Feb. 8, 2021

Dear ISCA members:

Welcome to the next installment of the ISCApad for Feb. 2021. In this monthly message to all our members, I will highlight some recent activities for ISCA, Interspeech events, upcoming opportunities to contribute/serve/participate in ISCA, and the announcement of ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement, our highest honor.

 INTERSPEECH-2021 (Going Hybrid!): [http://www.interspeech2021.org/]

Brno, Czech Republic (Aug. 30 – Sept. 3, 2021)

The world is still addressing the COVID19 Pandemic, and the INTERSPEECH-2021 (IS-21) Committee along with the ISCA Board have continued to monitor and assess the situation. The situation here in 2021 continues to be challenging worldwide with the number of new cases still high and restrictions on air travel and cross-border travel. After careful consideration, the consensus from the Interspeech-2021 Organizing Committee, in cooperation with the ISCA Board, IS-21 in Brno will be a Hybrid-Conference (with continued monitoring and a back-up option to move to a fully virtual conference if needed). The paper submission deadline is still March 26, and authors will be 
requested to opt for in-person or virtual participation only when covering the author's registration fee on June 15 . Those opting for virtual participation will have a reduced registration cost, and the IS-21 Committee will offer options for authors to switch if they later decide to participate virtually. Because of this switch, the venue will be moved to a smaller facility – in order to support those participating in-person. IS-21 Organizing Committee will continue to stay connected with the organizers of ISCA Satellite Workshops or Special Events to ensure effective logistics support. The IS-21 Organizing Committee, in cooperation with the ISCA Board will continue to provide timely information.

More details are included in this issue of the ISCApad.

ISCA International Virtual Seminars: Expand your Schools/Students educational experience!

To make it easier for speech labs to provide strong seminar programs, and to expand and support the educational needs of our membership, ISCA has recruited an international pool of speakers who are prepared to give online talks. This virtual seminar scheme complements our ISCA Distinguished Lecturer series (4 DLs are available to give talks now!). For details on both Virtual Seminars and ISCA Distinguished Lecturer programs, visit the ISCA Virtual Seminar page at: https://bit.ly/3cOdziZ.

ISCA Distinguished Lecturer (DL) program: Call for Nominations!

Nominations for the ISCA Distinguished Lecturers (DL) program close on Feb 14th 2021. While we are following COVID19 guidelines, we are especially encouraging DL speakers to come forward to help us continue to expand our support for regions under-represented in ISCA programs (e.g., Eastern Europe, Africa, West/South/South-East Asia, and South/Latin America). (more details in this ISCApad!).

Nominations for Members of the ISCA Board: Call for Nominations!

We would like to encourage our membership to consider nominating their colleagues or themselves to serve on the ISCA Board. The ISCA Board consists of 14 volunteers who work to support the ISCA Society addressing all aspects of operations, programs, finances, leadership, conferences/workshops, Special Interest Groups, and support for education and outreach. As a society, we cannot exist without individuals willing to commit their time, experience and expertise in supporting our society. We encourage all who have interest to consider submitting a nomination. Election for Members of the ISCA Board 2021-25 will take place in April/May. Nominations should be received by: Monday, March 1, 2021.

(more details in this ISCApad!).

ISCA INTERSPEECH-2024 (location announcement):

“A new country on the ISCA INTERSPEECH World Map!”

I would like to update all on the ISCA Board evaluation process which took place for potential sites for ISCA INTERSPEECH 2024. We received a number of highly competitive proposals which were reviewed extensively by the ISCA Conferences Sub-Committee and discussed in ISCA Board Virtual Meetings as well. The board completed voting in order to select the final entry, and I am pleased to announce that ISCA INTERSPEECH 2024 will take place in Jerusalem, ISRAEL! This represents the first time ISCA INTERSPEECH will be in this part of the world, and we are excited to have this opportunity to experience the scientific, technical, and cultural sites in Jerusalem, Israel for 2024. We all understand the challenges it takes to organize such a major conference, and in these times where uncertainty is present, we are encouraged to have outstanding teams bid to host future Interspeech conferences. We would very much encourage previous bidding sites, as well as all interested in organizing future Interspeech events to consider submitting proposals, especially for regions which have not hosted INTERSPEECH!

2021 ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement:

As is customary at ISCA INTERSPEECH, we make several awards to recognize leadership in our community. I am pleased to announce that ISCA has selected Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hermann Ney as the recipient of the ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement 2021 “for pioneering and seminal contributions to data-driven methods for automatic speech recognition and machine translation.”Prof. Ney has made sustained and pioneering contributions in automatic speech recognition, statistical classification and machine learning, and statistical machine translation. Prof. Neywill deliver a plenary speech in INTERSPEECH 2021. Congratulations to Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hermann Ney!

The ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement recognizes and honors an individual each year who has made extraordinary contributions to the field of speech communication science and technology. The award of this ISCA Medal has been established since 1989. It is presented to the recipient by the ISCA President at the INTERSPEECH opening ceremony, when the Medalist also delivers a keynote speech.

We hope all of you are staying safe, and continue to work/collaborate and contribute to both the science and technology advancements in Speech Communication. We look forward to seeing you all virtually or in person at ISCA INTERSPEECH-2021 this year in Brno, Czech Republic (papers are due March 26^th!).

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!

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

John H.L. Hansen (ISCA President)