ong Beach has historically been the most popular venue for the Applied Power Electronics Conference and APEC 2016 lived up to and even exceeded our expectations. Over the 10 years since I first became involved as Publicity Chair for APEC, I have seen attendance grow from around 2,000 to this years’ record attendance of over 5,000! A significant part of this phenomenal growth has been movement of power electronics into a position of prominence in electronic systems design. Power was once an after-thought in the design process. Today, power electronics is an enabling technology.

The quality and nature of the papers presented at this year’s conference reinforced the principal considerations in power conversion technology – efficiency and packaging. Our industry is now at the forefront of advances in telecommunications, transportation and consumer electronics.

For APEC 2016, a record number of digests were submitted for consideration. Out of the over 1,200 submissions, 563 papers were accepted. In addition, 119 Industry Session presentations added insights into the latest product developments. The challenge for attendees was in selecting which of the nearly 700 papers to explore.

A record number of Professional Education Seminars (21) were conducted at the start of the week-long event. These seminars were selected form the over 50 submissions!

As always, the APEC exhibit hall was a vibrant and busy venue. A record high of 228 companies had booths at the show. And nearly 30 others were on the wait list and unable to exhibit at the sold-out venue.

Nearly 1800 attendees were present for the open Plenary Session on Monday afternoon. The Tuesday evening Rap sessions were. As always, standing-room only events. And the always-popular Micromouse competition drew entries from Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, China, the United Kingdom and the US.

Thanks to the continued sponsorship of the PSMA-initiated Student Travel Grants program, $40,000 in support helped 43 students from around the globe to attend this year’s event.

So now, we turn our attention to APEC 2017. Planning for the event, to be held in Tampa, March 26-30 is well underway. APEC 2017 will continue the long-standing tradition of addressing issues of immediate and long-term interest to the practicing power electronics engineer. Our conference and exposition fills a critical role in delivering education and information as well as an opportunity to network with our industry peers. Information about presenting a paper at APEC 2017 can be found here - www.apec-conf.org/speakers/

Provided by: Greg Evans (right), APEC 2017 Publicity Chair

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