Conference Chair and Committee Roles, VP BTS Conferences

The BTS conference chair will be an elected Adcom member and will manage the BTS conferences  under the direction of the BTS President.  The chair will initiate, develop and coordinate the strategic plan, programs and activities in the area of conferences/meetings. When possible, the chair will participate as an attendee for all BTS events. They will attend at least two BTS AdCom Meetings held each year to report on the progress and status of the same. If the chair is unable to attend they must appoint someone to attend in their place.

Specific responsibilities include coordinating with the conference committee members and BTS staff to define, delegate and monitor conferences -related work and to implement and advertise all programs and activities, as well as work with the BTS President and Vice President to help recruit individuals to fill any open/new conference Committee member positions.  Also, the chair will act as the primary BTS ‘volunteer’ contact person for BTS and AdCom members, other society/council volunteers and IEEE staff for requests, questions, issues, etc., concerning conferences. 

Primary Staff Contact - Society Operations Manager and Marketing and Promotions Manager - bts@ieee.org

The programs, activities and responsibilities of the Conference Committee include the following:

  • Monitoring the status of all BTS supported conferences (both financially sponsored/co-sponsored and technically co-sponsored), including the reporting of various statistics and finances and year-to-year trends
  • Recommending (with input from the BTS Technical Committees and BTS Regions/Chapters Committee) the start of new BTS conferences in new or hot areas of technology and/or in a specific geographic area
  • Coordinating (with input from the BTS Technical Committees and BTS Regions/Chapters Committee) the review and approval process for all new requests for BTS support of a conferences
  • Coordinating (with input from the BTS Technical Committees and BTS Regions/Chapters Committee) the review and approval process for the next occurrence of all conferences currently supported by BTS
  • Recommending (with input from the BTS Technical Committees and BTS Regions/Chapters Committee) solutions for dealing with BTS conferences having low attendance and/or poor financial outcomes, etc.
  • Initiating or helping the BTS Educational Activities Committee, BTS Regions/Chapters Committee and BTS Technical Committees to initiate workshops or mini-colloquia for new or hot areas of technology
  • Managing the reviewing and approval of the budgets and final reports of all BTS financially sponsored/co-sponsored conferences 
  • Managing the monitoring of the status of all BTS supported conferences throughout their entire life cycle
  • Helping to determine the data to be displayed and respective format of the Meetings-related information on the BTS website
  • Attending Committee calls as needed
  • Email correspondence
  • Desired soft skills - social media involvement