Wanting to keep abreast of technologies that will be hot in the next few years, members have asked the IEEE to improve its coverage of so-called emerging technologies in its publications and conferences. But making such predictions is not so easy, which is why, in November of 2003, the IEEE Technical Activities Board (TAB) started an initiative called the IEEE Focus on Technologies.

"Emerging technologies often cut across the boundaries of many of the IEEE's societies' traditional fields," says Leah Jamieson, chair of the New Technologies Directions Committee (NTDC), also under TAB, which is responsible for carrying out the initiative. "One of the key goals of the Focus on Technologies initiative is to identify opportunities for collaboration, so that the IEEE can quickly build new communities and hold workshops and conferences on emerging areas."

One of the more difficult tasks was to pick which technologies to focus on. Starting with a list of 35 fields to consider, the committee narrowed it down to six: biotechnology and bioengineering, digital intellectual property, display technologies and information interaction, distributed intelligent networks and systems, future power and alternative energy technologies, and security for public and personal safety.

"These technologies were selected because of the importance they will have to the engineering profession in the future," Jamieson says.  "They also represent great opportunities to build bridges between areas where IEEE has leading-edge expertise."

Some of the groups are further along than others. The alternative energy group was the first to reach a milestone. It held its first workshop in April 2004, looking at the pros and cons of hydrogen as fuel and its impact on the future of electricity. The workshop covered not only the technical issues of what a hydrogen-based economy might be like but also the economic, political, and environmental issues. This year the group is sponsoring the Electric Ship Technologies Symposium, to be held 25-27 July in Philadelphia. The conference will explore the latest research in areas such as electric-power generation, control and automation, and propulsion [see "Electric Ship Symposium Explores New Ground"].

The display technologies group received approval in June 2004 to start a new publication and this September will launch the IEEE/Optical Society of America Journal of Display Technology. This publication will cover the theory, design, manufacturing, and reliability of information displays used in consumer and commercial electronics. Included are such devices as televisions, computers, projectors, and personal digital assistants.

The digital intellectual property group recently launched an online community at https://www.ieeecommunities.org/digital_ip, where members can share the best methods for protecting intellectual property rights over digital information. Digital information includes not only software and computerized text but also audio (music and speech), video (still and moving pictures), and even shape (like the forms found in computer-aided design).

The biotechnology and bioengineering group will focus on areas including biotech sensors, implantable devices, electronic medical records, medical imaging, and telemedicine. It will also review the IEEE's standards for medical equipment and incorporate the activities of IEEE-USA's Medical Technologies Policy Committee.

But the biotech group will not go it alone. The group's cochair Senior Member Dick Doyle followed Jamieson's advice to "think outside the box" and broaden the IEEE's perspective on emerging technologies, so he invited members of related non-IEEE societies to join IEEE in forming the new Biotech Council. Nine societies took him up on the offer. They include the American Medical Association, American Medical Informatics Association, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Biomedical Engineering Society, Healthcare Information and Management Systems, Radiological Society of North America, Society for Biological Engineering, Society for Computer Applications in Radiology, and Society for Biomaterials.

Most members of the council, including the IEEE, will participate  in the first technical conference on 3 and 4 April 2006, in Washington, D.C. Dubbed D2H2, which stands for Distributed Diagnostics and Home Healthcare, the meeting will feature speakers who will present the latest in R&D and discuss public policy issues in these fields.

NEW GROUPS But the NTDC hasn't stopped with these six areas. The initiative calls for one or two new groups to be formed each year. After considering more than 80 fields, in February the committee picked two more: portable information devices and organic electronics. Portable information devices include cellphones and personal music players such as iPods. Organic electronics low-cost circuits that can be found, for example, in multicolor automobile stereo displays. Meanwhile, the IEEE Committee on Earth Observations is joining NTDC to form another new group focusing on global earth observation systems that are designed to link millions of national, regional, and international sources into a single network able to track environmental changes in oceans, land, the atmosphere, and ecosystems.

For more information about NTDC or the Focus on Technologies initiative, contact Bichlien Hoang, IEEE Technical Activities, by e-mail at b.hoang@ieee.org.