Student Projects
IEEE Technical Program

Headshots and titles of 2026-27 officers of IEEE

Project Manager

Vicheda Narith

NU IEEE

Amount Requested

$5,000

Summary

The objective of the IEEE technical program is to teach students, create a community, advance careers, and widen perspectives. Students will form teams of five to six people with a peer mentor to create innovative projects and learn technical skills that are often only introduced in later years or in a theoretical sense at Northwestern. At the end of approximately 5 months, students will have the chance to showcase their projects to industry professionals and gain feedback. The club will also host social events and invite speakers throughout the program to promote networking and create a fun technology community. The primary goals of our program are to help students develop their careers more, learn from others, and have fun.

Planned Activities/Investments

  • IEEE Technical Program: The IEEE Technical Program is a 4-month technical mentorship program that places students in teams of 4-5, led by an experienced project manager. Over the course of the program, teams will work collaboratively on a technical project, participate in peer feedback sessions, and build practical skills through hands-on development. These projects span software engineering, AI/ML, hardware, and chip design–perfect for ECE and CS students. The program culminates in a final showcase where students present their work to industry professionals, receiving valuable feedback to refine their ideas and strengthen their technical and presentation abilities.
  • Workshops: Before the IEEE Technical Program begins, we will have frequent workshops to equip students with more technical skills for starting a project. Oftentimes, at Northwestern, it isn’t until late sophomore year that you take your major-specific courses, so our workshops are a concise and effective way for Technical Program students to catch up with upperclassmen in technical skills.
  • Speaker Series: Every few Tech Thursdays, we will bring in a speaker to talk about their experiences so that members can broaden their perspectives. We will take input from the technical program members to ensure they are getting the most out of each talk.
  • Tech Thursdays: Throughout the school year, we will meet once every two weeks on Thursdays, where students can come eat food, socialize, and get help on their projects. We aim to have this be a space for students to meet people across teams and form connections with each other.
  • BadHacks: While much of IEEE is focused on creating innovative and useful projects, BadHacks is an event that will allow students to unleash their creativity without having to worry about whether their project is necessarily the most innovative or useful. It allows students to have fun with technology and socialize in a more silly setting while exploring interesting projects.

Impact

The IEEE Technical Program will positively impact students in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer Science, as well as those from other fields who are interested in gaining technical experience or contributing their expertise to engineering-focused projects. Our workshops will equip students with industry-relevant technical skills that are often not covered in traditional coursework. The team-based projects allow students to apply knowledge gained both in and out of the classroom to impactful real-world challenges. Additionally, our speaker series and project showcase will allow students to receive career advice and network with professionals in the field. Altogether, the IEEE Technical Program aims to foster a stronger, more connected engineering community at Northwestern.

We will be polling and receiving feedback throughout the technical program. This will help us better understand our members’ needs and whether they are truly benefiting from their work in IEEE. Additionally, for the 2025-2026 year, we had zero teams drop from the technical program, whereas for previous years, we would lose 1-2 teams during the program. We did this by enforcing Tech Thursdays and setting up constant communication channels between exec members and project managers. IEEE will continue this process to make sure that no teams feel the need to drop next year. More specifically, we will boost our social media and online presence to get a larger pool of applicants–this will allow us to select the best project managers and engineers. In turn, these teams will produce more impactful and technically challenging projects year after year.

Deliverables

  • Support for 10-12 Student Project Teams through funding for hardware, software tools (e.g., API credits), and mentorship, enabling real-world technical exploration.

  • Midway Project Showcase, where teams present progress and receive feedback, promoting peer learning and mid-program reflection.

  • Final Project Showcase featuring completed student-led projects, industry judges, and awards to recognize innovation and excellence.

  • 16 “Tech Thursday” Workshops providing hands-on technical skill-building sessions, including topics in software, hardware, and AI.

  • Speaker Engagements integrated into workshops and showcases, offering students direct access to industry insights and career advice.

Sustainability

The Technical Program is a core part of the IEEE branch at Northwestern and is run every year. While funding from the Murphy Grant will guarantee enough to run a lot of the program, we want to make the program more robust and general. IEEE plays a very important role in helping students learn content through applications that are vital for internships and personal projects. Students typically do not learn this content in classrooms until later in their college career. However, the program lacks learning/fun opportunities and engagement activities for our non-technical program members due to funding reasons. Thus, we plan to gain more funding from sponsors. Currently, we have a sponsor who helped us cover the final showcase last year. This year, we plan to reach out to more companies for more sponsorship opportunities and partner with other tech clubs that have similar goals.

Previous Project

Last year, we secured Murphy Society funding, which helped us successfully run both our technical programming and our club community. We held bi-weekly social events and hosted a new mentor-mentee program for everyone to network and share each other’s experiences and goals. At the same time, a significant portion of the funding supported our Technical Program, as it’s the club's core priority. From January through May, we held mandatory Tech Thursdays every two weeks, bringing together members from all project teams to learn new skills, collaborate, and make progress on their projects. Funding allowed us to provide snacks and food during these events, which played an important role in maintaining attendance, encouraging participation, and creating an inclusive environment where students can connect outside of their immediate teams. They helped foster a stronger sense of community and collaboration across IEEE.

The grant also supported our main events for the midway showcase and the final showcase, where teams presented their work to professional judges, faculty, and many other students. In addition, the funding helped with project expenses for our project teams, particularly those working on hardware-intensive projects that required specialized equipment and materials. Overall, the grant enabled us to expand member engagement, strengthen our technical programming, and provide students with meaningful opportunities to learn, collaborate, and build impactful projects.

Budget Overview

Last year, we had around 130 students in the technical program, and around 65 participated in the technical projects. These will be the numbers used to calculate the budget below.

  • Tech Thursday ($800): This includes our workshops and speaker series plan. Each Tech Thursday is allotted around $50. This money will be spent on buying food (community building), gifts for speakers, and technology used in workshops (especially for a hardware workshop or workshops that require API credits like AI).

  • Midway Showcase ($1000): Food for members (around $13 per person)

  • Final Showcase ($2000): Lunch for members and judges, prizes to incentivize members, water, and judge gifts

  • Project money ($1200): Most new software requires funding to support exploration and use, e.g., OpenAI credits. Additionally, hardware teams will need the funding to pursue their project.

Total Budget Amount: $5,000

Matching Funds

We plan to find more sponsors for the upcoming year. As of now, we have one sponsor, Schneider Electric, with the remaining funds of $3,000 USD from last year for the program.

Faculty Adviser/Department

Alan Sahakian/Electrical and Computer Engineering