IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2017 - 5

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
BY ADRIANO CAMPS

IEEE GRSS Accomplishes New Milestones

s I write this issue's "President's Message," the 2017
IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Symposium (IGARSS) is only three weeks away. As our
flagship conference approaches, I and other members
of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society
(GRSS) are eager to enjoy the company of many colleagues and friends whom we may not have seen since
the last conference. Prof. Saibun Tjuatja and Dr. David
Kunkee, along with their entire team, have been working very hard and making all the necessary preparations
to ensure that both the technical and social programs
at IGARSS will be a great success. My deepest thanks to
all of them.
This year at IGARSS, a new format is being introduced to increase the visibility of the interactive (i.e.,
poster) presentations. In addition, this year's IGARSS
will inaugurate the Technology, Industry, and Education (TIE) forum, a nontraditional session track focusing on these three areas and their association with
remote sensing. The TIE forum will include topics not
typically covered during the conference. We hope that
these new features contribute to your enjoyment of the
IGARSS experience.
GRSS MILESTONE ACHIEVEMENTS
Since my last "President's Message," the GRSS has realized a number of significant achievements.
ONLINE WEBINAR SERIES
Thanks to the efforts of our director of education, Josée
Lévesque, on 14 June 2017, the GRSS broadcast its pilot
live webinar series on IEEE.tv. Dr. Akira Hirose, a GRSS
Distinguished Lecturer, discussed advanced neural networks, focusing on complex-valued neural networks
and their applications in remote sensing and imaging.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MGRS.2017.2729085
Date of publication: 14 September 2017

SEPTEMBER 2017

IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE

Despite the fact that this pioneering online seminar
was presented on relatively short notice, it was viewed
by more than 300 attendees from 36 different countries.
Ten countries accounted for the majority of viewers:
◗ China (55)
◗ the United States (51)
◗ Taiwan (47)
◗ Japan (36)
◗ India (21)
◗ Germany (17)
◗ Brazil (15)
◗ Spain (11)
◗ South Africa (10)
◗ the United Kingdom (9).
This webinar will be freely available for all IEEE
Members on the new GRSS Resource Center website
(http://resourcecenter.grss.ieee.org/), soon to be populated
with videos and other educational materials. We will
also provide certificates confirming participation in
these offerings to GRSS members free of charge as an
additional benefit.
IEEE DATAPORT
The GRSS is the first Society to join the IEEE DataPort [1],
the new IEEE data repository service. Use of the IEEE DataPort is free during 2017; then, beginning in 2018, GRSS
members will pay a moderate fee. This reduced fee is another benefit the Society has decided to offer to members.
The three main services that DataPort offers are as follows:
1) The service will allow users to upload standard data
sets of up to 2 TB in size at no cost ("standard" simply
means that the data set does not have open access
requirements), obtain a persistent digital object identifier (DOI) for the data set, and guarantee that it will
be accessible for the long term.
2) Users will be able to access and download all IEEE
DataPort data sets directly in Amazon Web Services
S3 storage.
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http://resourcecenter.grss.ieee.org/ http://www.IEEE.tv

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2017