IMS in New Zealand [From the news chapters]

New Zealand is a relatively small country of approximately five million people and has a predominantly agriculturally based economy. Belonging to IEEE Region 10, it has 1041 members in three IEEE sections: North, Central, and South that are headquartered in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch, respectively. The IEEE IMS New Zealand Chapter covers all three sections. At I2MTC 2008, Jorge Daher (then President of IMS), asked Prof. Subhas Mukhopadhyay of Massey University in New Zealand to investigate establishing an IMS Chapter in New Zealand. In December 2009, a petition was lodged with support from fifteen members to form the chapter, which was then inaugurated in 2010 with Dr Mukhopadhyay as Chair, and an inaugural workshop was held on 15th April 2010. The one-day workshop on Sensors and Instrumentation Research in New Zealand was attended by 23 people, and six months later a workshop on Sensors and Instrumentation in Environmental, Health, and Agricultural Applications was held in Wellington and attended by 37 people. Keynote speaker Dr. D. Preethichandra from Central Queensland University, Australia presented "Conducting Polymer-based Nano-biosensors." We gratefully acknowledge the support from IMS in assisting with establishing the chapter and supporting the workshops.