IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2015 - 4

President's message
by KAMAL SARABANDI

lease accept my warmest greetings from Ann
Arbor, Michigan. In November the IEEE GRSS
held its Fall AdCom meeting in Dearborn, Michigan.
I am delighted to report that our society is in great
shape both technically and financially. I would like
to take this opportunity to share with you the highlights of our progress and activities. In the financial
front, our 2015 operational budget was increase by
a modest level of 5.5%, but more importantly we
were able to access about $150K of the GRSS 2014
budget surplus under the IEEE 50% rule and about
$210K of our reserves under the IEEE 3% rule to support our strategic initiatives. These funds were used
in support of GRSS Globalization efforts (initiation
of new chapters, direct support of chapters, regional
workshops, etc.), and Educational initiatives (travel
support for young professionals, GRSS Caravans, regional speakers, etc.). Such investments are necessary
to support and expand our membership. We are focusing on membership growth in
developing countries in regions 9
and 10. This is in recognition of
IEEE GRSS IS InvEStInG
important contributions of scion paRtnERShIp and
entists from developing counties
in all scientific areas of interest
mEmbERShIp GRowth
to IEEE GRSS. I am very happy to
In REGIonS 9 and 10.
report that based on our noticeable achievements and accomplishments, IEEE Headquarter
agreed with our request for a substantial operational
budget increase of about 50% for 2016 so we can further invest in our growth and support our members.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr.
James Smith, GRSS CFO, for his dedication in getting
our finances in such great shape.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MGRS.2015.2508565
Date of publication: 3 February 2016

To accelerate IEEE GRSS engagement in Region 10,
we have established an initiative named "Capacity
And Innovation Building in Region 10 Program". The
objective of the project is to initiate a series of activities that will improve the geoscience and remote sensing capacity in Region 10 and by doing so grow the
IEEE membership and GRSS presence in this region.
For this project we have the backing of IEEE Headquarters and the IEEE office in Beijing, China. We are
hoping our presence there will facilitate collaboration and integration of many geoscience and remote
sensing scientific organizations and groups in region
10. Apart from this initiative for China, a substantial
amount of funds from GRSS strategic initiatives has
been made available to support travel expenses of colleagues and young professionals from India to participate in IGARSS 2016 in Beijing. The local organizing
team of IGARSS 2015 have also made a significant
effort to facilitate participation of these colleagues
through affordable accommodation and transportation. I have to thank the efforts of our Globalization
co-Directors, Melba Crawford and Tony Milne for their
forward-looking activities and enthusiasm.
2015 also marked a successful year for our conferences and symposia. IGARSS 2015 with the theme
"Understanding the Earth for a Safer World" was a
major success in all aspects. This IGARSS hosted 2071
participants and included close to 2000 paper presentations and provided 13 tutorials on a wide range of
topics. In addition, IGARSS 2015 hosted GRS4 Summer School, Industry Lunch, Student Exhibition Visits,
Young Professional meeting, and the Awards banquet
at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum. Much of the success
of this conference is due to the efforts of the local organizing team, Sebastiano Bruno Serpico and Vito Pascazio. IGARSS 2016 (Beijing), 2017 (Dallas), and 2018
(Madrid) planning is proceeding well. We also selected
the venue for IGARSS 2019 to be at Yokohama, Japan,
ieee Geoscience and remote sensing magazine

december 2015

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