he PSMA takes its sponsorship of APEC seriously. Not only has PSMA taken the financial risk for funding APEC each year, but it also proactively contributes to its growth, and ensures that APEC remains the premier power electronics conference. In fact, it is the 4th largest IEEE conference globally. Although there are many ways PSMA supports APEC, we will focus on a few key areas: attendees, students, young professionals, women in engineering, practical content, and exhibition.

Attendees

To encourage more attendees, PSMA offers a registration discount to ALL employees of each member company. This means that engineers and other employees who need access to technical information such marketing, sales, manufacturing, quality, reliability, managers, etc. In fact, the registration discount is so significant that if at least 9-15 employees attend APEC, then it more than fully covers the annual PSMA membership dues!

To encourage attendees to remain in the exhibition hall and get to know PSMA member companies, PSMA created a Passport to Prizes game in the APEC app. Attendees simply scan a QR code at a PSMA member booth and answer a question to get a virtual stamp in their "passport." On Wednesday, the participating attendees may win prizes.

For attendees of technical sessions, PSMA proposed a "Best Presentation Award" for the authors, as especially students tended to spend more time on their papers for archival purposes rather than on their presentation at APEC. This motivation helps authors understand that it is important to share their research with paying attendees and get inputs on their research. In addition, PSMA encouraged the organizing committee to share about this award criteria with presenters before APEC rather than at APEC so that presenters will have time to improve their presentations.

A common problem for attendees who are excited to see a particular speaker or topic is when the speaker fails to show up or sends an inadequate substitute in their place. To minimize this, PSMA encouraged the APEC organizing committee to remind speakers to prepare their travel documents early (such as when submitting their digests or when the digests are accepted) so they have time to address passport or visa issues.

Students

PSMA sponsors several programs aimed at students, as the next generation of engineers in a career in power electronics.

Student Attendance Support (SAS) Program
PSMA pioneered this program at APEC 2006 that reimburses students up to $1,000 of attending APEC expenses. It has now grown to accept 60 recipients with the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) and the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) as co-sponsors. This program is not only key to getting main student authors to present their work at APEC for better attendee questions and input, but also encourages students in their career in power electronics, join IEEE (and PSMA), and support APEC. Furthermore, no other conference supports up to 60 recipients (about 10% of the student attendees at APEC) so students have the highest probability of receiving support at APEC than at other conferences. For more details on this program, the recipients, and the results at APEC 2026, see the "APEC 2026 Student Attendance Support (SAS) Program" article elsewhere is in this issue of the newsletter.

Student Mentorship Program
PSMA created this one-on-one mentorship program at APEC 2023. At APEC 2026, PSMA expanded the program so any student attendee could sign up as mentees (previously only the SAS recipients were invited to sign up). Any attendee (from academia or industry) could sign up as a mentor, no PSMA membership required.

As an added benefit to PSMA members who renewed membership before APEC, junior job postings were placed on the wall of the mentorship room at APEC so students could see actual job opportunities.

For more details on this program and the results at APEC 2026, see the "APEC 2026 Student Mentorships" article elsewhere in this issue of the newsletter.

International Future Energy Challenge (IFEC)
This competition held their semifinals in San Antonio on the Sunday of APEC. Typically, the undergraduate teams present their work. PSMA gets to motivate the students at an early and short keynote. In addition, Brian Zahnstecher was a judge from the PSMA. Often this competition is the first taste that undergraduate students have toward a career in power electronics.

PSMA Internship Program
Newly launched in 2026, PSMA sponsors an inaugural internship program to encourage students to take part in the following PSMA committees:

• Energy Harvesting,
• Energy Management,
• Magnetics,
• Semiconductor

Three students were accepted. Students are expected to attend and participate in committee meetings. Every two months these student interns will provide a report with their inputs and proposals. PSMA will sponsor the winning student up to $2,000 in reimbursement to attend APEC 2027 in New Orleans to give their final report. For more details, see here: psma.com/technical-forums/education/mentoring.

Young Professionals

PSMA co-sponsored YP efforts financially, but PSMA will take the lead in hosting the YP event at APEC 2027. The majority of active PSMA participants are no longer YPs. As senior professionals, they can offer practical advice and mentorship.

