SMCS Distinguished Lecturer Visit to Tunisia

On March 23-26, 2009, Dr. Bill Gruver visited the SMCS-RAS Joint Chapter of the IEEE Tunisia Section as a Distinguished Lecturer of the SMC Society. His visit was centered in Sousse, the third largest city in Tunisia. Sousse lies on the eastern coast of Tunisia, two hours south of the capital Tunis. It is sometimes called "the pearl of the Sahel" because of the mildness of its climate, its calm and beautiful coast, and the hospitality of its people who long captivated those who came to conquer. Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines and Arabs settled in this lovely fertile city, each leaving their imprint and heritage. No wonder modern day visitors from all over the world find themselves at home and return again and again.

Dr. Gruver’s visit to Tunisia was hosted by the IEEE Tunisia Section and coordinated by the SMCS-RAS Joint Chapter which was recently established with 18 members and is the first chapter of the SMC Society in Africa. This was his second trip to Tunisia. Earlier in 2002, he participated in the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics that was organized in the nearby city of Hammamet.

IEEE members welcome Dr. Gruver at the Diar Andalous Hotel

Dr. Gruver’s IEEE presentation

On March 25, Dr. Gruver delivered his IEEE presentation in the main conference hall of the hotel. In his first presentation, he enhanced the importance of the IEEE technical committees and the interests of creating more IEEE activities within the IEEE Tunisia Section.

Dr. Gruver encouraged forming separate chapters for SMCS and RAS to enhance each society’s impact on the chapter activities -- create more student branches in the Tunisia section, attract more students in order to participate in the section activities, create student branch chapters, and organize regional conferences on specialized topics to be held in Tunisia.

IEEE audience listening to Dr. Gruver presentations

IEEE Tunisian audience was very interested by both presentations by Dr. Gruver because they offered an occasion to debate important issues and key points in both organizational and scientific fields.

The IEEE presentation provided the attendees with information about the organization of IEEE and the importance of student activities and recruitment (students were among the attendees at the presentation).

Afterwards, Dr. Gruver discussed with the Chapter Committee how to promote IEEE activities by the SMC Society.

Intelligent systems including robotics and information security are among the important areas of research and development being carried out in many laboratories. This permitted a large number of researchers to interact with Dr. Gruver on their actual projects as Intelligent House, and Intelligent Transportation, Intelligent Satellite, and others that require the use of distributed system technologies.

Distinguished Lecturer Presentation

Dr. Gruver delivered his lecture "Distributed Intelligence: A New Paradigm for Systems Integration" in the conference hall of the Hotel.

The lecture included an overview of holonic and multi-agent system technologies that have been developed in cooperation with the Holonic Manufacturing Systems Consortium, and members of the SMC Technical Committee on Distributed Intelligent Systems.

Dr. Gruver’s presentation contrasted the differences between centralized and distributed systems and discussed the technologies that are the basis of distributed intelligence.

The lecture was attended by more than 35 IEEE members, including members of the SMC-RAS Chapter and the IEEE Tunisia Section. The audience participated in a lively question and answer period.

Prof. Adel M. Alimi gives an award for the Distinguished Lecturer presentation

After his lecture, Prof. Adel M. Alimi the chapter chair thanked Dr. Gruver for visiting Tunisia and his enthusiasm in encouraging the IEEE Tunisia section to progress in promoting the IEEE activities.

Dr. Gruver received an enthusiastic welcome by the members of the SMC-RAS chapter that demonstrates their support of the missions of IEEE and the SMC Society, and opportunities for establishing more activities in the IEEE Tunisia Section.

Submitted by:

Adel M. Alimi
SMCS-RAS Chapter Chair

April 15, 2009