IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2017 - 5

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
BY ADRIANO CAMPS

Working Toward a Brighter Future
for the GRSS

ear colleagues and friends, greetings from Barcelona! During 2017, as president of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS), I have had
the opportunity to promote a number of new initiatives
that I believe will be quite beneficial for the future of
our Society. These have included a new joint publication
focused on sensors, a technical committee on standards,
and online educational activities. After one year, and
thanks to the combined efforts of the GRSS Administrative Committee (AdCom) and many volunteers, I am
happy to report on the progress we have made in these
areas as well as on the general status of our Society.
IGARSS 2017
Before discussing the new initiatives in detail, I must
thank Prof. Saibun Tjuatja, Dr. David Kunkee, and their
entire team for making the International Geoscience
and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS) 2017 in Fort
Worth, Texas, a great success! We all have wonderful
memories of a conference that featured excellent thematic organization of the sessions and avoided overlapping topics, with the rooms well distributed around the
conference center. In conjunction with the poster sessions this year, long coffee breaks (accompanied by outstanding catering featuring local specialties) fostered extensive and fruitful discussions among the attendees. In
addition to this new poster session format-which was,
in general, quite well received-a Technology, Industry,
and Education Forum was successfully organized.
The only unfortunate aspect of the conference was
that, in spite of efforts made to accelerate the review process, publish the conference program online as early as
possible, and send the invitation letters well in advance,
many delegates sent regrets at the last minute because
their visas were not granted on time. We sincerely hope
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MGRS.2017.2762058
Date of publication: 27 December 2017

DECEMBER 2017

IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE

this situation will be resolved for future IGARSS gatherings, even though global political trends seem to be
working against this as additional security measures are
put into place.
GRSS FINANCES
Regarding our finances, I am happy to say that the GRSS
is in good shape, with income greater than forecast and
expenses under control. As I announced in July, our
chief financial officer, Prof. John Kerekes, submitted the
2018 budget at the end of June. In 2017, we invested a
total of US$361,000 in projects under the so-called 3%
and 50% rules. (The 3% figure refers to the percentage
of Society reserves that can be mobilized if there is a net
positive balance, and the 50% figure refers to the percentage of the Society's previous-year surplus that can
be invested.)
For 2018, the first-pass budget includes US$956,000
in operating funds (US$38,000 higher than in 2017)
and US$222,000 in proposed 3% projects (US$54,000
higher than 2017). As part of these 3% projects, the GRSS
intends to invest in the following:
1) promoting Student Chapter formation and international collaboration, working on common projects
2) supporting Chapter activities in emerging regions of
the world
3) conducting the Empowering Women in GRSS mentoring program
4) supporting our new webinar program
5) issuing certificates for GRSS educational products
(e.g., tutorials and webinars), which will be free for
GRSS members.
The 50% rule initiatives will be determined in the first
quarter of 2018, after the 2017 net surplus is calculated.
However, despite our healthy economic condition,
the IEEE has not only not allowed a budget increase
for 2018 but also informed us that any future budget
increase needs to be linked to a corresponding income
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2017