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 Over the past 24 months, I have had the distinct honor of serving all VTS members in their professional advancement and growth. This journey has been a truly remarkable experience, and it is something that I will never forget for the rest of my life.
As VTS President, I met numerous VTS members from all around the world at several of our nearly 60 local VTS chapters, and at many of our sponsored conferences, symposia, summer schools, and workshops. I am awestruck by our vibrant and diverse international community!
One of the great pleasures of this position is working with so many of our passionate volunteers, and I have been continually amazed by their level of dedication to, and hard work on, VTS’ wide range of services, products, and activities. I thank all of you sincerely for being part of this special community, and for allowing me this opportunity to serve.
Reflecting back on my tenure, it was definitely a pleasure to have worked on several new and exciting initiatives, including:
- New ad hoc technical committees in the emerging areas of drone connectivity, electric railways, machine learning for communications, autonomous vehicles
- New committees on industry engagement and diversity
- The expansion of our series of industry tracks on cutting-edge technologies at VTC
- Our first-ever VTS diversity workshop, held at IEEE VTC2019-Fall in Honolulu, Hawaii
- VTS’ first open-access journal, the IEEE Open Journal on Vehicular Technology (OJVT)
- Several major initiatives in autonomous vehicles, including:
- Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) Industry Summit in Santa Clara, California
- Two editions of the IEEE Connected and Autonomous Vehicles Symposium (CAVS) in 2018 and 2019
- New permanent section on connected and autonomous vehicles in the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology
- IEEE eLearning Series entitled "IEEE Guide to Autonomous Vehicle Technology"
- Major activities in 5G technology, including the "5G Day" events at VTC
- Our first-ever Wireless Africa conferences in 2018, and the second in 2019, with a third conference scheduled for 2020
- Several VTS Young Professional (YP) activities, including the pizza panel events at VTC2018-Fall in Chicago, Illinois and VTC2019-Spring in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- The new IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Women's Distinguished Career Award and IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Student Travel Grants, which will start seeking nominations in 2020
With all of these new efforts in addition to what VTS already has to offer, it is truly exciting to witness first-hand the significant value-add of being a VTS member. VTS membership is now over 5000, the highest number of members in our Society’s long history. We also have the highest number of local chapters with 59.
Our major publications—IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology and IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine—continue to break their own records in impact factor, reaching scores of 5.339 and 6.145, respectively.
These extraordinary endeavors would not have been possible without the support of our many dedicated volunteers. We are especially fortunate to have such an awesome team, and you have my heartfelt gratitude.
In particular, I sincerely thank the entire VTS Board of Governors, whose time, effort, and guidance reflect their never-ending commitment to make VTS a vibrant international community across many disciplines. Additionally, I thank our staff for their time and support of our activities, helping us all to reach for the stars!
I owe a significant debt of gratitude to several past VTS Presidents, including Fabrice Labeau, Javier Gozalvez, and James Irvine, as well as the incoming VTS President, Abbas Jamalipour. Although serving as VTS President was hard work and involved encountering experiences that were initially unknown to me, I never felt alone with their counsel: Thank you!
Speaking of the next VTS President… I am truly excited that Abbas will be taking the helm of our Society starting 1 January 2020. He is a passionate leader with wonderful vision and innovative ideas on increasing the return on investment for being a VTS member; we look forward to great things in 2020!
Thank you very much again for the opportunity to serve you as VTS President over the past two years, and help support our community in its professional development and growth.
Looking forward to seeing you soon at the next VTS event! |
