Dear ISCA members:

Welcome to the next installment of the ISCApad for Feb. 2020!  A belated Happy New Year to all ISCA members “seasoned” and “newly joined”! As always, this edition has a number of updates from the community including upcoming meetings, job openings, theses, and announcements.

Interspeech-2020: [http://www.interspeech2020.org/] (September 14-18, 2020), in Shanghai, China.

Our next flagship conference, Interspeech, will take place this fall in Shanghai, China.

In speech-based communication, it is widely believed that technologies are not the only factors that limit the development of speech processing. Speaker variability including stress, emotions, speaker state, as well as the cognitive abilities those engaged in communications also impact both effective human-machine speech communications, as well as human-to-human communications. As such, this year’s theme is organized around the topic “Cognitive Intelligence for Speech Processing”. A remarkable international team has been brought together for the IS-2020 Organizing Committee, which promises to be an exciting, scientific and technologically stimulating experience. Some important dates to keep in mind are:

• Tutorial proposals: submission deadline Feb. 21, 2020

• Satellite workshops/events: proposals due by Feb. 28, 2020

• Conference Paper submissions: deadline March 30, 2020

Sponsorship: I would also like to encourage industry as well as all organizations to consider sponsoring ISCA INTERSPEECH-2020. Since ISCA is a non-profit society, our goal is to support and serve our membership and the field of speech communications. By sponsoring INTERSPEECH, you are contributing to the society, and in particular helping to keep registration rates low, especially for student attendees which helps ensure the future for our young researchers! Visit the Sponsorship & Exhibition window of http://www.interspeech2020.org/to see the range of opportunities available to make an impact.

Message regarding corona-virus: a number of colleagues have asked about the impact of the corona-virus on INTERSPEECH-2020 and satellite workshops. Rest assured that the ISCA Board as well as INTERSPEECH-2020 Organizing Committee are closely monitoring the status daily – which includes assessment/recommendations from the WHO (World Health Organization). Currently the Wuhan region is most impacted, and Shanghai is not seriously affected, nor is the organization of Interspeech-2020 impacted. The safety of our membership is paramount – since we wish to ensure a safe and intellectually stimulating experience for all IS-2020 participates. We are closely monitoring and will keep all updated on the any changes which might impact your participation for Interspeech-2020 promptly (through: Interspeech-2020 website, ISCA Twitter, ISCA Facebook, ISCA website).

We look forward to welcoming you to Shanghai, China for INTERSPEECH-2020!

Future ISCA INTERSPEECH Conferences:Some updates here for future Interspeech conferences.

• IS-2021 will take place in Brno, Czech Republic (https://www.interspeech2021.org/)

• IS-2022: as noted in the ISCApad for Nov. 2019, it was necessary to re-open the bidding process for INTERSPEECH-2022. Since last fall, ISCA has received a number of very competitive bids which have been carefully reviewed with extensive communications between the bidding teams and ISCA Conference Committee. The voting process has now been completed, and we are happy to report that ISCA INTERSPEECH-2022 will take place in Incheon, South Korea. We congratulate the organizing team, and look forward to this future event.

• Bids for IS-2023: ISCA is currently accepting bids to host INTERSPEECH-2023. Please see: https://isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/conferences for information on the bidding process. sample bids, and forms are available. The deadline for submissions for INTERSPEECH-2023 has been changed to Feb. 28, 2020. We would like to encourage all countries/potential host sites to consider submitting a bid to host Interspeech. Our goal is to support the field of speech communication worldwide, so please reach out to the ISCA if you have interest or any questions [send email to: conferences@isca-speech.org]; (the ISCA website https://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php includes Guidelines, Bidding & Budget Templates).

ISCA Medal For Scientific Achievement: the nomination process is now closed for the 2020 ISCA Scientific Medal. The ISCA Board is assessing the nominations and will be announce this years winner in the near future. Please see our website https://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/honors for a list of ISCA Honors - and consider nominating your colleagues and those you feel are deserving of recognition.

ISCA Fellows Nominations: while not much time (Deadline Feb. 10^th, 2020), the window for ISCA Fellow Nominations is still open. The Fellows nomination form can be downloaded from: http://bit.ly/2lwjfFr and the reference form from: http://bit.ly/2iMJUNo. Nominations should be sent to: fellows_nomination@isca-speech.org by February 10 2020.

As always, we welcome feedback and input from the ISCA community – if you have suggestions for our society or want to be involved, please let us know!

We look forward to your participation in ISCA and Interspeech-2020! Until the next ISCApad, be safe and stay connected to our community!

John H.L. Hansen, ISCA President