Brain - This initiative is dedicated to advancing technologies that improve the understanding of brain function, revolutionizing current abilities to reverse engineer neural circuits in both the central and peripheral nervous systems, and developing new approaches to interface the brain with machines for augmenting human-machine interaction and mitigating effects of neurological disease and injury.

Cybersecurity Initiative - Through outreach projects, workshops, experiments, and challenge competitions, the IEEE Cybersecurity Initiative builds on IEEE’s long-standing and world-leading technical activities in cybersecurity and privacy to actively engage, inform, and support members, organizations, and communities involved in cybersecurity research, development, operations, policy, and education.

Digital Senses - IEEE Digital Senses Initiative is dedicated to advancing technologies that capture and reproduce, or synthesize the stimuli of various senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, etc.), combine the reproduced or synthesized stimuli with the naturally received stimuli in various ways, and help humans or enable machines to perceive, understand, and respond to the stimuli. Plans are under way to capture all the different perspectives via in-depth cross-disciplinary discussions, and to drive to a set of results that will facilitate disruptive innovations and foster cross-industry collaborations globally in three focus areas (virtual reality, augmented reality, and human augmentation) and many other relevant areas (wearables, consumer healthcare, smart robots, etc.).

Green ICT - Green Information and Communications Technology is a key driver of sustainability when green metrics (energy consumption, atmospheric emissions, e-waste, life cycle management) are effectively coupled with its positive socio-economic impacts. IEEE is focused on achieving sustainability through greening ICT and promoting its awareness.

Rebooting Computing - IEEE seeks to rethink the computer, "from soup to nuts," including all aspects from device to user interface. This group works from a holistic viewpoint, taking into account evolutionary and revolutionary approaches.

Smart Cities - IEEE experts will work with local government leaders and city planners around the world to explore the issues and address what's needed to prepare for the ever-increasing urban population growth, including engaging and interacting with local inhabitants to increase awareness of their urban environment, leading to the formation of smart cities.

Smart Materials - These are responsive to their environment (passive) and/or external stimuli (active) in such a way that they serve an enabling technological function. Examples include, but are of course not limited to: shape memory alloys, piezoelectrics, electro/photo/thermo-chromics, self-healing polymers, magnetics, re-configurable devices/components, and many others. There is an opportunity to collaboratively connect people across the current materials and/or application focus, to address common issues that may center around phenomenology, reliability, integration, adoption and standards, or any number of others.

Software Defined Networks (SDN) - SDN and NFV (Network Functions Virtualization) are creating the conditions to reinvent network architectures. This is happening first at the edge of the network where "intelligence" has already started migrating, and where innovation is more urgently needed to overcome the "ossification" by improving networks and services infrastructure flexibility.

5G - The IEEE 5G Initiative is dedicated to bringing together researchers, scientists, and engineers from industry, academia, and governments around the world to solve the challenges associated with the development and deployment of 5G. The IEEE 5G initiative will be a collaborative effort, bringing interdisciplinary exchange from a wide range of professional expertise and practical application knowledge.

Internet of Things (IoT) - IoT is a self-configuring and adaptive system consisting of networks of sensors and smart objects whose purpose is to interconnect "all" things, including everyday and industrial objects, in such a way as to make them intelligent, programmable, and more capable of interacting with humans.

• 3D Imaging and Multi-Media

• In Memory Computing

• 3-D Printing

• Internet of Space

• Autonomous Systems and their Societal Impact

• Micro Fluidics

• Bio Fuel

• NanoPore DNA Sequencing

• Carbon Sequestration

• NewOS: RebootlessOS

• Clean Water

• Power in Mobile Systems

• Cognitive Radio

• Reliability

• Digital Cultural Heritage and Smart Environments

• Robotics Also Swarms

• Environmental Engineering

• Safety Critical Systems, Next Gen

• Fog Computing and Networking

• Symbiotic Machines