The IEEE Signal Processing Society has enjoyed healthy financial operations for a number of years, thanks to the tremendous amount of effort from volunteers and the support from the staff. In order to leverage its financial strength to serve members and invest for the future prosperity of the signal processing community, the SPS Board of Governors has set aside a sizable amount of funds for 2011 and is working on the 2012 budget to explore various initiatives to expand member benefits and values, to outreach to signal processing communities worldwide, and to enhance the visibility of the SPS. For example, the Society has approved to allocate a substantial annual fund to support students and researchers in needs from developing countries to attend ICASSP and ICIP. Fifty-one SPS members who are ICASSP 2011 authors have been selected as the first group of travel grantees.

In response to a call for a lower cost membership option for individuals residing in developing economies, IEEE began offering the new electronic membership (e-Membership) option for the 2011 renewal year.

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Through our recent ICASSP surveys we have learnt that roughly 25% of ICASSP attendees are students, and that many of them are interested in meeting potential employers. Many industry members go to ICASSP to recruit potential employees. As an initiative to better meet the need of SP industry and serving our student members, we decided to investigate having a job marketplace in the Society that allows employers to post job announcements for industry or academic positions, both full-time and internships, in various areas of signal processing.

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