The Asia-Pacific region is the fastest growing economic region in the world and also the fastest growing region in terms of technology, if measured by research publications submitted/accepted to international conferences. There are some organizations such as the IEEE and EURASIP that foster global and/or regional interaction, and collaboration on research and education in signal and information processing. There is however, currently no such organization serving the Asia-Pacific region. Each region has its own characteristics and technology bases, therefore a regional organization stands to provide a unique service to its scientific community while providing a collective identity and representation to the world community.

During IEEE ICASSP'07 in Hawaii, a few colleagues gathered together to discuss the issue mentioned above. Although there remained a few alternatives regarding the approach and size of the technical scope, a consensus was reached to pursue the possibility of forming such an organization.

The first Asia-Pacific Academic Leader Summit was held in December 2007 in Tokyo, Japan, by inviting academic leaders from almost all of the Asia-Pacific countries, including the U.S., to discuss options and develop collective wisdom regarding the approach and goals/aims of the proposed organization. We decided to establish an organization titled “Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association (APSIPA),” and register it in Hong Kong.

Since then, we have convened Steering Committee meetings in April 2008 in Las Vegas during ICASSP’08, December 2008 in Hong Kong, and April 2009 in Taipei during ICASSP’09. At these meetings we have discussed APSIPA’s mission, relationship with the IEEE and other regional organizations, membership, organizational structure, international conferences, publications, as well as technical scope and directions. We have also discussed structure and members of the Technical Committees and the Working Groups, and drafted the bylaws of the organization.

We decided to hold the inaugural conference in 2009, “2009 APSIPA Annual Summit and Conference (APSIPA ASC 2009),” in Sapporo, Japan, and we have also decided to hold the second conference in 2010, “2010 APSIPA Annual Summit and Conference (APSIPA ASC 2010)”, in Singapore.

I am very happy to be holding the inaugural conference in Sapporo with many attendees from many countries. I hope that everyone attending the conference will enjoy not only the conference itself but also the beautiful environment in Sapporo and other areas in Japan, and make new friends on this occasion. We look forward to working with many active faculties, researchers, engineers and students in the area of signal and pattern processing, and to encouraging/furthering technological progress in the Asia-Pacific region.