12 July 2021 – Johor Bahru: Prof. Zulkurnain delivers his opening speech during the opening ceremony of IEEE DEIS 13th ICPADM today. Below is his speech. Afterwards, the Chair of ICPADM International Advisory Committeee, Dr Harry Orton delivers his speech, followed by the speech by the UTM Vice Chancellor, Datuk Prof. Ahmad Fauzi Ismail who also officially opens the conference.
OPENING CEREMONY
WELCOME MESSAGE BY GENERAL CHAIR
Bismisllahirrahmanirahim
Assalamu’alaikum wb and a very good morning to everyone, or Selamat Pagi in Malay, and good evening to some participants.
Thank you Mr MC
Prof Datuk Dr Ahmad Fauzi Ismail, the Vice Chancellor of UTM, Dr Harry Orton , Chair of IAC ICPADM, Plenary speakers, Professors, distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen
AlhamdulilLah, Thank to God, in this blessed morning, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to IEEE 13th International Conference on Properties and Applications of Dielectric Materials (ICPADM 2021), broadcasting live from Johor Bahru, Malaysia, from 12th to 14th July.
Selamat Datang ke ICPADM2021!
Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to say a few welcoming words.
The ICPADM is aimed at providing a forum for sharing and exchange of ideas in the field of dielectric materials among members of international academic and engineering community.
ICPADM is a conference series with a long history. The conference venues started in Xi’an China in 1985 which is the 1st ICPADM, then it moves to various other cities every three years, as follows: Beijing, Tokyo, Brisbane, Seoul, Xi’an, Nagoya, Bali, Harbin, Bangalore, Sydney, and back to Xi’an again in 2018 for the 12th ICPADM. This year
ICPADM is for the first time coming to a city in southern Malaysia, named Johor Bahru. It is organised by IEEE DEIS and hosted by the Institute of High Voltage and High Current, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
We would like to thank, or in Malay, terima kasih, the International Advisory Committee of ICPADM chaired by Dr Harry Orton for giving us this opportunity to host this IEEE flagship conference in Malaysia this year. Since 2019, we were busy planning for the conference when the whole world is suddenly faced with COVID-19 pandemic, in early last year. Because of this unprecedented situation, we came out with three options: postpone the conference, proceed with tentative dates in a hybrid mode, or proceed with a total virtual mode. After some lengthy analyses and many rounds of voting within the local organising committee, and discussion with the International Advisory Committee, finally, we decided to proceed with the planned event and the conference is to be conducted 100% virtually. It is now seems to be a right decision to make since most states in Malaysia now is still in an MCO of first category where interdistric and interstate travels are not allowed.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The theme of the 13th ICPADM is ‘Emerging dielectrics for energy sustainability‘. This is in line with the current global trends and societal needs. Indeed, our plenary speeches are geared towards this theme. We are lucky because all our plenary speeches are still on even when the conference is now fully virtual. Let me quickly introduce the distinguished plenary speakers in this conference. 1. Professor Dr. Gian Carlo Montanari from Florida State University, USA who will be presenting a title on Reliability of HVDC and MVDC Electrical Asset: The Challenge of Insulation Design, and this will be delivered just after this opening ceremony. 2. Professor Dr. Alun S. Vaughan from University of Southampton, UK who will be talking on Nanocomposites: Pathways to Dielectric Success, scheduled for this afternoon at 4.00pm local time. 3. Professor Dr. Shengtao Li from Xi’an Jiaotong University, China on High Dielectric and Energy Storage Polymer Dielectrics scheduled for tomorrow at 9.00am local time, and 4. Professor Dr. Masayuki Hikita, from Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan on Electrical Insulation Properties of Innovative Functionally Insulating Material toward Application to Electric Power Apparatus, scheduled for Wednesday at 9.00am local time. I invite all of you to listen to our distinguished speakers, broadcasted live at those stated days and times.
Of course a virtual conference is not the same as the physical face-to-face one. It is 3 in the morning in Italy when our first plenary speaker, Prof. Montanari will deliver his speech. This time difference challenge is a thing many of us are more than familiar with now. Nevertheless, in this conference, we have tried our best to provide a venue for a lively discussion and exchange of ideas. Thank you Evenesis and team for providing us with the Virtual Platform. During the parallel sessions in breakup rooms, the presenting authors are expected to be present and answer all questions from the audience, both questions and answers are to be communicated via text messages in the chat area next to the presentation videos. Sessions chairs will try their best to ensure all questions raised during the QnA sessions to be answered by the presenting authors. In the conference virtual platform, there is also a general chat room where you can communicate with any conference participant online as well as offline. The virtual platform continues to be available for about a week, so that all conference participants can always come back to check on more videos or updates on the QnA in chatrooms or slidos during this one week duration.
It is our honour to again welcome all participants to this virtual conference from various countries, including China, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, India, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Cameroon, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Canada, United Sates of America, and of course Malaysia. We thank you for your time and effort in joining us at the convenience of your laptop screens in your respective homes and offices. I hope you enjoy and are satisfied with the programmes planned for you in these 3 days.
Ladies and gentlemen,
13th ICPADM had received 176 submissions and 128 were accepted, that is an acceptance rate of 73%. A total of 104 oral presenters will be presenting their latest work in 119 finally registered papers with over 330 co-authors. For this conference, the papers are grouped into the following 6 tracks: Condition Monitoring, General Dielectric, Dielectric Phenomena, Nanomaterial, Electrical insulation, and Others. We would like to sincerely thank all the 76 reviewers who had reviewed these submissions. We hope you can have access to all these papers when they are available in the IEEExplore very soon after the conference.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciations to many parties involved in this conference.
First of all, we would like to thank God for making this event a reality after about 2 years of planning and numerous organising committee meetings.
We would like to thank TNB Labs for its generous sponsorship.
Our special thanks go to all the plenary speakers (Prof. Montanari, Prof Vaughan, Prof. Li and Prof. Hikita) for agreeing to deliver their speeches live.
We would also like to thank all 14 ICPADM IAC committee members led by Dr Harry Orton for their contributions and cooperation during these 3 years.
My sincere thanks to the General Secretary AP Dr Lau Kwan Yiew, and all 21 other organising committee members, all of whom had tirelessly worked for the smooth running and success of the conference for the last 2 years. Their names are too many to say but you can find them in the program book. These committee members, divided into several functions, namely Finance, Technical Program, Publicity and Website, Registration, Local Arrangement, Excursion, Sponsorship and Exhibition, and Publications, come from various universities and organisations throughout Malaysia. I am indeed very proud of all of you and your teamwork.
Last but not least, I would like to thank the Institute of High Voltage and High Current, UTM and the IEEE DEIS for successfully hosting and organising this conference.
Ladies and gentlemen
Before I end my remarks, I sincerely hope that ICPADM 2021 provides you a pleasant experience with many lively discussions as well as new contacts and networking.
Thank you and thank you again for your attention.
Zulkurnain Abdul Malek
General Chair of ICPADM 2021
by Zulkurnain Abdul Malek