"Forging New Links,"-Looking Ahead to ICSE-98

The conference will be sponsored by the Science Council of Japan, Information Processing Society of Japan, Japan Society of Software Science and Technology, IEEE Computer Society, ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering ICSE's twentieth birthday affords an opportunity to reflect on the profound changes of the past two decades. Since ICSE's founding, politics and technology have converged to shatter once-formidable barriers to international cooperation. The collapse of the Berlin Wall symbolizes the end of the Cold War, and links in a Web page are a metaphor for our enhanced capacity for global information exchange. In this spirit, we have worked hard to ensure that ICSE-98 will see an unprecedented increase in the level of international participation. In particular, we will give a greater voice to members from the Asian-Pacific region, an area underrepresented in the past. Yet our outreach must extend beyond geography. As we continue to build bridges to other software disciplines, researchers and practitioners in allied fields will benefit from an understanding of the contributions that software engineering can make to their work. In turn, we must address their problems in our research. New collaborations between academia and industry will also enrich ICSE-98 and our profession as a whole. The presentation of top-notch papers will, of course, constitute the core activity of ICSE-98. Cutting edge research will be showcased in technical paper sessions, workshops, panels, posters, demonstrations, and special sessions devoted to the lessons learned from building large and complex software systems. We hope you will take advantage of this unique opportunity to meet new colleagues, exchange ideas, and explore the nearly limitless possibilities that lie ahead. Join us in Kyoto for ICSE98 and share the excitement that comes from forging new links.