IEEE Basis President is Empowering Future Engineers

All through his 30 years of volunteering, Delimar has labored to construct a group for college kids. He based the College of Zagreb’s IEEE scholar department and later grew to become its chair. He went on to turn into the department’s counselor and a member of the IEEE Croatia Part’s scholar actions committee. He has held quite a few IEEE management positions, and he served on the group’s Board of Administrators.

To have interaction extra scholar members and assist join scholar branches worldwide, he helped discovered the IEEEXtreme programming competitors, an annual, 24-hour digital contest wherein groups compete to resolve laptop coding issues.

He’s persevering with his mission because the 2025 president of the IEEE Basis, specializing in how the group’s charitable accomplice can assist college students and younger professionals prosper. Due to donations, the Basis is ready to fund scholarships, analysis and journey grants, and fellowships in partnership with IEEE societies and sections.

“Supporting IEEE applications is one thing that I’m very happy with,” Delimar says. His objectives as president, he says, are to extend consciousness of the Basis’s donor-supported applications and to steer extra individuals to assist its causes.

Supporting the subsequent technology of engineers

After studying about IEEE from a number of of his professors who have been members, Delimar joined the group in 1994 throughout his second yr on the College of Zagreb. However and not using a scholar department on the faculty, there was no local people for scholar members. That yr he efficiently petitioned IEEE to ascertain the primary scholar department in Croatia. He served as its chair till he graduated along with his EE bachelor’s diploma in 1996.

By his involvement, he was concurrently “studying concerning the group and volunteering,” he says, including that it helped him higher perceive IEEE.

After graduating, he joined his alma mater as a instructing assistant and researcher. He was later employed as a school member. He additionally carried out analysis in energy engineering underneath his former professor, IEEE Senior Member Zdravko Hebel, who is thought for his work on the Croatian energy transmission community.

Delimar continued to volunteer, serving as chair of scholar actions for the IEEE Croatia Part till 2001. He additionally was the counselor for the coed department.

“For me, IEEE Basis Day highlights how the IEEE Basis is greater than a charitable group—it’s the coronary heart of IEEE’s philanthropic efforts, the place generosity meets influence.”

Inside 4 years of his steering, “the department was collaborating with different branches in not solely Area 8 [Europe, Middle East, and Africa] but additionally around the globe,” he says. He determined it was time to unfold his wings, and he started volunteering for the area.

His first place was because the 2005–2006 vice chair of the IEEE Area 8 scholar actions committee, which is liable for scholar applications and advantages. On the time, IEEE was having hassle retaining scholar members, he says.

“College students would graduate and never renew their membership,” he says. “There was additionally a difficulty with among the scholar branches, as they weren’t speaking nicely or collaborating with one another.”

Delimar and IEEE Member Ricardo Varela, who was additionally on the committee, brainstormed methods to higher interact college students and enhance their participation. The 2 males needed to create an occasion that might permit college students the world over to take part on the identical time.

“It appeared like a really loopy thought,” he says, “as a result of it’s nighttime for one half of the world and daytime for the opposite half. You may’t even maintain a gathering on the identical time in every single place, not to mention an exercise.”

To beat the time-zone subject, Delimar and Varela devised a 24-hour competitors on programming, which was standard amongst engineering college students on the time, Delimar says. Having the competition happen over 24 hours ensured all individuals have been on equal footing, he says.

Forty groups participated within the first IEEE Xtreme competitors, which was held in October 2006. It has since grown in reputation. Final yr practically 8,800 groups from 75 international locations participated.

Though he’s not concerned within the contest anymore, Delimar says he’s happy with its success.

In 2007 he grew to become vice chair of the IEEE Area 8 membership actions committee, which plans occasions for members. He was then elected because the 2010–2011 Area 8 director, and in 2013 he grew to become IEEE secretary. Each are Board-level positions.

“Being part of the IEEE Board of Administrators gave me the chance to find out about and serve on a number of fascinating committees that have been making an attempt to achieve explicit objectives on the time, similar to growing member engagement, bettering coaching for brand spanking new IEEE officers, and refining IEEE’s capability to shortly adapt to the fast-changing surroundings,” Delimar says.

His time on the board impressed him to advocate for the formation of an advert hoc committee on European public coverage actions. He served as its chair, and in 2018 it grew to become a everlasting committee. Renamed the IEEE European Public Coverage Committee, it helps members of the European Union and European Free Commerce Affiliation in creating technology-related insurance policies. Delimar was its chair till 2020.

“IEEE has been capable of present a united, unbiased voice of what’s good for know-how and what’s good for Europe,” he says. “It has been very nicely obtained by the European Fee.”

In 2016 Pedro Ray, the 2010 IEEE president, requested Delimar to be a volunteer for the IEEE Basis, and he joined the board the subsequent yr.

“It’s been a really rewarding expertise,” he says.

Main the IEEE Basis

Delimar says that his fundamental purpose as president is to extend consciousness amongst IEEE members of the Basis and its applications.

“The Basis helps greater than 250 funds and applications, and I need to strengthen its connections and partnerships throughout IEEE,” he says.

To perform that purpose, the Basis has been elevating its visibility. In 2023 it celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a reception in New York Metropolis. Different celebratory actions have been held that yr on the IEEE Imaginative and prescient, Innovation, and Challenges Summit and Honors Ceremony and the IEEE Energy & Power Society Normal Assembly.

Final yr the Basis established 16 February as IEEE Basis Day. The annual celebration marks the day in 1973 when the philanthropic group was launched. The inaugural occasion was designed to replicate the Basis’s imaginative and prescient of being the center of IEEE’s charitable giving. This yr’s celebration targeted on college students and younger professionals, highlighting beneficiaries of scholarships, grants, and fellowships and the influence they’ve had on the recipients.

“For me, IEEE Basis Day highlights how the IEEE Basis is greater than a charitable group—it’s the coronary heart of IEEE’s philanthropic efforts, the place generosity meets influence,” Delimar says. “Our donor-supported applications—like scholarships, journey grants, awards, analysis grants, and competitions—are greater than monetary assist for our college students and younger professionals; they’re catalysts for making desires come true.”

He says he needs to have interaction members who aren’t usually donors and thus increase the Basis’s attain.

“I need to allow individuals with completely different skilled journeys, financial backgrounds, cultures, and geography to have the ability to take part as donors for the IEEE Basis,” he says. “Each donor—whether or not they’re a scholar, younger skilled, or IEEE life member—is vital.”

Go to the IEEE Basis web site to find upcoming occasions, study methods to make a present, and see how the group’s charitable efforts are making an influence.