Bangalore: The Institute of Electrical and Electronincs Engineers (IEEE) announced the formal inception of the Bangalore chapter IEEE computer society today. This is the fourth such chapter in India after Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

The office bearers of the chapter were announced to the media on the occasion. Prof. S Sadagopan, Director IIIT-B, Chairperson; Dr. KSR Anajaneyavelu, HP Labs India, Vice Chairperson; CR Vishwanath, Volvo India, Secretary; Dr Anbumani Subramanian, HP Labs India, Treasurer and Prof. SV Sankaran, SAP Labs/Dr S Ramani, IIIT-B as advisors.

IEEE is amongst world's largest professional organizations with 39 different societies and over 3.7 lakh members in 160 countries. The IEEE Computer Society has 86000 members in 140 countries with India being the second largest chapter after the U.S.

Inaugurating the Bangalore chapter, Prof. Rangachar Kasturi, President, IEEE Computer Society, said, "Focus on India is the key initiative of IEEE this year and the inception of the Bangalore chapter today is a step in that direction. India is emerging as the hotbed of technology innovation and we would be happy to play a catalysing role in enhancing and furthering it." Shortly a communication society too will be launched.

The Bangalore chapter currently has more than 300 members. Talking about the key initiative of the Bangalore chapter, Prof. Sadagopan said, "Most of the cutting edge research labs operate in Bangalore such as that of IBM, GM, Volvo, HP and others. This chapter will aim to bring them all together professionally and create an ecosystem of innovation."

The chapter's immediate focus will be leveraging the ecosystems by bringing together professionals and students from different backgrounds -mathematics, physics and engineering.

Some of its immediate initiatives to be taken by the society include a workshop on 'Technology for Education' and seminars on speech processing and robotics that will be announced in the next 2-3 months. It will also bring in a lot of products that would be of interest to practicing professionals, the immediate one being certification program for software professionals. Currently it has devised two certification programs - Certification for Software Development Associate (CSDA) for entry-level professionals and Certification for Software Development Professional (CSDP) for senior level professionals.

IEEE is also a body that drives new standards in key areas of technology. Currently it has established 900 standards and hopes to do more of it from India.