The MENED Program at Nanotechnology Council [Column]

IEEE is made up of people. People participation and interaction are crucial to IEEE. After the recent pandemic crisis, IEEE is facing several challenges related to the Young Professionals’ (YPs) engagement, commitment, and participation. YPs are key members for developing a sustainable network and for finding the next-generation of IEEE leaders. For societies and councils, it is fundamental to tackle this problem and plan suitable actions to outreach, empower and educate YPs. To this aim, the Nanotechnology Council (NTC) promoted a specific mentoring program called MENED (MENtoring program – from Effectiveness to Durability). MENED aims to involve more YPs in NTC activities, while training and mentoring young professionals of how to contribute to the NTC through the NTC technical committees (TCs). MENED will also increase the number on trained NTC volunteers and help in the development of future generations of NTC leaders. In this work, after almost a year of the project, we report on the MENED experience, while analyzing its output both qualitatively and quantitatively. We present the candidate selection methodology, the first training session, and a thorough analysis of the survey of candidates and technical committees. The idea, methodologies and results of the MENED experience are of great interest to the NTC community but can also be beneficial to the whole IEEE community inspiring and fostering the YPs’ involvement.