IEC Young Professionals Programme 2026
The 2026 edition of the IEC Young Professionals Programme will take place between the 16th and 20th of November in Hamburg, Germany, in conjunction with the IEC General Meeting. The Belgian Electrotechnical Committee (CEB-BEC), as Full Member to the IEC, is asked to nominate two experts by the 7th of August. Thus, interested and eligible candidates are invited to fill out the candidature form, provided as part of a dedicated CEB-BEC General Information Ballot, and address this to Ms. Sabine VERMEULEN and M. Anirudh ESWARAN by the 7th of June. Candidates will be informed of the outcome of the selection process no later than the 7th of July.
The IEC Young Professionals Programme, launched in 2010 and currently in its sixteenth iteration, is designed to provide young professionals from all across the world, and typically between the early 20s to mid-30s, with a one-week immersion in international standards development. More specifically, the selected candidates get the opportunity to follow several committee and management meetings, participate in field visits illustrating the importance of standards to industry, and even present proposals on how to improve standardization. The latter is especially becoming more of a focus of the IEC, as it continues to acknowledge the importance of considering the voice of the future in its current decision-making and strategy moving forward. As such, for the past few editions, the IEC Young Professionals Programme has nominated three IEC YP Leaders, who have advanced projects geared at improving the work of the IEC. These projects extend beyond the programme, with YP Leaders given the chance to execute a full-scale implementation of their ideas. For the 15th edition of the IEC Young Professionals Programme, the presentations given by the young professionals during the IEC General Assembly can be consulted on the IEC Website.
Aside from the technical aspects of the programme, the IEC Young Professionals Alumni is an ever-growing network of standardization professionals who went through the programme and continue contributing to international standards development. This is also apparent as over 400 of the 1000 IEC Young Professionals currently have active roles within the IEC, aside from several others who remain active through their respective National Committees. Furthermore, several alumni continue to provide testimonies on how the programme has shaped their involvement in standardization, making it a heralded opportunity for young professionals to reinforce their ties to standardization.
From an organizational perspective, IEC provides the venue and the lodging, while the National Committees sponsor the travel. Thus, participants shoulder no costs except for miscellaneous personal expenses.