The IEEE 1995 Information Theory Workshop (ITW'95) was held June 25-29 in the Conference Center at the King's Castle in Rydzyna, Poland. The workshop was attended by 85 participants and 19 accompanying guests. Their countries of origin (with the number of participants in parentheses) included the United States (30), Poland (13), Japan (6), Hungary (5), Israel (5), Germany (3), Italy (3), The Netherlands (3), Sweden (3), Switzerland (3), Canada (2), France (2), Russia (2), Australia (1), Hong Kong (1) India (1), Slovakia (1), and Yugoslavia (1). Eastern and Central European participants comprised 26% of the total. Students and young researchers (under the age of 42!) were well represented. The generous financial support of IBM, the National Science Foundation, and the IEEE Information Theory Society facilitated the participation of approximately 20 individuals through travel grants and reduced registration fees. Soft support was generously provided by the home institutions of the workshop chairmen and session organizers.
The technical program featured seven invited sessions covering a broad spectrum of topics: Error Correcting Codes, Communication Theory, Multiple Access, Coded Modulation, Shannon Theory, Neural Networks, and Source Coding. The details of the program may be found in the ITW'95 Workshop Announcements that appeared in the December 1994 and March 1995 issues of the IT Newsletter. In addition to the invited program, the workshop offered two parallel sessions on Recent Results consisting of 12 contributed talks each. The technical sessions were well-received, with often lively discussion following many of the presentations. A limited number of extra copies of the Workshop Proceedings are available. Those interested should contact:
The local workshop committee provided a program of social and cultural events as interesting and well-organized as the technical sessions. Meals featuring fine Polish cuisine were served in the intimate restaurant Zamkowa, located within the center. Social activities included a welcome reception (at which attendees were told that they would almost surely become lost in the castle's labyrinthine corridors during the course of the week), a guided tour of the castle's historical rooms, the workshop banquet held in the beautiful and spacious halls of the castle, and a closing picnic outside the nearby huntsmen's lodge, complete with live folk music, a spectacular bonfire, and pointed stakes suitably long for safely roasting a selection of delectable sausages. The cultural highlight was undoubtedly the moving concert performance in the castle's ballroom by the world-renowned Boys' and Men's Choir of Poznan Philharmonic, also known as the ``Poznan Nightingales", featuring pieces sung a capella as well as with piano accompaniment. Excursions to the restored castle at Kórnik and the marketplace in Poznan provided additional opportunities to appreciate the region's history and its architectural and cultural heritage. Adding to the interest throughout the week was the challenge of dealing with Polish coins and currency in both old and newly introduced (January 1, 1995) denominations that differed by four orders of magnitude. Taxi meters occasionally threw in an extra monetary twist by registering fares using an intermediate scaling factor.
A small group of participants also visited the local sponsor EFP
(Franco-Polish School of New Information and Communication
Technologies) and learned more about the exciting development of this
recently established research and educational institution. The
formation and growth of the school is reflective of the dynamic
atmosphere and optimistic spirit that one can sense in this nation
presently in the midst of a major political, economic, and societal
transformation. In that context, the significance of international
exchanges such as the ITW'95 to the development of Poland's
technological, educational, and economic infrastructure was
underscored by the attention given to the event by the media.
Workshop co-Chairman Prof. Witold Ho 
ubowicz (EFP) was the
focus of interviews in the press and on television, and a segment of
the IT Society Board of Governors meeting was featured on televised
news broadcasts!
Overall, the response of the ITW'95 participants to the
technical and social programs appeared to be overwhelmingly positive,
and it is certain that the field of Information Theory, as well as our
Society, will benefit from the many new professional interactions
stimulated by the workshop.