IEEE Foundation President is Empowering Future Engineers

All through his 30 years of volunteering, Delimar has labored to construct a neighborhood for college students. He based the College of Zagreb’s IEEE student branch and later turned its chair. He went on to change into the department’s counselor and a member of the IEEE Croatia Section’s scholar actions committee. He has held quite a few IEEE management positions, and he served on the group’s Board of Directors.

To interact extra student members and assist join scholar branches worldwide, he helped discovered the IEEEXtreme programming competition, an annual, 24-hour digital contest wherein groups compete to unravel laptop coding issues.

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

“Supporting IEEE packages 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 packages and to influence extra folks to help its causes.

Supporting the following 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 with out a scholar department on the college, there was no area 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 together with his EE bachelor’s diploma in 1996.

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

After graduating, he joined his alma mater as a educating assistant and researcher. He was later employed as a school member. He additionally carried out analysis in power engineering underneath his former professor, IEEE Senior Member Zdravko Hebel, who is understood for his work on the Croatian power 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 Foundation 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 impression.”

Inside 4 years of his steering, “the department was collaborating with different branches in not solely Region 8 [Europe, Middle East, and Africa] but in addition 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 Region 8 student activities committee, which is chargeable for scholar packages and advantages. On the time, IEEE was having bother retaining scholar members, he says.

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

Delimar and IEEE Member Ricardo Varela, who was additionally on the committee, brainstormed find out how to higher interact college students and enhance their participation. The 2 males needed to create an occasion that may enable college students internationally to take part on the similar time.

“It gave the impression of a really loopy concept,” he says, “as a result of it’s nighttime for one half of the world and daytime for the opposite half. You’ll be able to’t even maintain a gathering on the similar time in all places, not to mention an exercise.”

To beat the time-zone difficulty, Delimar and Varela devised a 24-hour competitors on programming, which was widespread 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 turned vice chair of the IEEE Region 8 membership activities committee, which plans occasions for members. He was then elected because the 2010–2011 Area 8 director, and in 2013 he turned IEEE secretary. Each are Board-level positions.

“Being part of the IEEE Board of Directors gave me the chance to study and serve on a number of attention-grabbing committees that have been attempting to succeed in specific objectives on the time, reminiscent of growing member engagement, enhancing coaching for brand new IEEE officers, and refining IEEE’s potential to rapidly adapt to the fast-changing atmosphere,” Delimar says.

His time on the board impressed him to advocate for the formation of an advert hoc committee on European public policy actions. He served as its chair, and in 2018 it turned a everlasting committee. Renamed the IEEE European Public Policy Committee, it helps members of the European Union and European Free Trade Association in growing technology-related insurance policies. Delimar was its chair till 2020.

“IEEE has been in a position to present a united, unbiased voice of what’s good for know-how and what’s good for Europe,” he says. “It has been very effectively acquired by the European Commission.”

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

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

Main the IEEE Basis

Delimar says that his primary objective as president is to extend consciousness amongst IEEE members of the Basis and its packages.

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

To perform that objective, the Basis has been elevating its visibility. In 2023 it celebrated its 50th anniversary with a reception in New York City. Different celebratory actions have been held that yr on the IEEE Vision, Innovation, and Challenges Summit and Honors Ceremony and the IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting.

Final yr the Basis established 16 February as IEEE Foundation 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 guts 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 impression 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 impression,” Delimar says. “Our donor-supported packages—like scholarships, journey grants, awards, analysis grants, and competitions—are greater than monetary help for our college students and younger professionals; they’re catalysts for making desires come true.”

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

“I need to allow folks with totally 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 Foundation website to find upcoming occasions, study methods to make a present, and see how the group’s charitable efforts are making an impression.