Agenda

Dr. Rakesh Kumar is a semiconductor industry veteran, an entrepreneur, and an educator. He is the founder, President and CEO of TCX Technology Connexions. Dr. Kumar educates and mentors potential engineering entrepreneurs at UCSD. He has authored the book “Fabless Semiconductor Implementation”, published by McGraw Hill.

Dr. Kumar is an IEEE Life Fellow and was inducted into the IEEE Technical Activities Hall of Honor in 2018. At IEEE, he is currently Chair of Future Directions, DataPort and has been President of the Solid-State Circuits Society (2012-13) in addition to numerous other leadership roles. He was Vice Program Chair for the 2017 Sections Congress.

During 40+ years in the semiconductor industry he has been VP & GM at Cadence Design, and has held various technical and management positions at Unisys and Motorola. He received the Ph.D. M.S. and B.S diplomas in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester, and IIT Delhi, and an Executive MBA from UCSD.

Dr. Luiken is a member of the IEEE Standards Association Board of Governors and the IEEE SSIT Board of Governors. She chairs the IEEE Planet Positive 2030 Initiative, the IEEE P7800TM Standards Working Group: Recommended Practice for Addressing Sustainability, Environmental Stewardship and Climate Change Challenges in Professional Practice, and the Green Hydrogen IEEE SA Industry Connections Program. She is a co-chair, IEEE Future Directions SusTech Initiative. 

Maike is a longtime advocate for sustainable development and for the deployment and use of technology that is ‘sustainable by design’ to achieve a long-term healthy planetary biosphere. Her areas of interest and expertise span diverse technical areas from ICT, energy, and water to advanced manufacturing. 

She is managing director, R&D, at a start-up company, Carbovate Development, and Adjunct Research Professor, Western University, Canada.  Maike’s career spans academia and industry in Canada, USA and Germany.  She is/has been serving on numerous Boards of Directors and Committees, including the IEEE Board of Directors and the Canadian Standards Council Steering Committee of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Governance Standardization Collaborative.

Dr. Clara Neppel is Senior Director - European Business Operations at the IEEE Technology Centre in Vienna, where she is responsible for IEEE's activities and presence in Europe, as well as the Head of the IEEE Technology Center for Climate. IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Technical University of Munich and a master’s degree from the University of Strasbourg, in Intellectual Property Law and Management. Dr. Neppel is also an Independent Director of the Supervisory Board of European Institute of Technology Digital, Co-Chair of the OECD Expert Group on AI, Data and Privacy, Member of the Austrian AI Advisory Board, and Member of the EY.ai Global AI Advisory Council.

Clinton is a Machine Learning Engineer at Amini, a Nairobi based startup building Africa's environmental data infrastructure.  His work harnesses the power of AI and earth observation to find solutions to some of the most pressing and urgent environmental challenges of our time, such as climate change and food security. Prior to Amini, he worked at Edge Impulse as a Developer Relations Engineer, and co-founded Rhinos Lab, a wildlife conservation startup building AI powered camera traps to prevent poaching and human wildlife conflicts. In his free time, he leads the TinyML Kenya community, bringing together over 1000+ developers, researchers, and engineers with a shared interest in machine learning at the edge.

As the 2025 Chair of Digital Transformation and Innovation Hubs for IEEE Young Professionals (YPs), Dr. Polat Goktas aims to provide a dynamic platform that empowers YPs by fostering innovation, promoting cross-disciplinary collaboration, and facilitating knowledge exchange in emerging digital technologies. He is dedicated to developing initiatives that connect industry and academia, offering mentorship, resources, and opportunities for skill enhancement to help YPs thrive in the rapidly evolving digital landscape through IEEE YP Innovation Hubs Subcommittee.

Polat actively contributed to the IEEE YP Climate and Sustainability Task Force, leading strategic partnerships with organizations like SEforALL and IRENA Youth. He had co-organized key IEEE events, including IEEE New York Climate Week 2024, the Sustainable AI for 6G Communications session at IEEE ICNSC 2024 and the Distributed and Intelligent Edge Computing workshop at IEEE MECOM 2024.

With a strong commitment to advancing cutting-edge technologies, his interests span artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, the Internet of Things (IoT), and 5G/6G, with a particular focus on addressing global real-world challenges. Through his diverse roles and impactful contributions, Polat continues to drive the convergence of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship, fostering solutions that tackle both present and future global challenges.

Ms. Zheng is a Ph.D. student in the geography department at the National University of Ireland, focusing on the global governance of the energy transition, specifically examining how energy innovation disproportionately empowers local communities. Through working experiences with the UNFCCC secretariat in the Intergovernmental Support and Collective Progress Division, she contributed to coordinating the workstreams on the first global stocktake under the Paris Agreement. Ms. Zheng leads the global youth policy board for the Asia-Pacific region at FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organization) and chairs the young working group for energy systems at the UNECE in the Sustainable Energy Division.

Before entering her PhD study, she dedicated four years to studying urban sustainability, climate resilience, urban resilience, and smart cities. Her research has resulted in numerous publications and conference presentations here.

Aside from her academic role, she co-chairs external affairs at the IEEE Young Professionals Climate and Sustainability Task Force, monitoring academic and science-based projects, and contributing to long-term collaboration with leading energy institutes like IEA, IRENA, SeForAll, etc.

Ms. Zheng also serves as International Affairs Manager at WAGA (a renewable energy company dedicated to solving energy poverty starting in African villages), which is dedicated to providing sustainable and reliable lithium-ion battery solutions by recycling and re-using lithium-ion batteries and producing durable and affordable battery powered products.

For more information, see:
https://sites.google.com/view/yuhan-zheng/homepage?authuser=0 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuhan-sicily-zheng-378097222/