Recognizing the Strength of the Global AIS Community: Year in Review

Happy New Year from AIS! AIS is celebrating 30 years of serving society in the advancement of knowledge and excellence in the study and profession of information systems in 2024 / 25. We would like to take the opportunity to reflect on significant accomplishments across the Association during 2024 and to highlight upcoming events:

• AIS members elected five new AIS Council members in 2024:
  • President-Elect: Dorothy Leidner
  • Vice President of Communications: Carol Hsu
  • Vice President of Education: Christoph Rosenkranz
  • Vice President of SIGs and Colleges: Julia Kotlarsky
  • ICIS Representative: Souren Paul
• The AIS eLibrary reached 34.5 million article downloads and abstract views from 190 countries by the end of 2024.  On average, every article in the eLibrary is downloaded 245 times and garners more than 515 abstract views.
  
• AIS ended 2024 with a record-breaking 5,457 members.
• AIS welcomed the Canadian Chapter and Ireland Chapter to its extensive network of communities.
• AIS celebrated 30 years of serving society. In honor of the last three decades, AIS looked back on an extensive history of AIS, the field of Information Systems, and our community by highlighting certain aspects of the organization and our members through the AIS From the Start series and the reintroduction of the Ten Questions series.
• The College of Senior Scholars launched the 2024 AIS Career Mentoring Program, pairing 75 early and mid-career IS faculty with senior mentors for personalized guidance, enhanced by new randomized matching to ensure transparency and equality.
• Monideepa Tarafdar was named Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of the Association for Information Systems, succeeding Dorothy Leidner who served as Editor-in-Chief for JAIS since 2018. We sincerely thank Dr. Leidner for her outstanding care, leadership and service.
• Hearty congratulations are extended to the remarkably successful 2024 regional conferences of ECIS in Paphos, Cyprus; PACIS in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and AMCIS in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• AMCIS 2024 Co-Chairs, Michelle Carter, Kelly Fadel, and Tom Meservy, introduced AuthorConnect: an innovative approach to extend AMCIS’ reach to all AIS members by facilitating virtual meetups between AMCIS paper authors and AIS community members interested in discussing their research.
• AIS introduced the third cohort of the Entrepreneurial Innovation Fellowship (EIF), supporting PhD students researching the intersection of entrepreneurship, innovation, and information systems with funding, mentorship, and opportunities for scholarly collaboration.
• AIS continued the support and expansion of multiple scholarship programs during 2024 such as the AIS Ephraim McLean Membership Scholarship Program, the AIS-Bocconi PhD Student Travel Grants, the ICIS and AMCIS scholarship programs, and many more.  A remarkable milestone was reached this year since their inception, with the cumulative value of scholarships awarded through these programs surpassing $305,000 to 1,713 recipients. 
• The 2024 AIS Student Chapter Leadership Conference (SCLC) hosted by Utah State University in March welcomed over 150 participants for workshops, keynote sessions, and competitions. Later in 2024, the Student Chapters Online Leadership Conference (SCOLC) welcomed attendees from across the globe to compete in the Software Innovation Challenge, attend global roundtables, and listen to insights from the IS Job Index.
• The 2024 IS Job Index report was released and gives crucial information about the overall health of the IS field for undergraduate and graduate students in the IS field. The AIS and IBIT Information Systems Job Index is the only systematic comprehensive national assessment of placement, salaries, demographics, jobs, search, geographical patterns, and knowledge of IS job market entrants.

AIS ended 2024 with the 45^th Anniversary of the most prestigious gathering of information systems scholars and research-oriented practitioners in the world with ICIS 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand. Led by Conference Chairs Heiko Gewald, Assadaporn Sapsomboon, and Andrew Schwarz with Program Chairs Christy Cheung, Sven Laumer, and Jason Thatcher, we welcomed attendees from around the globe. The conference also featured ancillary events (workshops, symposia, SIG meetings, etc.), an outstanding keynote session, a spectacular outdoor social event, awards session, exhibitors, and much more. We extend our most sincere thanks to the entire ICIS 2024 Conference Committee and congratulate the Best Conference Paper award recipients (see here (https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2024/awards.html /) for a complete listing).  

As always, ICIS recognized the incredible contributions of members from across the Association with the AIS LEO recipients, the AIS Fellows, the Sandra Slaughter Service Award Recipients, and many more. The full list of this year’s recipients is available here (https://aisnet.org/news/690198/AIS-Celebrates-Excellence-in-Leadership-at-ICIS-2024.htm).  

AIS is committed to supporting the global IS community. We encourage all members to continue leveraging the resources for research, teaching, collaboration, webinars, communication, SIGs, chapters, grants, and scholarships that are offered through the Association. With AIS membership levels and eLibrary use at all-time highs, we are grateful for your continued intellectual contributions, engagement, and support toward making the entire community a success.

As we look forward to 2025 with ECIS in Amman, Jordan; PACIS in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; AMCIS in Montréal, Canada; and ICIS in Nashville, USA; AIS will continue reaching out across all corners of the global community and collaborating with each of the respective conference committees. Together, the global AIS community can continue the mission of serving society in the advancement of knowledge and excellence in the study and profession of information systems.   

Thank you for being a member of AIS and we wish you the happiest, healthiest, and most wonderful 2025.

Sincerely,

AIS Presidents, AIS Council, AIS Staff