Dear ISCA Members,

First, a Happy New Year to all and welcome to the next installment of the ISCApad for January 2018! As we move into 2018, there are a number of activities underway for ISCA and the speech & language science/processing/technology community. ISCA has made great strides in 2017, and we hope to see continued enthusiasm in the field for 2018!

Interspeech-2018: [http://www.interspeech2018.org/] will take place September 2-6, 2018, at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC), Hyderabad, India, with the theme being: Speech Research for Emerging Markets in Multilingual Societies. March 23^rd is the deadline for full paper submissions (this is really the deadline! - note that initial titles/abstracts are due by March 16^th as placeholders). This is the first time Interspeech will be held in India, and it promises to be a great opportunity to experience the diversity of speech and language processing in a country that manages daily life with 122 major languages! I visited the HICC in Hyderabad last summer while participating in an ISCA sponsored summer school and I can say that the HICC is one of the most technically designed conference venues you will experience. Excellent space, with soundproofed movable walls between all oral and poster sessions. There is a hotel (Novotel) connected to the HICC and many food options (most set up in a buffet style if you are wanting to sample various Indian as well as western/non-Indian food options). The Interspeech-2018 Organizing Committee has made great progress on organizational details (logistics, technical program overview, etc). There are a number of informative videos they have included on their website, which give you an idea of the culture, location, and logistics of getting to and around Hyderabad and the conference site. As an example, there will be Interspeech-2018 representatives to greet you when you arrive at the Hyderabad airport, and help with transportation logistics to your hotels.

Also, I would also like to encourage industry to consider both Interspeech Sponsorship, and participation as an Interspeech Exhibitor. ISCA is a non-profit organization and conference Sponsorship is critical for supporting the meeting and especially to help allow as many students and young scientists to participate (there are great spots to highlight your company Logo on the Interspeech-2018 website!).

Organizers have already secured a number of industrial sponsors, and I would like to specifically thank Amazon, Microsoft, Tencent, Google, and Qualcomm who have already committed to sponsorship. If you have interest in sponsorship, please let the organizing committee or ISCA know.

ISCA Website: [ http://www.isca-speech.org/] Next, we have a number of announcements on the ISCA Website. These are (1) Nominations for ISCA Distinguished Lecturers (DL) for 2018-19, (2) Nominations for ISCA Fellows for 2018. Consider nominating you feel is worthy of recognition as an ISCA DL or ISCA Fellow!

Also, note that ISCA Online Archive has now open access, so all conferences and workshops are freely available to speech and language community.

ISCA DISTINGUISHED LECTURERS:As a reminder from recent ISCApads, Professors Jennifer Cole, (Linguistics, Northwestern University, USA) and Laurence Devillers, (Artificial Intelligence and Human-Machine Interaction, University of Paris-Sorbonne IV, LIMSI-CNRS, France) have been named as the ISCA Distinguished Lecturers 2017-2018. So, if you have interest in having them visit your institution as part of the ISCA DL Lecture series, please see the ISCA DL website for DL Topics and logistics. They are available for lecture tours upon request from host institutions (many of the past ISCA DL reports are available on this page – so review some of these to see the impact ISCA DL is having). [ http://www.isca-speech.org/iscaweb/index.php/distinguished-lecturers ]

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

We look forward to your participation in ISCA and Interspeech-2018!

John H.L. Hansen,

ISCA President