Starting on January 1, 2024 I will become the volunteer President and CEO of the IEEE for a year. IEEE is the largest technical professional organization in the world with over 420,000 members in over 190 countries (the most recent numbers are almost 440,000 members). It creates important international standards, runs over 2,000 conferences per year, publishes a lot of the world’s technical peer-reviewed literature and has local sections and chapters all over the world. I am excited and honored to have this opportunity to serve, at this level, an organization I have been a member of for 45 years.
It takes more than a year to get some things done so I have been working this year to get things organized in order to pursue my objectives so when January rolls around we can start right away. Also, I will work closely with the President Elect, Kathleen Kramer, who will be President in 2025 to help her get things ready to accomplish important goals in 2025 and hopefully continue to support the things I will get going next year.
I want to share with you some of my goals as IEEE President. First, IEEE has a lot of college student members but, like many other professional organizations, the majority of these student members don’t continue as full IEEE members. In order for the IEEE to remain vital and relevant we need to convert more of our student members to full IEEE members and then engage and retain them. I am creating a special task force in the IEEE to address this problem and do surveys, focus groups and pilot programs to find ways that we can attract and retain our younger members.
Second, we need to create stronger ties and provide greater value to industry and to those who work in industry. I think this goal is closely related to the first goal since most of our student members end up working in industry. IEEE has an Industry Engagement Committee and I have asked them to work with IEEE’s Student Activities Committee and our Young Professionals to find value in the IEEE for younger people working in industry. In addition, I am personally reaching out to companies to speak with senior technical people about how IEEE is useful now and what else we can do to provide value, particularly for younger people working in industry.
Third, I want the IEEE to reach out to the broader world to let them know who we are and what we do. We have in our membership experts in all technologies, who can provide insights and guidance for public policy, convene meetings and create new and valuable standards. IEEE is by far the most cited source for prior art in patents worldwide, it has created documents and standards on ethical design of intelligent and autonomous systems (AI) and our volunteers write, review and publish much of the worlds technical literature and put on conferences on every conceivable technical topic. We also create future directions committees on emerging technologies, pursue technical megatrends and create and publish technology roadmaps on semiconductor and other important technologies.
Fourth, IEEE needs to invest in new products and services. In particular, applying AI and other computer algorithms to IEEE content will enable new ways to find, understand and advance technologies that can serve our members and our customers.
Fifth, I will start an Ad hoc committee in the IEEE but working with relevant groups outside of the IEEE on educating future generations of workers who will be using new tools such as AI, working in outer space and in virtual environments and who will work for many organizations and technologies during their career. We should be able to leverage technical tools to help people learn in the best way for them and to provide lower costs for continuous education which can enable those from underserved communities to participate in and benefit from technical education.
I know the time will go by fast in this role. I look forward to meeting more of our members in more places and having the chance to understand and support these members. I also hope that I can help create stronger ties to those who work in industry and keep more of our younger members and provide greater value to the world. Most of all I will support the IEEE’s mission to advance technology for the benefit of humanity!
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