Dear Interspeech participants, dear speech community,

We have reached an importnant milestone: our technical chairs are sending the paper acceptance/rejection notifications today. We received 1985 submissions that we sent out for review, of which 966 were selected for presentation at the conference - thank a lot to everyone that submitted high quality papers!

The Technical Chairs experienced problem with emails to some countries and institutions - in case you await decision of your paper and have not received it, please check the status of your paper in the START system https://www.softconf.com/l/interspeech2021/ and check instructions for authors of accepted papers https://www.interspeech2021.org/instructions-accepted-papers.

The travel restrictions, at least in Central Europe, are gradually being relaxed, and we have the hope that we will be able to organize Interspeech 2021 in a hybrid format. At the same time, we are aware that many colleagues won´t be able to make it to Brno due to Government regulations, employer restrictions on business travel, or because of family or health issues. Therefore, we are preparing the conference in order to ensure that remote participants have the best possible experience. As was originally announced, the decision 'hybrid vs. fully virtual' will be taken by June 20 based on covering author registrations.

Please mind the following dates:

• June 15 - Submission of revised papers and registration of author(s) covering the accepted papers. This is a firm deadline and no extension will be granted for any reason.

• June 10(midnight CET) Travel grant application deadline

• June 18, Travel grant notifications sent

• June 20 - Final decision on the format of Interspeech 2021 - hybrid or fully virtual

• June 25 - Registration of paper presenters

• June 30 - Paper presentation instructions

• July 15 - Schedule of papers will be available and instructions for presentation will be published on the Interspeech 2021 website and by email to authors and presenters.

• August 10 - Submission of videos, eventually other material for Unified virtual sessions. Deadline of Request for Virtual gatherings.

• August 30 - September 3 - Interspeech 2021

We are sorry for any inconvenience and uncertainty, please stay with us while we´re trying hard to make Interspeech 2021 (in any format) a success. We hope to see you in Brno in August/September!

Hynek Hermanský - General Chair

Honza Cernocký - General Chair