Dear ISCA members,

It is almost time for Interspeech 2025. Only a few more weeks to go. This also means that the current ISCA board only has a few more weeks before it will step down. Over the past two years, during my presidency, we have made several changes to ISCA. In these final few weeks, we hope to finalise the things we are still working on, so that the new ISCA board is off to a good start. Are you interested in learning more about all the changes that have happened? We will explain them all in the ISCA General Assembly during Interspeech.

Invitation to the ISCA General Assembly – Monday 18 August, Rotterdam

I hereby invite you to attend the ISCA General Assembly, which will take place on Monday 18 August 2025, Ahoy, Rotterdam, prior to the Interspeech Welcome Reception. During this meeting we will present our financial and president’s report. Both reports need to be approved by the ISCA membership, so we hope that many of you will be there. Importantly, the ISCA General Assembly is the moment to ask your questions, make suggestions, or voice your concerns to the ISCA board. We wish to learn from you in order to further improve our association!

New ISCA Newsletter

The ISCA newsletter was established by prof. Isabel Trancoso in 1998. After 325 ISCApads we move to a new format, starting August 2025. We would like to sincerely thank prof. em. Christian Wellekens, who edited the last 282(!) issues (including this last one)! Prof. Wellekens already received the ISCA Service Medal for his work on the ISCApad in 2018, but continued to put together the newsletter every month for another 7 years. The ISCApad is a valuable and important source of information on new jobs, workshops, databases in speech science and technology, and its importance in distributing information within ISCA has been high. We hope that the new Newsletter will continue this important function. For now, a BIG thank you to Chris, and a very happy retirement! Please read his message elsewhere in this ISCApad for more background on the ISCApad.

Interspeech-related news

Registration is open

Registration for Interspeech 2025 is open: https://www.interspeech2025.org/registration

If you are an ISCA member, please have your ISCA e-mail address and ISCA membership ID ready because you will need both to verify your ISCA membership. The ISCA membership ID can be found on your personal page at http://www.isca-speech.org -> login. Please note that due to the change of ISCA database, your ID has now 8 digits and the old ISCA membership number is no longer valid.

If you have an accepted paper, please have the paper IDs ready.

Digital poster boards

For many years, the wish for digital poster boards at Interspeech was discussed within the ISCA board. This year, for the first time ever, Interspeech will use digital poster boards. No more hassle with travelling with poster tubes, or unsuccessful attempts at removing the folds in your poster, or stressing out trying to find a local print shop. Instructions on the preparation of your poster will follow from the A/V company associated with Interspeech 2025.

Preliminary programme

The preliminary programme is available online.

Tutorials

Interspeech 2025 offers 9 highly interesting tutorials including an invited tutorial on how to create speech sounds with Praat from the creator of Praat, prof. dr. Paul Boersma. If you have not done so yet, but are interested in following 1 or more tutorials, sign up with your Interspeech registration or change your registration and enjoy the fun at the tutorial(s).

Speech Science Festival

The organization of the Speech Science Festival is well on its way with more than 30 demonstrations and a hackathon. We invite you all to come visit the Speech Science Festival in the conference centre on Sunday August 17, as it has free entrance. It is suitable for a broad audience so bring your family if they are travelling with you.

See you all in Rotterdam, the Netherlands!

Odette Scharenborg

ISCA President