Vincenzo PIURI

Position Statement

Nowadays technology plays a key role in changing the world for the benefit of humanity: IEEE must continue to be the global lead in this scenario. With the extraordinary expertise that our technology-centric communities can offer, together we can face this challenge and enhance our profession by:

• Being the trusted source for high-quality innovative and timely knowledge in current, interdisciplinary and novel fields, increasing responsiveness to the needs of scientists, practicing professionals, and students, and attracting new communities and the general public;
• Promoting inclusive internationalization and preserving diversity of technological expertise, profession, culture, geographical origin, gender, and age, while acting holistically in the evolving international scenarios and nurturing our local identities and communities;
• Empowering technology-centric communities worldwide by addressing their needs with a human-centered approach, seeking for more networking opportunities through social networks and new media sources, broadly engaging the young generations, and intensifying synergic alliances with local and international associations.

I will be glad, honored, and proud to be part of this effort, share my experiences, and catalyze technical activities and collaborations worldwide.

Let's do this by identifying a common strategic view and appropriate priorities. All together, cooperating with the various organizational units in the IEEE, we can do it for the benefit of humanity!

More in detail...

Technical communities have been nurtured since the inception of the IEEE and its predecessor associations. The Technical Activities Board, through Societies, Technical Councils, and Technical Communities, has always been very active in monitoring scientific and technological advancement and innovation, to detect the scientific and technological needs and directions for better serving the various communities worldwide by providing and facilitating the access to theoretical and technological knowledge as well as to promote creation and deployment of applications. Providing a stimulating global environment to all communities around the world for synergetic sharing knowledge and ideas as well as for helping in the advancement of applications has been always a significant and valuable activity of the IEEE.
We should continue nurturing science and technology in our field of interest and expand our attention to interdisciplinary areas in which our expertise is relevant to allow for more use of our knowledge, for promoting development of innovative knowledge stimulated by the new challenges, for cross dissemination, and for receiving inspiration by other fields and related emerging needs and problems. We should continue to nurture aggregation of technical communities in our field of interest and in related emerging areas.
The Vice President for Technical Activities should stimulate and facilitate monitoring and nurturing of current and future directions in scientific and technical research as well as in applications in a worldwide cooperative perspective for continuously developing technical communities.

Technical meetings have been exceptionally developed by our Societies, Technical Councils, Technical Communities, their Chapters, as well as Sections and Regions, thus allowing for comprehensive presentations and discussions of recent advancements in science, technology and applications, disseminating advanced knowledge, and networking people. Cooperation and coordination of meetings will be highly beneficial to better exploit future synergies and opportunities for mutual benefit.
We should continue to nurture the high quality of our technical meetings so as to maintain and further increase our worldwide recognized standing and leadership. We should continue to address the needs of scientists, students, professionals, and governmental employees, in the various communities around the world. We should also explore opportunities to attract new technical communities and the interest of the general public.
The Vice President for Technical Activities should facilitate the development of technical meetings and continue to promote high quality and all synergetic collaborations.

Publications are flourishing and diversified, covering a broad spectrum of topics and many valuable application areas. We should continue to nurture our publications to address the needs of scientists, students, professionals, and government employees.
We should offer technical material in a more valuable way especially to professionals and students in their daily life. We should continue exploring opportunities of attracting new communities by providing appropriate knowledge dissemination channels.
The Vice President for Technical Activities should stimulate and help publications and should promote the identification of new dissemination environments, especially based on the web and mobile devices, to facilitate the access of our knowledge base to more communities worldwide.

Education is investing in the future of science, technology and profession, in the future of humanity, economic and social development, and in the future of the IEEE.
We should continue to be part of the IEEE efforts in education and give our scientific and technological contribution by being proactive, open minded, and cooperative within our specific field of interest worldwide, and continue to developing activities also considering integrated and interdisciplinary views and opportunities. We should globally promote our field of interest, but we should care for the various technology-centric communities worldwide, their specific needs, their cultural heritage, their inclinations and interests.
The Vice President for Technical Activities should proactively assist in identifying scientific and technological opportunities and developing programs for a variety of technology-centric communities around the world.

Technical aspects of members activities should continue to be expanded and enriched to provide further value to current and prospective members, and address their needs from university education to technical aspects of their professional career. Opportunities can further enhance support for people networking both at local and worldwide level, through Chapter activities and global services.
We should continue to focus on the increasing scientific and technical needs of professionals in the industry by providing further knowledge and services to be immediately useful in their daily job. We should continue to pay attention to scientific and technical needs of students and GOLD (Graduate Of the Last Decade) members and their technical needs: since they are entering or have just entered in our professional fields, they may greatly benefit from mentoring, counseling, and networking opportunities. We should also continue to proactively cooperate, from the scientific and technical points of view, in reducing the barriers which make entering in our professional field more difficult for women than men. Additional care should be given to geographical areas in which the economy is still developing: facilitating the scientific and technical knowledge dissemination in these areas and supporting our members may contribute to the economic growth.
The Vice President for Technical Activities should help in identifying opportunities for providing the technical content of members activities and facilitate circulation of knowledge and best practices for the mutual benefit.

IEEE is a complex organization with many facets, many valuable people, outstanding knowledge in our field of interest, and with a positive attitude to serve all communities worldwide. The various components of this structure have specific missions and see issues and services from different points of view. In order to maximize our achievements they need to strictly and synergistically cooperate in implementing our global vision and our common strategic goals. Besides, various sister associations working, locally or globally, in part or whole in our field of interest, are already serving some parts or segments of our technology-centric communities.
We should intensify cooperation among IEEE units and with other associations to exploit synergies and better serve the technology-centric communities worldwide.
The Vice President for Technical Activities should facilitate all of these interactions for the benefit of knowledge advancement and dissemination as well as for serving our technology-centric communities with a special care for traditions, interests, needs, culture, expectations, and inclinations of the different local communities or the various global scientific and technological groups.