Neural engineering is an emerging discipline to understand the organizational principles and underlying mechanisms of the biology of neural systems and to study the behavior dynamics and complexity of neural systems in nature. It coalesces the engineering including electronic and photonic technologies, computer science, physics, chemistry, and mathematics with the molecular, systems, cellular, cognitive and behavioral neuroscience. To highlight this emerging discipline, the first international IEEE EMB Conference on Neural Engineering will be held at theCapri Island, Italy from March 20 through March 22, 2003.