Dear Members of our Academic and Industrial Community: The IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA) is now more than 12 years old and is already recognized as a very relevant organizational unit within IEEE and worldwide for its high-quality standards in the fields of EDA and embedded systems. In January 2018 a new two-year term began, so I would first like to thank the outgoing CEDA leadership team for their great effort and dedication to the success of CEDA up to this point. Next, even as I write these words, the new Executive Committee (EC) officers are already fully active developing new activities for our CEDA community, so I would like to provide all with an overview of our goals for the new CEDA term. For this new CEDA EC term, our target is to develop new services for our community as a whole, especially supporting students and young professionals. In particular, we will focus on further development of our local chapters, maintaining CEDA Luncheon Keynotes at our major conferences and events, and consolidating our new CEDA Distinguished Lecturers Program (DLP). Therefore, I strongly encourage our brilliant members in the CEDA community to answer and share our upcoming calls for the CEDA DLP, as we truly believe in the value of networking and mentoring from our IEEE Fellow and Senior members to the young talents in our field. In addition, we have established new standing committees for this term in the topics of Initiatives and Standards, which will carry out (in cooperation with the already existing EC committees) the core of CEDA's work in the areas of Internet of Things (IoT), bio-electronic systems design, and new methodologies to conceive nano-technology based devices. All of these areas are key for the progress and growth of CEDA in this new term. Therefore, I encourage everybody in our CEDA community interested in these topics to contact the EC members in order to become active volunteers, contributing their valuable time and input to the development of these areas within CEDA. Last, but not least, in this new term we will further strengthen our efforts to recognize our key scientists with the status of IEEE Fellow and other prestigious awards sponsored by CEDA, as well as extending support for students and young professionals in our community. Thus, we will soon establish a brand new Travel Grants Program for eligible individuals that will provide sponsorship for participation in our key conferences in relevant fields. Please keep an eye on our announcements on the CEDA website, our CEDA emails, and the CEDA Currents. Finally, please let me congratulate the new CEDA EC for the start of their service, and wish everyone in our CEDA community great success for the 2018-2019 term! David Atienza, President of IEEE CEDA
