2025 Seattle Worldcon Logo
Seattle Worldcon
In 2024 IEEE had a presence at the World Science Fiction Convention, Worldcon, in Glasgow, Scotland. I gave a talk on digital storage and memory technology and current IEEE President Kathleen Kramer moderated a standing room only panel on brain machine interfaces. We also had a good-sized exhibit area that IEEE student members participated in during the convention. I was partly inspired to pursue a career in technology by speculative fiction and I felt that IEEE should make an effort to be at events like this where people interested in technology and the future would gather.
IEEE returned for the 2025 Worldcon, in Seattle, Washington. I organized and moderated a panel on digital preservation and Alon Newton, from the IEEE Seattle section, organized and moderated a session on Future Remote Medical Sensing and Privacy Concerns.
The image below is of the participants in my panel on digital preservation outside of our meeting room. From left to right they are: me, Gemma Mendonsa (working on DNA storage at Seagate Technology), Rebecca Faimow (Boston-based author and archivist), Mariecris Gatlahayan (digital preservation librarian at the University of Washington) and Riyan Mendonsa (research engineer at Seagate Technology). We had a lively discussion on how to preserve data for over 100 years with lots of discussion with the audience about their digital storage and content preservation activities.
Worldcon digital preservation panel
Tom Coughlin
We had an exhibit at the 2025 Worldcon, thanks to the Seattle volunteers, particularly Alon and to IEEE staff in the IEEE Conferences and Events department. IEEE staff and particularly Rebecca Orens helped us get stand-up posters and give aways at our exhibit. The photo below is from the IEEE booth with from left to right, Alon Newton, Rebecca Orens and me.
IEEE exhibit at the 2025 Worldcon
Tom Coughlin
We had hoped to have students help with the booth this year, but it never came together. There were students who wanted to come from nearby universities in Canada, but they were originally from other countries and with the current issues with coming in or out of US borders, they decided not to come. Oren and Alon were at the booth the most and I tried to stay there as much as I could.
In addition to help from IEEE Conference and Events staff, the IEEE history center sent us some interesting history posters and some artifacts. Some of the material from the IEEE history center are shown below, including a poster about wrist wearable technology, featuring Dick Tracy and his radio/TV watch and a 1955 wrist radio kit. Another artifact was a book from 1946 that gathered a set of stories, published in 1898, that was a sequel to H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds featuring Thomas Edison conquering Mars.
Historical materials at the IEEE Worldcon booth
Tom Coughlin
Many people were surprised but pleased to see IEEE at the convention. Several people stopped by who are currently members and several who had been members. More than one was interested in becoming a member and took some of our membership information. We also had a number of kids who stopped by, particularly to get one of the wind-up dancing robots we were giving away. Some of the volunteers from Seattle talked about participating in their local Science Fiction Conventions in the future.
While we at the Convention Rebecca and I spoke to someone representing the 2026 Worldcon, which will be in Los Angeles in 2026. IEEE plans to be there with support from local sections in LA and IEEE Region 6 leadership. I hope that IEEE can participate in more events like these to meet people interested in technology so they can learn about who we are, what we stand for and perhaps to join us in advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.
IEEE participated in the 2025 World Science Fiction Convention in Seattle, Washington. We organized sessions on Digital Preservation as well as remote medical monitoring and privacy. Many folks came to see the exhibit that featured some historical artifacts.
