Nov. 10, 2020

Dear ISCA members:

Welcome to the next installment of the ISCApad for November 2020, and my monthly message to all our members!  In this issue you will find updates for meetings, job postings, and announcements. COVID-19 pandemic continues to impacts the world, so please do all you can to ensure the safety of yourselves, colleagues, family and friends. Research and advancements in the field of speech communication, and especially supporting our families, friends and colleagues is even more critical in the current times we are all facing for our society.

INTERSPEECH-2020: [http://www.interspeech2020.org/] (Oct. 25-29, 2020)

The main event for our society this past month was the overwhelmingly successful INTERSPEECH-2020 conference, held virtually for the first time in Shanghai, China. The conf. program took place over a five day period, with a worldwide time synchronous program that spanned Asia/Australia, North/South America, Europe, and the Middle East/Africa. Here is a brief recap of the INTERSPEECH-2020 conference activities:

• 1021 peer reviewed conf. papers presented

• 110 Technical Sessions were held including 14 special sessions and challenges

• ~2000 Registered Attendees participated (able to participate in Q&A, see 90sec overview and 15min full video presentations of each paper), and many more sat in as observers in the livestream online view portal.

• 8 Tutorials presented by internationally recognized individuals/teams

• ISCA Student SAC Events: Students Meet Experts, Student Mentoring, Doctorial Consortium

• 4 Keynote speakers!

• 6 new ISCA Fellows Elected! (81 ISCA Fellows to date)

• 4 Internationally recognized ISCA members, awarded 2020 ISCA SERVICE MEDALS  for sustained service to ISCA and the Speech Communication community!
  

• Finally, one individual recognized for her sustained impact to the field, Janet Pierrehumbert, as the 2020 ISCA SCIENTIFIC MEDAL

While this Interspeech Conference was a unique due to the challenges presented with COVID19, the Interspeech-2020 Organizing Committee went to great lengths to ensure a highest quality technical program, and to infuse as much culture and local experiences within a virtual online experience. So, below are some screen pictures of events which took place during the conference!

Opening Ceremony

ISCA Fellows

ISCA SERVICE MEDALISTS                                          ISCA SCIENTIFIC MEDALIST

CLOSING CEREMONY

CLOSING CEREMONY

CLOSING CEREMONY

Closing Ceremony

Shanghai, China (Fireworks for closing Ceremony!!)

• ISCA DIVERSITY MEETING: Nov. 23. 2020: due to meeting time conflicts, the ISCA Diversity Meeting originally scheduled during INTERSPEECH-2020 conf. week has been move to Nov. 23, 2020. This will be an online ZOOM meeting. Meeting time is: 15-16h Dutch time; 14-15h UK time; 9-10 am NY time; 8-9 am IL/Dallas time; if you have interest, PLEASE email diversity@isca-speech.org for the Zoom link.

As we closed this chapter of INTERSPEECH-2020, a sincere thanks goes to a number of individuals and organizations. First, to the many corporate sponsors of INTERSPEECH, many thanks for your sustained commitment to supporting our society, and helping to ensure registration fees, especially for students are kept low. MANY thanks!

Many thanks to the General Chairs, Helen Meng, Bo Xu, Thomas Zheng, and the Technical Program Chairs Jianhua Tao and Kai, Yu, as well as the entire Interspeech-2020 Organizing Committee for their work and extensive commitment to a truly memorable conference experience!!!

As is the tradition, the world map showing countries that have hosted INTERSPEECH conferences (as well as ICSLP Conf.’s and Eurospeech Conf’s) are shown below. In the next 3 years, several new countries will be included! We encourage those interested in organizing an Interspeech to respond to the next call for proposals for Interspeech-2024. Even if you are not ready to propose, please reach out to express your interest (see ISCA Home page or send email to conferences@isca-speech.org).

We hope you all enjoyed INTERSPEECH-2020, and were able to engage with speakers, and catch up with colleagues and friends, at least remotely/virtually this time. We look forward to see you all and hopefully physically being together at ISCA INTERSPEECH-2021 next year in Brno, Czech Republic.

Until next month, stay safe and stay connected to our community!

John H.L. Hansen (ISCA President)