Dear Presidents and Representatives of member societies of ICIAM,
it is a pleasure to write to you right after I became president of our society. Before anything else, let me warmly thank the Officers that are leaving (A. Fitt and M. Primicerio) for the wonderful service they have done for our community, and those who are arriving (S. Leyffer and V. Mehrmann) for their generous decision to start serving now. And of course my greatest thanks to Barbara Keyfitz, the previous president, who ran the society with strength and wisdom in the last four years.
During my presidency I will try to do my best to serve our community and our society, to strengthen its potentials and to develop new projects, specially in the direction of the industrial applications of mathematics and also concerning the increasing of our exchanges and collaborations. All together we can all go further in our projects. What some members have attempted or achieved can be of great value for the others.
Whatever ICIAM becomes, it has to be based on the work and the impulse of all of us. ICIAM's biggest assets are its members and the fact that it covers many countries in all continents. Diversity is sometimes source of heterogeneities and difficulties, but it can also be very fruitful. We can help each other, we can learn from each other and ICIAM is a good tool for that.
Please do not hesitate to contact me/us whenever you have questions or ideas or suggestions that could be helpful to our society and our community. You can just write to me (or any other of the ICIAM Officers) and with the help and the advice of the other Officers, I/we will try to answer at best as possible.
Best wishes, Maria J. Esteban
PS) Very soon you will receive a message concerning the launch of the new website of ICIAM. Your help will be extremely valuable in order to check that the information that it contains concerning your society is complete and correct.