Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1098973
14 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2019 community, or helping other IEEE members, so those types of people are usually the ones that IEEE chooses to send to the conference through the section, area, or region. Attendees also fund themselves to come to the confer- ence, but the majority who are funded from within the IEEE and come to this conference are top tier in their section, area, or region. Johnson: Is that where a lot of the sponsorship goes—helping fund those handpicked people? Smith: The majority of the sponsorship funding goes towards offsetting the cost for our attend- ees, which might include paying down the bill for the venue or food. It may also go towards funding travel or lodging costs. Our goal is to lower the price for the overall conference attendee so more people can attend the event. It's up to the section, area, or region to pick who they choose to fund to come to the conference. We do fund some of our own volunteers. Usually, the top five or ten people who have contributed the most to the conference over the year get funding from us directly as a conference committee. Johnson: So, anybody who wants to get involved should follow up with the Rising Stars Conference committee to talk about sponsor- ship opportunities. Smith: I would highly recommend it. Johnson: Where does the committee see the Rising Stars Conference going in the next three to five years? Smith: We want to continue to expand but it's more challenging every year. We will continue to recognize new problems and opportunities and we want to capitalize on them as much as we can through partnering with industry. I'd like to see more of that and get more input Johnson: You also have quite a number of sponsors for this event. How do you involve your sponsors? Smith: Whether it's hosting a workshop, collect- ing resumes, setting up interviews, or having some influence in the conference, we work hard to empower our sponsors. We want our attend- ees to interact with them. Sponsors have even held keynote slots in the past. We listen to our sponsors and accommodate them as much as possible. If it weren't for sponsors, we wouldn't have a sustainable event, so it's very important to us to illustrate the value of sponsorship. However, we haven't had as much industry engagement as I would like to see. I would have expected leading companies that need top-tier talent to express more interest because all of our attendees are handpicked by their sections. It's a good opportunity for sponsors to get the best of the best in the IEEE. Johnson: You said student attendees are hand- picked from their areas. What do you mean by that? Smith: How that works is there's a certain level of representation from each IEEE demographic. Regional is the most overarching, then areas within the region and sections within each area. Each has access to funding, and they can use that funding to say, "I want to sponsor or fund this student to attend this conference because they have been a standout volunteer." Maybe they're running workshops, involved in their