Women in Engineering (WIE)

PSMA co-sponsored WIE efforts financially and with resources. Then PSMA President, now PSMA Chair, Renee Yawger, even posted on LinkedIn to promote WIE's inaugural travel grant at APEC 2026.

PSMA also posted on LinkedIn after APEC in support of the new WIE networking event.

At PSMA, several women are already take leading roles and responsibility in moving the power electronics industry forward. Consequently, they are role models and mentors for others.

Practical Content

Furthermore, PSMA hosts two pre-conference workshops on magnetics and on capacitors. These highly focused workshops bring leading experts to share findings and offer practical insights on these components which normally receive less attention. These early workshops encourage attendees to arrive earlier to avoid travel delays.

PSMA created the Industry Sessions (originally called special presentation sessions) to augment the content at APEC. Otherwise, the focus would remain only on research. Now invited speakers can present on key applications or practical advice that normally would not be accepted as a technical research paper. These information-packed sessions keep the "applied" in the Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC) name.

Various PSMA committees create, organize and ran 13 industry sessions at APEC 2026. In addition, PSMA worked with PELS to jointly host 2 other industry sessions for a sub total of 15 sessions out of a total 30 industry sessions!

PSMA created the Power Technology Roadmap (PTR) which highlights various forward-looking trends. Typically, PSMA shares about the roadmap at an APEC plenary at regular intervals (roughly every three years). Regardless the work on the PTR inspires the topics and speakers for the industry sessions and vice versa. Consequently, there is some synergy between the two to strengthen both.

Furthermore, many PSMA members work in the background to help with various conference logistics. For instance, some members help with paper reviews and organizing papers into the technical sessions. Another example, some will chair technical sessions. As chairs, they not only introduce the authors as speakers and run the question-and-answer periods after each speaker, but they also have input on the Best Presentation Awards for each session. The best example is that several members are part of the organizing committee for each APEC.

Exhibition

The exhibition is a key part of making APEC great as it provides balance with the exciting and innovative research in the technical sessions with the state of the art that is commercially available for purchase. This balance is vital to growing APEC's impact as exhibitors are practically guaranteed highly technical and engineering-centric participants. Furthermore, exhibitors have a wonderful forum for demonstrating their technical leadership.

At one point, the two exhibition co-chairs on the organizing committee were not from exhibiting companies. Decisions were made without exhibitor input, and exhibitors were understandably upset. For example, the prize raffle which is intended to keep attendees in the exhibition hall, changed the rules such that the winner did not have to be in the exhibition hall to win so that it no longer fulfills its intended purpose. PSMA gave input to correct these decisions and to prevent further awkward decisions, the PSMA added a third co-chair from an exhibiting company.

PSMA sponsors the Passport to Prizes game (as described earlier) on the APEC app to drive attendee traffic to PSMA members' booths.

PSMA sponsors the Global Energy Efficiency Award at the exhibition floor of APEC as another way to keep attendees at the exhibition.

The SAS recipients are encouraged to visit the PSMA booth on the exhibition floor to receive their reimbursements. Again, this adds to the exhibition attendance.

Student mentees are encouraged to determine which exhibitors they plan to visit so they will research exhibitors beforehand to ask meaningful questions.

Exhibitors typically give out a trinket as a memento of their brand. PSMA as a leader in the power electronics industry gave out complimentary professional headshots which does not require extra space in attendee baggage, is useful in making a first impression on social media, speaker biographies, resumes, website, and other professional materials. This is a meaningful and environmentally friendly conference giveaway.

Finally, exhibitors are encouraged to take advantage of PSMA member registration discounts to encourage booth staff to attend various sessions.

Thought Provoking Future

These are just some examples of how PSMA is a good sponsor of APEC with thoughtful actions in addition to financial support. Over time, the culmination of all these little actions add up to a better APEC. Hopefully this article inspires thoughts on how we can further improve on APEC (and our power electronics industry) going forward. APEC (and the PSMA) will celebrate its 45th anniversary in 2030 at Portland, OR. Join us in addressing any gaps or shortfalls in APEC. Together we can help grow APEC and the Power Electronics Industry. Perhaps by the 45th anniversary, APEC will be the largest IEEE conference in the world.

If you or anyone in your company is interested in getting on the distribution list for future issues of PSMA UPDATE, please send e-mail to: power@psma.com. Be sure to include your name and the name of your company.