IEEE had an exhibit again at the 2026 World Science Fiction Convention, Lacon V, thanks to the work of David Gonzales, chair of the IEEE Southern California Council and Rebecca Orens, IEEE Trade Show Strategist and all the volunteers who came to help with the exhibit. IEEE first had a booth at the Worldcon in 2024 in Glasgow, Scotland and was also at the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, WA.
As the 2024 IEEE President I felt that reaching out to people outside the IEEE who were interested in technology was important to raise awareness of the IEEE and what we did. The 2027 Worldcon will be in Montreal and I am hoping the local IEEE folks in Montreal with continue our presence at these events. All of the Worldcon booths were visited by many interested people, young and old. This year we had some extra help pulling in visitors, thanks to David’s outreach.
David helped with a connection with Garner Holt Productions, which designs animated figures, show systems and special effects for major theme parks worldwide. IEEE shared their booth with Garner Holt, who brought a mechatronic character names Sparky, who would talk to people coming by the booth about the IEEE. The picture below shows IEEE volunteer from Arizona and past President of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society, Ralph Hogan, with me next to Sparky.
Garner Holt also brought a mechatronic Grogu, from Star War’s The Mandalorian, who entertained visitors to the booth.
Alberto Tam Yong, chair of the IEEE Region 6 Student Activities Committee organized a student contest associated with the booth. The winners of the competition received passes to attend the Worldcon and spent some time at the IEEE booth. The image below shows the contest winners, My Le and Arthur Alcocer, with the mechatronic Grogu at the IEEE Worldcon booth.
The winning entry was called The Memory Cartographer, which is a future research vision exploring how neuroscience and engineering might one day work together to better understand human memory. It included a Generative Observer of Brain Dynamics, a conceptual AI platform that learns the unique neural language of each individual.
We had participation by a number of other IEEE leaders from Southern California at the booth, including Kathy Hayashi, past Director of IEEE Region 6, Scott Tamashiro, Director Elect of Region 6 and Tim Lee, Past President of IEEE-USA and past Director of IEEE Region 6.
In addition to the booth IEEE volunteers were able to participate in a number of activities during the Worldcon. I was a member of three panels including one on AI and ethics, another on data centers and I moderated a panel on digital storage in professional media and entertainment with panelists from Dreamworks, Arcana Labs and Quantum.
The IEEE had a booth at the 2026 World Science Fiction convention which included mechatronic characters such as Grogu, thanks to Garner Holt and which helped to increase awareness of the IEEE to people interested in technology.
