June 23, 2016 – Congratulations to Polad Zahedi, the young electrotechnical professional who has been selected by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) to attend the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Young Professionals Workshop during the IEC General Meeting in Germany this fall.

As an assistant technical engineer/officer at Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG), Zahedi works as a process control specialist in the computers and control design department in the nuclear generation sector and says he is a heavy user of a number of IEC standards, such as IEC 61508, 61131-8, 61513 and 60880.

He is also active in standards development at the IEC. In addition to being a member of the Canadian National Committee of the IEC, he is an expert in Working Group 7, (Programmable Control Systems) of Technical Committee 65—Industrial-process Measurement, Control and Automation.

“Based on the current demographic within the engineering world and the standardization network in particular, it is crucial for young engineers to take active roles in all aspects of standards work,” Zahedi says. “Knowledge retention is a key factor in a strong and smooth transition between different generations of standardization experts and would not be possible without strong participation by young professionals.”

Looking to the future, he says he would like to contribute more to nuclear-specific standards and to become involved in the development of smart energy standards. By attending the 7th IEC Young Professionals Workshop, he says he hopes to network with peers from around the world and learn more about how to take on further leadership roles within the IEC and SCC.

This year’s workshop is being held from October 10 to 12, 2016, in Frankfurt, Germany. It provides networking opportunities with more than 1000 international key players. Participants attend technical meetings and take part in a session that simulates an IEC technical committee meeting in order to learn how international standards are managed and developed. As part of the learning experience, they also observe management committee meetings such as the Standardization Management Board (SMB) and the Conformity Assessment Board (CAB).