Circuits and Systems Society

Dear CAS Members,

Serving the Circuits and Systems Society and its members as 2008 president is a great privilege and honor for me. It is a great opportunity and but also great responsibility.

During my 25+ years’ professional career I had opportunities to work as an educator and researcher in several different countries - mostly in Europe and also in the US, Japan and Hong Kong.

Experience at various volunteer positions in the Circuits and Systems Society ranging from regional activities and chapter coordination to secretary-treasurer and also service as associate editor for the Transactions and Editor-in-Chief for the CAS Magazine gave me an in-depth insight and understanding not only of problems and needs but also potentials of local electrical end electronic engineers' communities and potential roles that the Circuits and Systems Society could play.

The Circuits and Systems Society is facing many challenges. These are related to two important facts:

1. we have entered the era of electronic communications and multimedia which are imposing revolutionary changes in the publications and conference sectors thus having enormous impact on operations of the Society.

2. There are new challenging research areas such as “bio”, “nano”, “tera”, “organic” electronic circuits and systems, and above all new cross-disciplinary topics – booming in the community and these must and will have an impact on CASS present and future – we have to adapt to fast changing research directions and goals. We have to bring them to the attention of our members encouraging new activities.

My belief is that the role of President of the Circuits and Systems Society should be proactive creating new vision for the future of our Society – most important is the technical vision, identifying new cutting-edge research opportunities and new areas of applications. We have to encourage activities, workshops, conferences and publications in these new areas.

The IEEE Circuits and Systems Society embraces several domains and in the past served as an incubator for new research areas. Since the creation of the new Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems and Technical Committees on BioCAS and Life Sciences, development of conferences and workshops in these new and fast developing areas should be encouraged – possibly including building a new flag-ship conference for our Society.

CASS must be attractive to people and current and potential new members must have a clear vision of the benefits associated with membership. It is very important to encourage new groups of volunteers to join in for the improvement of our services to members – bridging the gap between the executive bodies and the chapters and individual members is of paramount importance. I will follow the footsteps of my predecessors - Presidents Ellen Yoffa and Ljiljana Trajkovic - fostering work with students and GOLD members. We must create a convincing mechanism and communication links for locally grouped members and chapters to work with the ExCom and BoG – the Society cares for them not only by offering its DLP program and providing on-request service, but also by maintaining continuous feedback mechanisms tailored for local needs. Improvement of contacts with chapters and between chapters should be encouraged.

I believe there is still place for many new actions and improvements – with the goal “to serve the members”.

I will be looking forward to serving you and working with you. I count on your help and feedback.

All the best wishes for 2008