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Foundations of the Future: Making the Most of IPCEF’s Webinar Series

Webinars are great communication tools. You get the immediacy of a real-time live event and the opportunity for conversation and collaboration. Your audience can ask questions and receive immediate feedback. The webinar can also be recorded for distribution to those who missed the live event and placed in a content library for future use.

Thus, it is always important to consider the purpose of your webinar. Purposes range from simply sharing information about a certain topic or gathering data or feedback through Q&A sessions and polling. The important thing is you will be able to track interest through registrations and active participation on the day.

The IPC Education Foundation webinar series began in May of 2020. Our goal is to spread awareness with students and educators about IPC, the electronics manufacturing industry, and various topics important to our industry and to the world. Our plan is to host a webinar with an industry member or panel on a monthly basis.

An Overview of the IPCEF Webinar Series

If you haven’t attended one of our webinars, check out the topics and recordings of the three webinars we’ve hosted so far this year.

The IPC Scholarship Program
This webinar focused primarily on the IPC Student Member Scholarship valued at $1,000. The IPC Education Foundation aims to provide $50,000 in scholarships to deserving IPC student members this year. Charlene Gunter du Plessis, presented the webinar ^[1], and four IPC student scholarship winners of 2019 participated: Mohamed el Amine (Wally) Belhadi, Anna Brown, Raviteja Boyana, and Fernando Galvez. They shared the value the scholarship added to their professional profile and what that they have utilized the scholarship money to enhance their industry knowledge. For more information on these past winners, please feel free to visit ipcef.org/blog.

The IPC Emerging Engineers Program
In this webinar, Teresa Rowe, senior director of assembly and standards technology at IPC, provided an opportunity to learn more about IPC’s Emerging Engineer Program ^[2]. Students who participated in the webinar learned from two emerging engineers (Tayler Swanson, engineer at Digital Instruments, and Arvind Karthikeyan, Ph.D. researcher at Auburn University) and heard about their experiences ^[3].

This program can assist any eligible professional or student interested in taking the next step toward your career in the electronics manufacturing industry; participants will learn from valuable industry experts and leaders who will mentor them along the way. The program is currently accepting applications, and there is only a limited number of university student positions available. Students can apply online, and the deadline is November 20.

Fundamentals of Conscientious Engineering
Kelly Scanlon, director of EHS policy and research at IPC, presented on the role engineers play in the electronics industry. It includes responsibilities for making informed decisions about the design, manufacture, use, and disposal of electronic components and products. Industrial practices are evolving to consider life cycle impacts from the use of energy and water, the carbon footprint of a product, circularization of goods, the development and implementation of safer chemistries, sustainability, and societal impacts of products. This webinar introduced the fundamental features of a conscientious engineer ^[4].

Upcoming Webinars

Exciting upcoming webinars include “Navigating IPC Standards” by John Perry, director of printed board standards and technology at IPC; “The Value of IPC Standards” by Joe Williams, director of certifications at IPC; “A Day in the Life Of” by Audra Thurston, process engineer, and Paige Fiet, intern at Calumet Electronics Corporation; and “Schematic Capturing” and “PCB Design” by Chris Jennings, manager of global training at Altium Inc. For additional details, please visit ipcef.org/webinars.

Special Request

During these unprecedented times, we believe that through these webinars, we can overcome geographical barriers and enable communication between our industry and students interested in learning more about electronics, as well as what options they have to build their knowledge or explore careers. This is a wonderful tool to encourage engagement after the webinar and may even generate new leads, opportunities to find talent, and promote services or products virtually.

Long story short, webinar possibilities are endless. One thing is for sure: webinars work. If any industry member or company wishes to participate in the IPC Education Foundation webinar series, please reach out to Charlene at CharleneGunter@ipc.org for more information. We value your support and look forward to hearing from you.

References

1. The IPC Education Foundation, “IPC Student Member Scholarship Webinar,” July 30, 2020.
2. IPC Emerging Engineer Program.
3. The IPC Education Foundation, “IPCEF Webinar Series: Emerging Engineer,” August 3, 2020.
4. The IPC Education Foundation, “IPCEF Webinar Series: Conscientious Engineering,” August 31, 2020.

Charlene Gunter du Plessis is the senior director of the IPC Education Foundation.

Corey Lynn is a marketing manager for the IPC Education Foundation.