IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Magazine - April 2023 - 4

President's Message
by Sam Kwong
Looking Back on the
Achievements of the
IEEE SMC Society
in 2022
I
wish you a happy, fruitful, and
prosperous 2023. Looking back,
2022 was a very challenging year.
Thanks for your hard work enabling
the IEEE SMC Society to generally
function in many of our activities.
It is my great pleasure to report the
significant actions we have achieved
during the past year.
One of the exciting achievements
is that the Society has completed
the five-year review with the TAB
Society Council Review Committee
(SCRC). The review went smoothly
and successfully. We received many
positive comments. Specifically, it
mentioned that the Society has a clear
organizational structure and that the
leadership has been creative in developing
new approaches to prepare
future leaders. This is encouraging. I
thank all of you who have helped me
through this critical review exercise.
In addition, the Society has a set of
activities that include financially and
technically cosponsored conferences,
journals, and many well-established
educational programs for the Society's
members. The report indicates
that the Society has made significant
progress over the past five years and
is in an excellent position to remain a
vibrant organization with solid value
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSMC.2023.3238124
Date of current version: 25 April 2023
4
Sam Kwong
to members. In particular, we have resumed
our annual face-to-face conference,
SMC 2022, in Prague. We have
successfully held our hybrid face-toface
board meeting at the conference.
The Society periodically identifies strategic
external partners and develops
meaningful collaborations. Our Society
has established partnerships among
many international associations, such
as the International Council of Systems
Engineers (INCOSE) and many others.
Beyond the Society's award portfolio,
I am pleased to announce that
a new IEEE Technical Field Award
sponsored was approved in 2022-the
IEEE Lotfi A. Zadeh Award for Emerging
Technologies. This marks its first
sponsored award at the IEEE level.
I have set up an Ad Hoc Committee
chaired by Michael Smith, Senior
Advisor, (the members are Philip
IEEE SYSTEMS, MAN, & CYBERNETICS MAGAZINE April 2023
Chen and Ljiljana Trajkovic) to provide
me with advice, recommendations,
and suggestions on the operations issues
of the Society. I sincerely thank
them for their kindness in serving on
the committee.
Regarding membership developments,
we have continued to grow our
products to engage and retain graduate
student members, young professionals,
and industry professionals.
The Society has established the Diversity
and Inclusion (D&I) Committee.
In 2022, Karen Panetta submitted
proposals for funding for 2023. With
this approved budgeting for D&I initiatives
from the SMC Finance Committee,
the Society is well positioned
to align our activities with the IEEE
D&I strategic plan. Planned activities
for 2023 include supporting WIE panel
sessions at the SMC conference. Our
gender diversity numbers show that
we have moved up from 2% and are
holding steady at approximately 11%
of members identifying as women.
We excel at larger scale engagement
via our conferences and journals,
but not all those engaged are
SMC Society members. We embarked
on several initiatives to create more
professional development webinars.
We cosponsored joint events with other
IEEE organizations to leverage the
power of our collective resources, and
these activities have been sustained
and growing. The " Pathways to industry
Program " helped bring industry
professionals together with students
to understand the kinds of careers and
skills needed to pursue areas of SMC
Society interests. This was conducted
with the IEEE-HKN honor society.
These activities have continued funding
from approved initiatives Karen
Panetta submitted in 2022 for 2023.
The Student Leadership Conference with
IEEE-HKN continues to generate the
most significant number of attendees
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IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Magazine - April 2023

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