Smart cities have been around for some time now, but the IEEE has gotten involved in the creation and upkeep of smart cities very recently through its Future Directions Committee. Roberto Saracco, an important volunteer of the IEEE Future Directions Committee, explains what a smart city is, how a city can become a smart city, why smart cities are so important today, and how the IEEE is working to create more smart cities in all of its ten regions.

The first EURASIP PhD Summer School will be held on 8-12 September 2014 in Pisa (Italy) and will focus on Radar Signal Processing. The School aims to providing PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and young scientists with the unique opportunity to meet and learn from leading experts about the most advanced signal processing techniques applied in radar systems for remote sensing, target classification and surveillance.

During the last couple of months a number of machine learning and signal processing contests have recently finished and the final rankings have been announced.

IEEE SigView has recently posted two presentations about Cognitive Information Processing as (1) Bayesian Data Fusion for Cognitive Dynamical Systems and (2) Deep Dynamic Bayesian Networks as a bio-inspired interaction modeling in Interaction Driven - Cognitive Dynamic Systems (ID-CDS).

As a special benefit to IEEE members for the month of July, IEEE-USA is offering "Leading and Managing Engineering & Technology – Book 1: Perspectives on Leading and Managing." Gerard H. “Gus” Gaynor writes that the competencies needed to lead and manage continue to be misunderstood.

The IEEE Signal Processing Society welcomes proposals from prospective organizers of 2014 winter schools under the S3P (Seasonal Schools in Signal Processing) Program. S3P seasonal schools are typically either summer schools or winter schools, and are geared towards providing graduate students, early stage researchers, and practitioners with background on selected topics in signal processing.

We would like to bring to your attention two articles from the IEEE Pulse Magazine that we believe will be of interest to Signal Processing Society members

IEEE recently introduced the Student Transition and Elevation Partnership (STEP), a program designed to facilitate the seamless transition from IEEE Student member to young professional by emphasizing the value of IEEE membership at the onset of a STEP career. Through STEP activities and IEEE’s educational and professional resources, we strive to inspire students to consider IEEE membership as an asset during the beginning stages of their careers.