Emerging Technology Award
The Emerging Technology Award may be presented annually to an individual, working group, or company that has advanced, initiated, or progressed a new technology within the IEEE SA open consensus process, and which meet the following criteria:
- The IEEE SA work product is a balloted standards document, a standard, recommended practice, or guide. It is not necessary for the final document to be approved, but substantial progress beyond the PAR is necessary.
- The IEEE SA work product is the first, or one of few such activities for the technology, industry, or market(s) for which it is targeted.
- A technology, industry, or market where broad consensus agreements are not yet widely deployed, or not yet fully commercialized.
- The IEEE SA work product has positive market relevance.
- The effort places IEEE in a leadership position.
- The contribution extends the IEEE SA standards portfolio.
- Self nominations are not eligible.
- If you’d like to nominate an IEEE Working Group, then the “IEEE SA Member Organization Contact” cannot be the nominator or an endorser.
- The “IEEE SA Member Organization Contact” must be an IEEE SA individual member.
Award
Recognition consists of a sculpture and certificate. There is no honorarium attached to this award.
Honorees
The award is presented by the IEEE SA President at the SA Awards Ceremony
- Recipient honored at the IEEE SA Awards Ceremony
- Recognition on the IEEE SA website and social media post
Eligibility
The recipient must be an IEEE SA member. The eligible candidate, if an individual, may be the champion, project initiator, or prominent contributor to the effort. There are no restrictions or preferences as to the nationality, race, sex, creed or age.
Nomination
Annual Deadline 31 July
Nominate a Party for This Award
Please note that the nomination package, including at least 3 endorsements must be completed and submitted by 31 July. Nominations packages that are incomplete as of 31 July will not be considered by the IEEE SA Awards and Recognition Committee.
Suggested Location for Presentation of Award
The award is to be presented at the annual IEEE SA Awards Ceremony. There is no funding from the IEEE SA Board of Governors for the recipient for travel to or accommodations at the award venue.
Sponsorship
This award is sponsored by the IEEE Standards Association, administered by the IEEE SA Awards and Recognition Committee.
Emerging Technology Award Recipients
| Michael McLaughlin | For contributions to the successful standardization of Ultra-Wideband positioning, providing humanity with radio-based high-precision indoor positioning | 2026 |
| Qing-Chang Zhong | For leadership in advancing virtual synchronous machine technology through IEEE Std 2988, providing the first consensus-based guidance for grid-forming inverter functions in modern power systems | 2026 |
| IEEE 11073 Point of Care Devices Working Group | For development and progression of medical device interoperability standards for point-of-care devices in healthcare settings | 2026 |
| IEEE 2686 Working Group | For developing IEEE Std 2686, IEEE Recommended Practice for Battery Management Systems in Stationary Energy Storage Applications | 2026 |
| IEEE 3366.1 Sub-Working Group | For the development of IEEE Std 3366.1-2025, a pioneering international standard on geometry point cloud compression that introduces practical technologies for high-efficiency volumetric data compression. | 2026 |
| IEEE P3537 Working Group | For developing the 3Dblox language to formally define the structural and boundary properties of chiplets and their associated stacks | 2026 |
| IEEE/IEC 63184 Joint Working Group | For developing and harmonizing the first international standard for human exposure assessment of wireless power transfer systems | 2026 |
| Yu Su | For pioneering contributions to 5G cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies and international standards for UAV communication systems | 2025 |
| Gisele Waters | For contributions to the field of artificial intelligence as the Chair of IEEE Std 3119-2025, IEEE Standard for the Procurement of Artificial Intelligence and Automated Decision Systems | 2025 |
| Lei Yan | For leadership in establishing international standards for low-altitude sensing and hydrogen-powered UAV systems, significantly advancing the field of remote sensing and unmanned aerial applications | 2025 |
| IEEE Data Trading System Working Group | For the development of IEEE Std 3800-2024, IEEE Standard for a Data-Trading System: Overview, Terminology, and Reference Model | 2025 |
| IEEE 1857.11 Sub-Working Group | For the development of IEEE Std 1857.11-2024, IEEE Standard for Neural Network-Based Image Coding | 2025 |
| IEEE N42.59 Working Group | For development of the first imaging performance standard for millimeter-wave systems for security screening of humans | 2025 |
| IEEE P2851 Working Group | For contributions to functional safety applied in a multi-domain context and for improving interoperability between the different elements of the dependability lifecycle | 2025 |
| IEEE P3271.01 Working Group | For developing IEEE P3271.01, Draft Standard for Recurring Transactions Using Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) | 2025 |
| IEEE P3351 Working Group | For development of IEEE Std 3351-2025, IEEE Standard for Levitation System of Electromagnetic Suspension-type Maglev Vehicles | 2025 |
| James T. Reilly | For leadership and contributions to the development of a series of standards on distributed energy resource integration and aggregation within microgrids and related sustainable energy systems | 2024 |
| IEEE 2933™ Working Group | For the development of IEEE 2933-2024, IEEE Standard for Clinical Internet of Things (IoT) Data and Device Interoperability with TIPPSS—Trust, Identity, Privacy, Protection, Safety, Security | 2024 |
| IEEE 1547.9™ Working Group | For advancing the deployment of energy storage for distributed energy resources | 2023 |
| IEEE 2800™ Working Group | For the development of uniform technical requirements applied to inverter-based generation resources interconnecting with electric transmission and sub-transmission systems | 2022 |
| IEEE 2846™ Working Group | For the development of IEEE Std 2846™-2022, IEEE Standard for Assumptions in Safety-Related Models for Automated Driving Systems | 2022 |
| IEEE 2941™ Working Group | For the development of IEEE Std 2941™-2021, the standard to define AI development interfaces that break down barriers between computing architecture and algorithm frameworks | 2022 |
| IEEE P2675™ Working Group | --- | 2021 |
| IEEE P7007™ Working Group | --- | 2021 |