ello friends and members of PSMA.

I was honored to be elected as chair of PSMA accompanied by a very strong executive team comprising Fred Weber (President), Trifon Liakopoulos (Vice-President) & Tim McDonald (Secretary/Treasurer).

Many thanks and appreciation to outgoing Chair Steve Oliver for his leadership the past two years. 

I am delighted to announce that we are adding 2 new features to our newsletter, the PSMA UPDATE.

The first one will be a 'Message from the Executive Committee'. In this issue I will provide a high-level overview of our vision and activities. In future editions, one of our Executive Committee members will give a brief update and a more detailed insight into some of our activities. As was presented at the PSMA Annual Meeting, we have categorized our vision for the future of PSMA into 4 areas and assigned a champion to each one:

1. The 1st one Maintaining strengths (continue doing what our members seeing as most valuable, e.g. roadmaps, workshops, education) – championed by Tim
2. Becoming more applications and problems oriented (how PSMA can help you solve real life issues, identify trends, market opportunities, etc.) - championed by Fred
3. Putting more metrics in place to monitor our performance, assess feedback, identify opportunities to improve, etc. – championed by Trifon
4. Engaging more with our industry and academic stakeholders, increasing collaborations with existing partners and finding strategic new ones – championed by Mike

Based on discussions to date, the anticipated strategic areas we have identified are IoT (internet of things), Smart Mobility (clean, efficient, safe and connected transportation) & Energy Storage (from micro-power to grid power). But we are open to suggestions from our members.

The second new feature in the PSMA UPDATE will be 'Friends of PSMA' and will start in the next issue.  PSMA has links with many other industry associations and we plan to use this space to increase awareness of this and to promote synergies. First up will be the China Power Supply Society (CPSS). If you have suggestions on new links or ways we can improve our current links with other industry associations, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Finally, please let us know what  you like to see in the PSMA UPDATE newsletter.  Suggestions are always welcome!

Mike Hayes
PSMA Chair
Tyndall National Institute

If you or anyone in your company is interested in getting on the distribution list for future issues of PSMA UPDATE, please send e-mail to: power@psma.com. Be sure to include your name and the name of your company.