Dear ISCA Members,

May 2013 is an important moment for ISCA. It is the end of our board
election process and, as I said previously, one of our largest elections
with nine available posts.

I am happy to say that these elections were a big success, with 28
candidates and 596 ballots. The participation was significantly
higher than for the last elections (2011), both in terms of candidates
and in number of ballots.

I want to congratulate the nine newly elected ISCA board members (in
alphabetical order):
Gérard BAILLY
Nick CAMPBELL
Martin COOKE
Mark HASEGAWA-JOHNSON
Hynek HERMANSKY
Keikichi HIROSE
Kate KNILL
Haizhou LI
Douglas O'SHAUGHNESSY

Welcome to the ISCA board!

I want also to thank again the 19 other candidates. You demonstrated
that ISCA will have in the near future several good and motivated
candidates able to join the board (the next elections will come soon,
in only two years).

ISCA has also elected two new Distinguish Lecturers for 2013, nominated
by the ISCA board after a selection process driven by the DL committee
chaired by Julia Hirschberg and under the supervision of Satoshi
Nakamura. Congratulations to Michael Riley and Hynek Hermansky, our two
new ISCA DLs!.

Finally, I want to take advantage of this ISCA President's message, one
of the last for me, in order to come back to one of the points I
mentioned during the last ISCA General Assembly in Portland: we talk
about the idea to see ISCA emphasizing its role as 'a technical
authority for society' (see the ISCA GA slides on the ISCA web:
http://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/files/ISCA_GA_IS2012_V2b.pptx), and
there is a quite large consensus on this general idea even if, to be
honest, nobody knows exactly how to reach such an objective...

Nevertheless, according to me, this objective is really important and
should take a larger place in ISCA activities. At the world level,
Research & University are clearly crossing difficult times, for example
regarding their funding. However, you should not see the forest for the
trees... Funding is of course important but is not the only difficulty
or danger and, maybe, not the most important one. Looking at some recent
events all around the world, it is clear that the place of science (view
as the conservation and the extension of the knowledge) in the human
society as well as the place of scientists are not settled for
eternity...

Like a majority of us, I am working as volunteer for ISCA, for different
scientific events, for different journals, for PhD defenses and for
several committees because, for me, science is one of the mandatory keys
for a positive future of the world. And, for me, science is universal,
has no borders and should not be driven by political or commercial
constraints. When I am looking at all the members who are dedicating a
significant part of their time to ISCA, independently of their
countries, of their positions in academia or private world and of their
individual beliefs, I am sure that we ISCA members are all sharing the
same views about science.

Moreover, a scientific international association like ISCA is not only a
useful organization able to take in charge logistic considerations, like
for organizing conferences, ISCA has a moral personality and should take
all the corresponding responsibilities. If ISCA, with other
scientific associations, is not taking seriously this role, is not
explaining what science is for us, is not explaining the importance for
the future to maintain and to develop this idea of science, who will do
it for us? Oh yes, I am realistic and I am not sure about our weight in
the driving of the world... But I am sure of where is our moral
obligation... And I am also sure that what we are defending, how each of us is
speaking, as a moral person as well as individual scientist, is at
least as important as the targeted objective.

Best
JF Bonastre
ISCA President