5G technology, with its promises of self-driving vehicles and immersive virtual reality, will be a data-hungry generation of wireless communications.

This month's special issue of Proceedings of the IEEE provides a state-of-the-art overview of the field of silicon photonics, which is making a significant impact on fiber-optic communications and spreading to new areas such as sensors and deep learning.

A new online portal is available for ordering Membership Development (MD) materials. Volunteers now have the ability to customize the quantities and items included to support in recruiting new members, retaining those whose membership has lapsed, and recovering former members.

Attn: Section Chairs, Section Student Activities Chairs, and Section Student Representatives
Below are the actions that have been approved by the MGA Board in relation to the Section - Student Branch Connection.  

The OU Analytics tool provides IEEE volunteer access to member data. It replaces SAMIEEE which was sunset in May. The OU Analytics User Group was formed to facilitate discussions among users, identify the top issues affecting user productivity, and provide a communication path between users and IEEE staff working to improve OU Analytics. 

Please be advised that IEEE gauges the vitality of an OU by tracking how many meetings are reported during the year through vTools. If an OU reports "0" meetings for three consecutive years the OU/Chapter is placed on a dissolution list that is reviewed at the November Board Meeting.

A Chapter is required to report and file not less than two (2) technical meetings per year.  Changes to its roster of officers are to be submitted in a timely manner using electronic reporting tools provided by MGA.

The IEEE Signal Processing Society continues to track emerging technical areas. As a result, the Society has decided to create two new SPS Technical Interest Profile (TIP) Code categories in the fields of Data Science and Autonomous Systems to keep pace with the expanding technical disciplines.