A VISION AND A GOAL

Enrique H. Ruspini
President
IEEE Neural Networks Council

It is a privilege to greet all those who support our Council through their participation in our technical and educational programs, our conferences and workshops, and their interest in our learned journals.

I am happy to report that our Council is in excellent shape. Being now in its twelfth year of existence, the NNC enjoys a solid financial position and is able to provide a wide array of services and products to the IEEE membership.

Our three Transactions: IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks,  IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems,  and IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation  enjoy wide readership, being among the most cited journals in their fields.

We have a strong program of technical workshops and meetings including three major conferences: the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), cosponsored with the International Neural Networks Society, the IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE),  and the Congress on Evolutionary Computation, which, in recent years, we have co-sponsored with the Evolutionary Programming Society and the Institution of Electrical Engineers .  In 1994 and 1998, these meetings were held together as the World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI),   the largest technical gathering covering the disciplines of major interest to the Council. This important event will take place again in May 12-17, 2002 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In addition, the Council supports a variety of  technical, educational, awards, distinguished -lecturers, and regional-interest group programs and initiatives. Particularly noteworthy among these are educational grants supporting student travel to conferences and summer study and research activities.

A foremost question in the mind of those charged with steering a technical organization such as the Neural Networks Council is to assure its continuity and to plan its growth so that our success may be translated into additional services and products that benefit the IEEE membership and the engineering profession. To guarantee such  growth it is imperative that we continuously strive to bring into our midst the efforts of those interested in emergent technologies falling within the scope of interest of the Council.

The scope of interest of the Neural Networks Council, as approved by the IEEE, is specified by the following statement:
 

The fields of interest of the Neural Networks Council and its activities shall be the theory, design, application, and development of biologically and linguistically motivated computational paradigms emphasizing neural networks, including connectionist systems, genetic algorithms, evolutionary programming, fuzzy systems, and hybrid intelligent systems in which these paradigms are contained.

Throughout its existence, and primarily because of the foresight of past leaders, the Council has grown from its original focus on the theory and applications of Neural Networks, to encompass also technical activities in Fuzzy Systems, Evolutionary Computation, and, most recently,  Computational Intelligence in Finance Engineering.

To foster the continued expansion of our scope into new technical areas, it is imperative that we develop a clear vision of who we currently are—as an ensemble of technical communities with kindred interests—and who might be suitable additions to our scientific and engineering constituency.  In my view, the Council is the IEEE technical organization that supports, through various programs and products, the development of engineering concepts and applications suggested by biological, medical, linguistic, and psychological knowledge.

Seeking to identify new areas of Council interest falling within that perspective,  we are creating a new Technical Committee on Emergent Technologies, which will seek to expand—often in conjunction with other IEEE Societies—our technical activities in  new  technological directions. This technical committee will not promote activities in any specific field or discipline but, rather, will seek to identify promising technological directions and nurture their development so that they may eventually become well-defined technical activities governed through their own steering committees. I urge all of you who want to collaborate in the development of initiatives related to these new technologies to contact me or any of the members of our Executive Board to discuss your ideas.

To assure the success of our expansion activities, it is important, however, that we strengthen our ability to attain our objectives by seeking organizational and structural changes that facilitate our growth  and increase the voice of our supporting communities in the conduct of our affairs. In this regard, there is no more important goal that the Council may pursue than to secure its transition to a technical Society with a clear defined, recognizable, membership capable of having a direct voice in the Society affairs.

We have functioned now as a Council for over eleven years having reached a level of financial success, stability, and growth that  strongly indicates that we are able to conduct our own affairs on behalf of the technical communities that we serve. These technical communities, in addition, are well defined professional networks with known leadership, technological goals, and professional objectives. These communities have been brought together because of their common interests—expressed before in terms of biologically-inspired engineering—and by the many relations and interactions connecting each technology. It is my strong belief that the time has arrived for these communities to form an organization, which, with the structure of a technical Society, will be able to run its own affairs.

Gaining Society status will bring a number of advantages and benefits not currently enjoyed by the Council, including:

· Direct control of Society  matters, including finances, by members of the technical communities supported by the Society:

· Recognizable, clearly defined, membership. Being a Council, the NNC does not have a membership that may, for example, be consulted to gauge feelings about important matters of concern to the organization. Specific benefits of membership include:
o Direct representation of members in Society governance
o Direct representation of membership in IEEE BOD and TAB
o Enhanced ability to recruit  IEEE members.
o Availability of a well-defined, recognizable, human resource,  capable of providing future IEEE leaders and volunteers

· Local Chapters and Sections.  These grass-roots activities are important factors in the development of any Society and that of the Institute. Under our current Council structure, we are not allowed to develop these important local organizations.

· Full access to Society benefits.

· Improved visibility of the Society and its products

We intend to seek—as our major goal—the transition of our Council to a new IEEE Society, which, after an initial transition period, will be governed by bodies elected by its membership and will have full access to the benefits and privileges bestowed by that status.  We earnestly hope that you will support us in this endeavor.