Welcome by IEEE and CIGRE
IEEE President
Director of Virginia Tech Advanced Research Institute, USA
Professor Saifur Rahman is the founding director of the Advanced Research Institute at Virginia Tech, USA where he is the Joseph R. Loring professor of electrical and computer engineering. He also directs the Center for Energy and the Global Environment. He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE and an IEEE Millennium Medal winner. He was the 2023 IEEE President and CEO. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the IEEE Electrification Magazine and the IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy. He has published over 170 journal papers and has made over six hundred conference and invited presentations. He was the chair of the US National Science Foundation Advisory Committee on International Science and Engineering. He has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech.
Chairman, CIGRE Technical Council
Marcio Szechtman is the Technical Vice President of CIGRE (Technical Council Chair) from August 2018, till August 2024. He was the Technical Chair of the HVDC Study Committee between 2002 and 2008; Received the CIGRE Gold Medal in 2014 and the Honorary Member Award in 2008. He is the Life Fellow of IEEE/PES. Recipient of the Uno Lamm HVDC Technical Award in 2009; Life Fellow since 2016. Marcio Szechtman is an Electrical Engineer with a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo. Recent assignments were General Director at CEPEL from 2017 to 2019, and Chief Transmission Officer at Eletrobras from 2019 to 2023.