Looking Back on 2023: Our 75th Anniversary Celebration

The onset of any new year prompts reflection, and the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) has a lot to be proud of as we approach 2024!

The year behind us was no ordinary year – 2023 was filled with landmarks, success, and many reasons to celebrate. Not only did we spend all year commemorating our 75th anniversary, but we’re ending it with the most SPS members in Society history! We broke through to 20,000 members (for the first time since 1995!) during ICIP 2023 in October, and are excited to have grown to a global network of more than 21,000. SPS members comprise a vast cross-section of current and future leaders in academia, industry, government, and beyond, and we’re honored that you all chose to spend your year with us!

As IEEE’s first and oldest Society, we felt a duty not only to honor our prestigious past, but to leverage it towards a bright, prosperous future. To achieve this, we focused on retrospective, historically-rich content for our members and even more opportunities and outreach to welcome new minds to our community.

Preserving the Past

SPS is honored to be the technical home to many esteemed signal processing pioneers and visionaries, and signal processing is a rich, foundational field upon which many other areas of engineering can thrive. Throughout 2023, we highlighted some of the most noteworthy people and innovations in order to celebrate and share that story with you!

In partnership with the IEEE History Center, we embarked on a comprehensive oral history project, capturing and archiving the fascinating stories of some of the Society’s most distinguished pioneers of past and present. You can view these oral histories on the IEEE Engineering and Technology History Wiki, which will soon be populated with interviews from such leaders as Alex Acero, Al Hero, Mos Kaveh, Alan Oppenheim, Athina Petropulu, and Ron Schafer, among many others who have made their mark in the field. If you or anyone you know is interested in having their oral history archived, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

The two-part 75th anniversary issue of IEEE Signal Processing Magazine in June and July, which received a record number of submissions, features historical retrospectives about the Society and the field, including pieces from longtime SPS leaders and contributors covering everything from the evolution of the role of women in signal processing to outlining major advancements across the discipline. Both issues are available for free download, so be sure to check them out and share them with your networks!

We have one more trivia contest coming up before the new year with our biggest prize yet – keep an eye on your email and SPS social media channels to get involved!

Celebrating the Present

We made sure to have some fun, too! Our flagship conferences hosted landmark 75th anniversary celebrations, each with immersive SPS 75th anniversary lounge experiences that were home to Society activities such as meet and greets, photo booths with live mosaics, cake cutting ceremonies, and more!

ICASSP 2023 was our best-attended conference yet, with a record-setting 3,680attendees! Not only did we get to enjoy the beautiful seaside surroundings of Rhodes, Greece, but attendees enjoyed tailored 75th anniversary events. “The Origins of Digital Signal Processing” panel discussion treated the ICASSP community to a memorable discussion with the founding fathers of digital signal processing, Alan V. Oppenheim, Ronald W. Schafer, and Tony G. Constantinides, as they recounted memories and experiences from the early days of the field. Another event, Past, Present and Future of Signal Processing, featured previous SPS Past President winners of the Norbert Wiener Society Award and engaged the ICASSP audience in discussion about the future of the discipline as we usher in a new era.

The celebration continued at ICIP 2023 in Kuala Lumpur, where attendees were treated with live sketch robots! Crowds excitedly gathered around to examine the technology, which took attendees photos that were then sketched by robots, printed, and populated into a mosaic!

Photo Highlights from IEEE ICASSP 2023 (click photo to view more)

Photo Highlights from IEEE ICIP 2023 (click photo to view more)

Fostering Our Future

Our 75th anniversary anniversary and recent growth empowered us to look ahead, leveraging our past accomplishments and heightened visibility to develop new, high-impact programs to cement SPS as the preeminent resource to future generations of leaders.

In March, we launched the SPS Scholarship Program, which rewards select students who have expressed interest in and commitment to pursuing signal processing education and real-world career experiences. We received more than 140 applications, and awarded 40 outstanding scholars in the program’s inaugural year! The Scholarship Program furnishes recipients with up to $7K of financial support for up to three consecutive years of schooling, demonstrating the Society’s commitment to investing in signal processing students and cultivating talent for companies, organizations, and institutions.

On 2 June, we launched and celebrated the inaugural SPS Day, commemorating the Society’s establishment as the Professional Group on Audio of the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1948. Members and Chapters around the world held virtual and in-person events to observe SPS Day, honor the Society’s history, and make some history of their own! SPS Day will be celebrated annually on 2 June, and plans for 2024 are underway – stay tuned to learn how you can get involved!

While our official 75th anniversary year is winding down, we look forward to carrying our growth, successes, and momentum into 2024 and beyond. Thank you for your continued support, energy, and engagement. We wish you a happy, healthy new year!