Accelerate Your Career With CIGRE

Part of the CIGRE Canada NGN Professional Webinar Series. Hear from 3 industry professionals about their career path, how their involvement with CIGRE has benefitted them (and vice versa), and other career development advice.

The Next Generation Network (NGN) helps bring a new generation of Power System Professionals into the world of CIGRE and help deliver a platform where early-career professionals can feel comfortable sharing their ideas, get an opportunity to interact with industry experts and get involved in CIGRE Working Groups and technical events. Our mission statement is as follows:

“CIGRE Canada’s NGN aims to support the next generation of Canadian Power System Professionals by providing opportunities for technical growth, networking and leadership skills for Students and Young Members.”

About the speakers:

Philippe Gray received his B.A.Sc. and M.A.Sc. degrees at the University of Toronto in 2010 and 2013, respectively. From 2012 to 2013, he was a visiting researcher at ABB Corporate Research in Västerås, Sweden. From 2014 until 2017, Philippe was a system design engineer at General Electric in Stafford, UK working on HVDC transmission schemes. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering specializing in power electronics at the University of Toronto. Philippe is a CIGRE student member and was awarded a Best Student Paper Award at the CIGRE Canada Conference in 2014 and the CIGRE Paris Sponsorship in 2020.

Sumek Elimban is a Lead Applications Engineer at RTDS Technologies. He joined RTDS in 2011 after receiving his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Manitoba. His main role is application modelling, R&D, and technical support in the field of HVDC and Power Electronics for the RTDS simulator. He is actively involved in CIGRE and has contributed to several B4 Working Groups.

Dr. Vinay Sewdien obtained the Master of Science degree from the KU Leuven (cum laude, 2013) and the PhD degree from the Delft University of Technology (cum laude, 2021), both in the field of Electrical Power Engineering. He is an expert on power system stability and grid integration studies and currently holds the role of European Power System Planner in the Global Transmission Strategy team of Shell Renewables & Energy Solutions.

Between 2013-2022 he was with the Dutch-German transmission system operator TenneT TSO B.V., focusing on the technical impact assessment of the energy transition on system operation and on the development of new concepts and methodologies for maintaining operational security. From August 2016 to August 2020 he was the Technical Secretary of CIGRE’s international study committee on Power System Operation and Control and currently serves as a member on CIGRE Electra’s Editorial Board.

In 2021, Dr. Sewdien he was elevated to a Senior Member of the IEEE. As a recognition of his technical, strategic and administrative contributions to CIGRE, Vinay was awarded the ‘2021 Technical Council Award’ and the ‘2021 Next Generation Network Significant Performance Award.’ He is an active member of CIGRE and IEEE, contributing to several technical working groups.