My name is Hiyam Zayed Wakeem. My family’s hometown is Sielet el daher (A village near the town of Jenin, Palestine). I was born in Kuwait and grew up in Amman-Jordan.
I am married to Jamal Wakeem and have two sons; Khalil (9) and Zayne (7).
I graduated with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology (PSU), Master of Engineering Science (PSU), and MBA in Marketing (York College of PA) My work experience is concentrated in Electronics Manufacturing. I worked in Product Engineering and Product Management for Industrial and Fiber Optic connector manufacturers. Currently, I am a Product Line Manager and Product Engineering Manager for Industrial Connectivity Solutions at Belden Inc., the Americas region.

2. How did you hear about AAAEA and how long have you been involved and what positions did you hold?

A friend of mine who is a member of the AAAEA introduced me to the capital chapter in 2009. I joined the chapter that year. 2010 position à Member of Education Committee, member of Activities Committee.
2011 positions à Co-Chair of Education Committee, Chair of Activities
Committee.
2012 position à Vice President of Capital Area Chapter.

3. Please provide us with some information in regard in your role in the education committee & scholarship committee in DC.

In 2010, I served on the Education and Activities committees. My responsibility was to establish a scholarship program for the Capital Area chapter to encourage young Arab American students to pursue engineering programs. I cooperated with the chapter president, at the time, to establish the criteria, requirements, and the marketing plan to promote the program.

I assisted the Activities committee with the social activities planned that year. In 2011, I served as Co-chair of the Education Committee and Chair of the Activities Committee. I helped the Education committee establish PDH credit hours recognized by the states of MD, VA, and Washington DC for seminars sponsored by the Capital chapter. I helped the Activities Committee in leading the planning all social events. In 2012, I served as Vice President on the Association, Capital Area chapter.

4. Did the National Conference meet your expectations? Please
provide us with your feedback.

The National Conference was of high standards. The Wisconsin chapter did an outstanding job in planning and executing the event. I enjoyed being part of the National Conference.
My only reservation is the election process; I would like the election process to start by introducing the nominees’ credentials prior to the conference so that the members have sufficient time to know the nominees before voting.

5. What do you think of Almuhandes and do you have any suggestions?

I enjoy reading Almuhandes; it is a great publication. I would like to see more interviews with members who excel in their field, or publish books and articles. Recognize those who receive awards in their respective fields, by introducing their work, Almuhandes would advance our knowledge and encourage others to write articles and introduce themselves to our association members.

Features For Members:

Our members are our most important association asset, many features that used to be public will now require member login, such as Job listings, Resumes, Special events, and more. Some of member features:
 New membership registration form with PayPal integration, email receipt confir-mations and automatic membership renewals.
 Ability to comment on all website content such as articles, technical sessions, pic-nics, events, announcements and even comment on photos.
 Social networks integration, so members can share a story or “Like” an article on their Facebook wall, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube.
 Online Business Directory for members’ companies. So member companies get better exposure to visitors. Visitors can do all kinds of searching, filtering and sorting on business directory listings.
 Online Careers Center, where members can search for jobs by type, category, loca-tion or any other job keyword. Members can also apply for jobs online and receive interview requests right into their registered email.
 Events that keep members informed about upcoming association activities with ability to register for events and add that event to their calendars on computers and smart phones.
 Association news and announcements also keep members informed on the association latest.
 Ability to register and view Online video classes for EIT to prepare the member to take the PE exam from the comfort of their home computer.
 Members can now easily register, and update their info only, pay their dues and subscribe to newsletters.

Features For Students:

On the new website there are dedicated student sections that shows student events, and student activities. there are sections for K-12 students all they way to the engineering student chapters.

For Executive board members:

The new website simplifies and unifies many daily tasks, letting EB members focus more on ways to advance association business rather than facing tedious non-trivial challenges for non-technical persons. Some of the new features include:
 Automatic membership management, member registration and renewals.
 Simplified Events and Announcements creation and removal.
 Simplified pictures and photo album creation and updates.
 Simplified Job, resumes management.
 Many more.

The main great feature that the IT committee is proud of is the platform extensibility and the wide range of adoption in the market. WordPress® has over 180,000 add-ons that should cover every single feature anyone can dream of. Members are always welcome to join the committee or recommend features, the IT committee will be more than happy to look into them and add them as needed. Stay tuned, to the announcement of the new National AAAEA website coming very soon.

Amr Kudssi
National IT Committee

Now with the start of a new year, and as we enter our second official year as a national organization, and after a new national board been elected last November, it is the time for the organization to form its national committees to provide the services expected and start moving the association forward.

Each national officer was assigned a task in the first conference call the national board held this month. The national committees must start conducting its work in order for this board to meet the expectations of our members. Again, committees are the backbone of any successful organization.
I am pleased to share with you that the IT committee and publication committee have been formed and held their first conference call. Other committees are being formed.
Also, it is my pleasure to share with you the significant progress on the new national web site. The Fifth Generation National AAAEA Website
National IT committee has been hard at work over the past two months revamping and rebuilding the National AAAEA website and all its chapters under new platform based on WordPress® content management system.

All the accomplishments at the local and national levels were due to members volunteering their time. This association is based and structured around volunteering.
I encourage each and every member to volunteer some of his/her time to advance the mission of this great association. Your colleagues need your help. Your community is need of the volunteers.
I want to conclude by reemphasizing that, only with hard work, commitment, and teamwork can we build on our progress, and achieve our goals of providing outstanding services to our members.
Until we meet again, I wish you all the best.
Together we can go further!

Bilal Almasri

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