Meet the Candidates: 2018 IEEE President-Elect and IEEE Technical Activities Vice President-Elect

The IEEE annual election begins on 15 August, and the IEEE Signal Processing Society is committed to ensuring that its members are prepared with sufficient information about the candidates in order to make their best informed decisions. In this month’s issue of Inside Signal Processing, we invite you to meet the candidates for the 2018 IEEE President-Elect and the 2018 IEEE Technical Activities Vice President-Elect:

Candidates for IEEE President-Elect

José M. F. Moura
Vincenzo Piuri
Jacek M. Zurada

Candidates for IEEE Technical Activities Vice President-Elect 

K.J. Ray Liu
Douglas N. Zuckerman

The ballot for the IEEE election will hit your inbox on 15 August, and the deadline to cast your vote is on 2 October. For more information about the IEEE election, visit their website at http://www.ieee.org/elections.

Your vote counts: don’t forget to cast your ballot starting 15 August!

2018 IEEE President-Elect Candidates

José M. F. Moura
Website: http://www.josemoura.com
 

My petition for 2018 IEEE President Elect was successful because of tremendous support from IEEE members worldwide, and in particular, from IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) members. As IEEE President, I will bring to the IEEE level the good practices of our own Society – a focus on membership value and competent management to root out the perennial multimillion-dollar IEEE operation deficit.

My IEEE volunteering has been with both Geographic Activities – I co-founded the Portugal Section – and with Technical Activities. I was Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, during which time we set-up the SPS Editorial Office to meet the increased publication needs of both authors and readers. I was SPS Publications Vice-President, championing digitization and easy access to all society intellectual property content (journals, conference/workshop proceedings, newsletters, administrative board minutes) that we integrated into OPERA, the first IEEE digital library that evolved into IEEE Xplore®. As President of SPS, I led free access to our Society periodicals as a member benefit and led bylaw changes to give representation of all world regions in our Board of Governors. Most recently, I have been on the IEEE Board as Division IX Director and I have worked for all IEEE Societies/Councils as VP for Technical Activities.

My IEEE President priorities are:

1. Aim to double IEEE and Societies membership, reversing its decreasing trend, leveraging the diversity of our technical community and varying member aspirations from gender to regions, academy to industry, and researchers to engineers; and
2. Manage efficiently IEEE finances to root out waste, get rid of a persistent deficit, and focus IEEE resources on creating the best value for our members. 

I want to reaffirm IEEE as a member-based organization managed by dedicated volunteers where member-value is paramount, correcting the current dominant corporate Board outlook. For more information see www.josemoura.com.
 

Vincenzo Piuri
Website: http://vincenzopiuri.org

IEEE must strengthen attractiveness, value, relevance as well as cooperation among groups for One IEEE. Critical aspects are products, services, membership value, diversity, globalization, visibility, innovation, and financial sustainability. We should:

1. Continue to be the trusted source with modern channels for high-quality knowledge, emerging technologies, standards, materials for scientists and professionals. We should provide more practical knowledge for professionals, especially young professionals, to solve real-world problems and expand continuing education, especially on emerging technologies, applications, and standards. We should develop repositories for data, algorithms, and results to facilitate scientific research and industrial innovation.

2. ​Empower and engage members and all individuals through personalized services, specialized networking, affordable membership fees, tangible benefits, and active participation. We should adopt a human-centric recommendation system to facilitate identification of knowledge, products, services, and volunteering opportunities. We should reinforce cooperation in local/global activities, including continuing education, mentoring, certifications, career development, maker events, and community projects.

3. Promote inclusivity, especially for local communities, underserved groups and areas, young generations, public services, and humanitarian activities. We should identify membership models with fees affordable everywhere and offerings tailored on individuals’ needs, rewarding volunteers and frequent users, and caring for special conditions (position transition, unemployment, retirement). We should expand involvement of young professionals and women and cooperation with national scientific/professional associations.

4. Ensure transparency of decisions and finances, with pervasive, deep participation of diverse-thinking volunteers and Organizational Units in decision processes for comprehensive monitoring and control. Financial sustainability and overheads reduction should be firmly pursued.

I am fully committed to serve our community, with collegial approach and strategic vision, encouraging participation, galvanizing enthusiasm, and catalyzing diverse competences of members and volunteers. I envision a holistic view for One IEEE, recognizing diversity as a fundamental richness for synergic cooperation, and in which everybody feels proud to be. An IEEE by people for people. 
 

Jacek M. Zurada
Website: http://www.jacekzurada.org

As an SPS member, I’m very pleased to respond to the SPS Newsletter Editor’s call to present select highlights of my platform.

