In 1972, King-Sun Fu brought together a committee to organize an international conference on pattern recognition. As Chair of the First International Joint Conference on Pattern Recognition (IJCPR 1973, the forerunner of the ICPR series), he was also elected Chairman of the Standing Conference Committee for this organization before it was named the IAPR. Although others chaired subsequent I(J)CPR events, he remained Chair of the Standing Conference Committee until its role was absorbed by the IAPR Executive Committee in 1977, while he was serving as IAPR President. Always a dedicated and enthusiastic promoter of scientific discourse, he remained a member of all I(J)CPR Scientific Program Committees up to and including 1982.
During this time, he was one of the leading organizational forces in the IAPR, working diligently on the composition and revision of the IAPR Constitution until it was ratified on November 8, 1976. He then served as the first IAPR President (1976–78) and Past President (1978–80), continued as a member of the Governing Board (1978–85), and became the first editor of the IAPR Newsletter (1978–79). He was also a member of the Nominations Committee (1980–82) and Constitution and Bylaws Committee (1982–85).
In addition, King-Sun Fu was a founder of the USA’s IAPR member society, the IEEE Technical Committee on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, and was the first editor of IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, consistently the top-rated and most influential journal for pattern recognition.
His sudden death on April 29, 1985, at the age of 55, was a terrible shock to the pattern recognition community. To commemorate his accomplishments and celebrate his life, the IAPR created the King-Sun Fu Prize by special statute. He was the pioneering force that brought us together, and he gave generously of his time and attention. From 1965 to 1985, he held more than 45 volunteer positions in multiple organizations, most of them related to pattern recognition and engineering. His scientific accomplishments and distinctions represent the epitome of service to the pattern recognition community.