IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021 - 3

President's Message

Improving, Situating, Expanding
Clinton J. Andrews,
Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 USA
 We are coming off one of the most difficult
years in human memory, yet the IEEE Society on
Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) managed
to perform quite well in spite of the pandemic and its
fallout. In 2020, our flagship ISTAS conference and
the cosponsored conferences were huge successes,
with record attendance, partly because going virtual
allowed wider participation. Our new publication,
IEEE Transactions in Technology and Society, was
launched successfully with a stellar set of articles
that are already attracting citations, and there are
increasing number of articles ready for submissions.
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine continues
its decades-long run as the key forum for thoughtful
articles about the social implications of technology.
The Newsletter has become a vital in-house organ
connecting members and keeps us informed about
society activities. Our Distinguished Lecturer program has reached thousands of people worldwide.
Two of our volunteers have received significant IEEE
honors: Lew Terman won the Pemberton Award and
Kalyan Sen was named an IEEE Fellow. These are
just some of the highlights.
This is a legacy that Robert Dent, SSIT's outgoing president, nurtured throughout his tenure. He
achieved this by handpicking a dedicated team of
volunteers and getting them organized, drawing on
his vast experience in industry and as an IEEE volunteer and staff member. This meant convening
weekly executive committee meetings, monthly governing board meetings, and numerous meetings on
conferences, publications, and strategic planning.
The calls and e-mails were incessant. This leadership
team restructured the society's finances to free up
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2021.3056296
Date of current version: 16 March 2021.

March 2021

resources for a wide variety of initiatives while, at
the same time, aiming for a balanced budget. It also
shouldered the substantial burden of preparing the
society's five-year review.
As incoming SSIT president, I am immensely grateful for the hard work of Bob Dent and the leadership
team that put us in such a strong position for the
future. I will do my best to ensure that SSIT continues to improve in key areas. The key ingredient is our
volunteers who edit publications, host conferences,
deliver distinguished lectures, convene chapter meetings, maintain the website and social media, recruit
new members, and much more. If you have not participated so far, please consider doing so-the experience is rewarding and we want you right away.
My vision for SSIT in the next couple of years
focuses on the following three areas. First, we will
continue to improve our organizational performance.
This includes generating a successful outcome to
the five-year society review process, maintaining a
balanced budget, getting off the Technical Activity
Board's financial watch list, convening successful
conferences and extending the pipeline of future
sites, and continuing to grow the impact of our thriving publications.
Second, we will advance our unique role within
IEEE among the various groups that think critically
about technology. This elevates what we do well to a
strategic focus. IEEE Spectrum provides timely report
on emerging topics, but IEEE T&S Magazine offers
thought leadership on technological transformations
as they happen, and the new IEEE Transactions on T&S
is quickly becoming the home for archival research at
the technology-society interface. The IEEE TechEthics platform curates events and video content, and
IEEE's many technical societies and councils host

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021