February 2018 From the IFAC President

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

More  than  six  months  have  already  passed
since the IFAC World Congress in Toulouse and
the numerous volunteers in all the IFAC offices
are  already  busy  working  on  new  ideas  and
their realization for the current triennium. While
there are over 2000 volunteers working in IFAC,
there are a few persons and offices that I want
to present in this month’s short presidential col-
umn and that are introduced in a bit more detail
through individual profiles in this month’s IFAC
Newsletter.

The IFAC President, nominated by the Council
and  elected  by  the  General  Assembly,  legally
represents  the  Federation.  It  is  an  honor  and
a privilege to follow in the footsteps of 21 bril-
liant  IFAC  Presidents  preceding  me,  to  foster
the strengths of IFAC, to keep the daily busi-
ness  running,  and  at  the  same  time  modern-
ize and refine where beneficial. This task is of
course  not  possible  without,  amongst  others,
the elected officers of IFAC and the IFAC Sec-
retary. Besides the President, the elected offic-
ers include the Immediate Past President, the
President-Elect,  the  Vice-Presidents  and  the
IFAC Treasurer.

As many processes and changes last more than
three years and to guarantee continuity within
the  officers,  the  Immediate  Past  President,
Janan  Zaytoon  from  the  University  of  Reims
Champagne-Ardenne, and the President-Elect,
Hajime Asama from the University of Tokyo, are
essential  positions  within  the  officers  and  are
both involved in all issues of central relevance.
The  day-to-day  operating  business  is  divided
into  the  competence  of  the  Executive  Board
(EB),  that  is  responsible  for  the  executive  ac-
tivities of IFAC through various Executive Com-
mittees,  and  the  Technical  Board  (TB),  which
is  responsible  for  all  technical  meetings  and
publications. The chairs of the EB and the TB,
respectively, are the Vice-Presidents within the
officers. For the triennium that just started, the
Vice-President  (EB)  is  Paul  Van  den  Hof  from
the Eindhoven University of Technology and the
Vice-President (TB) is Dong-Il “Dan” Cho from
the  Seoul  National  University,  together  with
Carlos  Pereira  from  the  Federal  University  of
Rio  Grande  do  Sul.  Two  more  essential  posi-
tions are the Treasurer, John Lygeros from the
ETH Zürich, who handles all financial matters
of IFAC, and the Secretary Kurt Schlacher from
the  Johannes  Kepler  University  Linz,  who  or-
ganizes and monitors the work of the Secretar-
iat, both doing an incredible and most reliable
job in serving the community. For further details
on these individuals please see the profiles in
this newsletter.

With these officers and all the other IFAC vol-
unteers and IFAC affiliates at my side, I am very
much  looking  forward  to  serving  IFAC  during
this triennium. I also want to take the chance to
thank the officers, and of course all other IFAC
volunteers, for investing time and effort to serve
IFAC and hence the control community in gen-
eral without any compensation.

Frank Allgöwer