Dear ISCA Members, Dear Colleagues,

It is a great honor for me to have been elected as the new president of ISCA and I feel very  privileged to take on this role at a time when ISCA developed into a   prosperous, lively, and active association. Thanks to the continuous joint efforts of  the scientific event organizers, the group of volunteers, the past ISCA presidents, the International Advisory Committee, the SAC, and the ISCA board members, our association has steadily grown over the last years in terms of the number of ISCA members, the number of Interspeech participants, the ISCA income, as well as the amount of grants, scope and number of workshops, SIGs, DLs, and various other activities.

My personal thanks go to the former president, Jean-Francois Bonastre, and to his predecessor Isabel Trancoso, who both shepherded and prepared me over the past years for this role. Furthermore, I truly appreciate that Jean-Francois         Bonastre agreed to continue as an ex-officio member to ensure a smooth transition.Thank you very much!

On behalf of the ISCA board, special and sincere thanks are extended to the leaving board members, Jean-Francois Bonastre, David House, Michael Picheny, Yannis Stylianou, and Isabel Trancoso, for your superb work, dedication and         contributions during your service as ISCA-board members. David, Michael, Jean-Francois, and Isabel served for two consecutive terms, an 8-year commitment to the association. Thank you very much! With great pleasure, I welcome the new ISCA-board  members, Gérard  Bailly, Martin Cooke, Mark Hasegawa-Johnson, Hynek Hermansky and Kate Knill, who started their first term this September.

Last but not least, I would like to greatly acknowledge the dedicated efforts of all the members and supporters of the Organizing team of Interspeech 2013 in Lyon. A hearty thank you to the six-handed general chair Frédéric Bimbot with his co-chairs François Pellegrino and Cécile Fougeron as  representatives of the           team, for all your energy and  spirit, your heart and blood which you donated to make Interspeech 2013 a huge success, congratulations – also, you personally convinced me of the French style :-)

I am very excited to take over  as ISCA president in such interesting and dynamic times. Speech and Language Technologies have finally arrived in peoples’ daily life, which bears both, great opportunities and big challenges. In order to keep pace with the rapid developments in our field and to position ISCA well, I believe we should see innovative ways to engage its members to actively participate in the various tasks that lie ahead of us. Also, I would like to encourage all ISCA members to identify needs for new services and to help us improve existing ISCA services in order to further increase the value and benefits of being a member of the International Speech Communication Association.

Sincerely,        
       
        Tanja Schultz
        ISCA President
      isca-president@isca-speech.org