IEEE needs to advance technology with the most modern tools available. To use an example: since our strength is in creating communities, aggregating intellectual property (IP) and advancing technology, we should plan to deliver to our IP users/members more knowledge as opposed to providing them with classic information formatted as traditional papers. Papers alone don’t answer questions that a reader might have. A new discovery platform, however, could use data analytics and help to extract best technical answers. If we provide our IP readers with the knowledge and answers to their questions, such as a recommendation for best design or algorithm, this will offer them more value than them accessing and reading traditional papers. 

My other priority will be to better respond to the needs of industry practitioners. Our products, services, and educational offerings have to be more relevant to their jobs and career aspirations. I will focus on providing members in the industry with information through topical industry resource centers. Such centers with preferably a single point of entry will help them find quality technical information quickly. In addition they’ll allow them to continue their education, aiding to their lifelong career growth. In concert, I will work toward greater engagement of industry in IEEE leadership and advisory roles.

If elected, I’ll be responding to all members’ needs. This includes delivery of affordable and high-quality products and services like journals, magazines, conferences, and industry portals. While IEEE nurtures emerging technical areas and builds communities of technical professionals around them, it needs to offer more career resources for members who must keep up with advancing technologies and maintain their competitiveness in a rapidly evolving career ecosystem.
 

Candidates for 2018 IEEE Technical Activities President-Elect

K. J. Ray Liu
Website: http://www.cspl.umd.edu/kjrliu/IEEE/

Are you getting more satisfied as an IEEE member? Is the membership due worthy of the value and benefits you receive? Is IEEE inclusive enough with your background, region, industry, gender, and age, and welcome your participation?

Is IEEE more concerned with amassing profit than with promotion of technical excellence, thought leadership, and facilitation of collaboration and networking? Is IEEE transparent enough in decision making and finance? 

Shall IEEE create new platforms and new services, especially continuing education, to continue to increase its effectiveness? Shall IEEE embrace social media to reach out to members, especially to young professionals, industry, and under-represented groups? 

As Vice President-Technical Activities, my job is to listen to you to help facilitate all the members and their societies/councils to be even more successful. I will refocus on membership to create more value, champion transparency and consensus building, and develop more and better products and services. My candidacy lies in a vision with strong conviction: Together we are stronger than apart. 

I started as a member of many societies over thirty years ago, served as Technical Committee Chair, built Signal Processing Magazine to top citation impact as Editor-in-Chief, ran a 2000+ flagship conference by setting new standards, started a Membership Board and created many initiatives to develop more value for members as SPS President, and led society/council presidents to call for IEEE financial transparency as Division Director. I am also a founder of high-tech start-ups.

I understand the critical issues you are facing and my broad experiences keep me in touch with you. You are the raison d'etre of IEEE! Most importantly, I care for the future of IEEE!

We shall work together to achieve a higher common goal to make IEEE a better place. With your trust and vote, I will make sure your voices heard.
 

Douglas N. Zuckerman
Website: http://www.dougzuckerman.org
 

I firmly believe in and care about IEEE and its members, my second family. Helping colleagues - family members - is immensely satisfying. My diverse industry background and professional/technical contributions uniquely qualify me to create opportunities and deal with challenges. For 20+ years, I initiated and led IEEE activities benefitting members worldwide, such as conferences co-sponsored by Societies and Regional entities. As ComSoc President, I successfully addressed challenges and opportunities similar to those now facing IEEE, such as providing an international community better access to elected positions and lecturing programs. Further, I’ve held key positions: IEEE Board of Directors and Technical Activities Board as Division III Director, TAB Management Committee, TAB Society Review Committee, career and industry-focused ad hoc committees, plus “grassroots” experience organizing/steering major conferences and publications.

In response to the challenges and opportunities facing IEEE, we must embrace our members as valued contributors, not just numbers. IEEE Global (Society) and Local (Chapter) Technical Activities are IEEE’s foundation for growing individual careers, while also serving humanity. We must work together to build and maintain communities, including outreach to young people and the public, that keep IEEE and its constituency at the forefront of technology thought and leadership, helping build success at all stages of its members' professional careers.

As VP-TA I will fight for an environment of openness, inclusiveness, supportive policies, reasonable budgets and shared decision-making. I will reach across IEEE’s units (Member and Geographic Activities, Standards, etc.) to streamline joint activities and nurture collaboration. Together, we can achieve an IEEE that is truly of, by and for the members.

Key elements of my platform include expanding new technology initiatives, growing standards activities, building education and training, leveraging collaboration across IEEE and externally, achieving diversity, and perhaps most important, assuring affordability as we do more for your career.

Please see http://dougzuckerman.org for further details and to become part of my campaign aimed at “Mobilizing Your Future!”