IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2019 - 6

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Today's Youth Are Our Future Leaders
By Wolfram Burgard

he IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) is one
of the strongest IEEE Societies
and is currently experiencing
enormous growth. This growth and the
additional input and fresh views new
members bring provide great opportunities. And the greatest potential comes
from our future leaders or, put another
way, our young members. Given our
over 3,980 student members, young
people make up more than 28% of the
RAS. Consequently, our Society has
sought to continuously increase the
portfolio of opportunities provided to
today's youth.
One of the strongest measures of
our success in supporting activities of
young members is the
This growth and
more than 270
Student Chapthe additional input
ters. The goal
and fresh views
of Student
Chapters is to
new members
create a local
bring provide great
network of students and proopportunities.
vide them the
opportunity to
meet and learn from fellow students,
faculty members, and professionals in
our field. These Chapters are based all
over the world, including countries
rarely represented at our major meetings like Bangladesh, Costa Rica, the
Dominican Republic, Lebanon, Sri
Lanka, and Tunisia. Our Society proDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2019.2949185
Date of current version: 11 December 2019

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

vides up to US$40,000 per year
to support these Chapters
and strengthen Society involvement. In addition,
our Distinguished Lecturer (DL) Program provides
support to Student Chapters,
covering all DL travel expenses so
Chapter costs are minimal.
The RAS's Education Committee,
which reports to the Member Activities
Board, is in charge of coordinating and
fostering educational initiatives. Important means toward this goal are specialized meetings, workshops, and
conference sessions dedicated to student education. Society-sponsored
books and summer schools/technical
education programs are also the responsibility of this committee. The committee oversees and directs educational
resources made available in electronic
form and seeks to ensure the high
quality of Society-sponsored educational activities.
One of our strongest initiatives in
this regard is the Student Activities
Committee, whose goal is to represent
students in robotics worldwide. The
chair of the Student Activities Committee is a voting member of our Administrative Committee and thus involved in
all decisions about the future development of our Society.
We furthermore support several initiatives geared toward young members
during three of our flagship conferences: the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
(ICRA), IEEE International Conference
on Automation Science and Engineer-

DECEMBER 2019

ing, and IEEE/Robotics Society
of Japan International Conference on Intelligent Robots
and Systems (IROS). These
initiatives include the photo
scavenger hunt, several dedicated get-togethers, a n d
Lunch with Leaders. The latter is
open to students and Young Professional attendees and offers a chance
to meet and interact with luminaries
from our Society and industry for networking, career advice, insights into
recent developments, and so forth.
The Women in Engineering Committee promotes women and, in particular, young women through Society
activities and in cooperation with all
Society boards, committees, and working groups. This committee organizes
breakfasts and lunches at our flagship
conferences to foster discussion on the
role of women in robotics and automation, inspire girls, and promote collaborations and programs to advance
women in leadership.
Our Young Professionals Committee
supports the participation of young
members in Society activities. One particularly successful activity of this committee is the Young Reviewers Program,
which introduces young members of
our Society to sound practices in peer
reviewing of scientific papers.
Our Conference Activities Board has
a dedicated budget to support robot
challenges at ICRA and IROS. It also
offers travel support for authors who are
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IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2019

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