Abstract :
By the time of writing this message, 2009 is almost over. It has been a difficult year from an economical point of view and this has had a non-negligible impact on IEEE as a whole and on our Society in particular. In both Academia and Industry, budgetary constraints caused employees to find more and more difficulties in obtaining sponsorships to attend IEEE conferences, short courses and tutorial, or even to justify the renewal of IEEE and of single Society Memberships.
