86th IEC General Meeting Recap: A Look Back at the Physical Gathering in San Francisco

                                                                                                                                                                                       

This year’s IEC General Meeting took place in San Francisco 31 October-4 November, hosted by the American National Standards Institute ANSI, which is the US’ National Committee of the IEC. This big annual IEC event has not been arranged physically since Shanghai in 2019 (which was the biggest such event ever with nearly 4000 people attending, the majority participating in meetings of the many standardization TCs (Technical Committees) that China takes a part in). Due to the pandemic, it was in 2020 a fully virtual meeting organized at the IEC Central Office in Geneva and in 2021 a hybrid meeting, hosted in Dubai by the by UAE’s national committee of the IEC, with people attending at site while the majority attending remotely online.

This year’s physical meeting in USA was attended by nearly 2000 people, representing industry and relevant bodies in the 88 IEC Member countries and the 86 Affiliate countries. Other than the statutory managerial meetings, it was also the venue of the many meetings of TCs in which USA takes part.

Nemko was represented in several of the technical committee meetings, including TC108 (Hazard Based Standard for IT & AV equipment), TC61 (Household appliances) and TC62 (Medical equipment).

The editor of this newsletter participated in the high-level IEC-CAB (Conformity Assessment Board) as member, and in the Affiliate countries’ Forum (AF) and Workshop for Industrializing Countries (WIC) as ex-IEC Ambassador for CA (Conformity Assessment) Training of developing countries, and also as moderator during the Young Professionals’ CA Boot Camp.

More information is available here.

Being this time again a physical meeting, opportunity was taken also for bi-lateral discussions and consultations with managers of standards organizations and product approval bodies in various countries worldwide, including Saudi Arabia, GSO, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Mongolia and Indonesia.

For further information, please contact the editor

(Article is based on text provided by T.Sollie)