016 YP from Australia, and Mikalai Masheda, IEC 2015 YP from Belarus, are YP representatives in WG ahg BizL which aims to create a future business watch list

The IEC Young Professionals – 2017 workshop will be held in Vladivostok, Russia, from 9 to 11 October, in parallel with the IEC 81st General Meeting.

For more information about this, please contact Robert McLaren.

About the IEC Young Professionals Programme

The IEC Young Professionals Programme was developed as a way for the IEC and its National Committees to reach out to the younger generation of experts, managers and leaders and to encourage their long-term participation in standardization and conformity assessment activities. This helps guarantee continuity in the availability of high quality experts, enabling the IEC to maintain its focus on responding to market needs on a long-term basis.