Systems, Man & Cybernetics - April 2017 - 41

enjoy volunteering on the local and
international levels as well. Moreover,
I seek to learn as many new things
and skills as possible. I think life-long
learning is one of the most important
things. In addition, I participate in
sports; earlier, I played soccer and rugby, but unfortunately, I have only time
for a short daily workout.
SMC Magazine: Do you have any
role models?
Eigner: I am lucky because I know
several people who have led incredible
lives, which means that not only are
they inspirational but I can also turn
to them for advice. Moreover, the people who dared to dream of amazing
things, such as Einstein, Tesla, Zadeh,
and Musk-a feat which seemed to be
impossible for others-who were able
to accomplish their dreams, are great
inspirations to me.
SMC Magazine: How did you get
started as a volunteer (in IEEE and
elsewhere)?
Eigner: I started my volunteering
activities locally at the student union
of Óbuda University, where I was a
mentor and organizer for professional
events. I also contribute to the works
of the Union of Ph.D. Students of Óbuda University and am a core member
of the Robotics Special College that
provides a framework for younger
students to obtain professional experiences, new knowledge, and networking opportunities. I am also one
of the invited lecturers of the college
this semester.
At the international level, I joined
the IEEE in 2013. In 2014, I became
a member of the Young Professional
Subcommittee of the SMC and started to work with Prof. Su. Later in
2014, Vice President for Membership
and Student Activities Prof. Rudas
invited me to serve as the chair of
the Student Activities Subcommittee. Since then, the subcommittee
has continuously worked to involve
more students and recent graduates
into the SMC, and we have started
to experiment with different programs. Furthermore, we are working

I was involved in the organization of the conference at all levels
and activities almost from the beginning, which has been one of my
greatest experiences in my career,
and I learned a lot about how can we
manage such a huge event. I met many
interesting people and heard fascinating presentations. In my opinion,
all the challenges and problems that
occurred were successfully handled,
and the participants were satisfied
with the conference based on the onsite talks and follow-up evaluation.

"I have investigated
the special properties
of the LPV parameter
space and developed a
scale that can be used
for measuring the difference between LPV
systems, and it can be
used as a quality marker
in control-related tasks."

on improving the new SMC initiatives,
such as the Young Reviewer Program and the SMC Junior Conference. In addition, I am an associate
editor of Acta Polytechnica Hungarica
International Journal.
SMC Magazine: How do you see the
2016 IEEE International Conference
on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics
(SMC 2016) as a core organizer? What
are your experiences?
Eigner: I think SMC 2016 and the
joint events have been a great success. If we only take the pure numbers
into consideration, we had more than
1,000 registrants, which is higher
than the number registered in recent years.

SMC Magazine: What are the main
benefits and the significant innovations of SMC 2016?
Eigner: First of all, to catch the
attention of potential attendees, we
had a strong online presence and
tried to provide smooth customer
service. In detail, we strongly used
social media (especially Facebook),
whereon all the important news was
posted. Moreover, our webpage was
continuously updated, and the number of registrants shows that this
strategy worked.
Several additional events were organized for the first time, and both
seemed very popular. The satellite
conference SMC Junior 2016 (I served
as general cochair) was successful: we
organized several junior sessions and
had multiple independent keynote

Eigner (left) receives the Outstanding Contribution award at SmC 2016
from Prof. Philip Chen, chair of the awards Committee.

Ap ri l 2017

IEEE SyStEmS, man, & CybErnEtICS magazInE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Systems, Man & Cybernetics - April 2017