ISCA Student Activities Update
Samer Al Moubayed, Marco A. Piccolino-Boniforti, Antonio Roque, Sylvie Saget, Sunayana Sitaram, Marcel Waeltermann
The ISCA Student Advisory Committee (ISCA-SAC) was established in 2005 by the International Speech Communication Association (ISCA) to organize and coordinate student-driven projects. We were especially active in 2007 and 2008, we were pleased to continue our efforts in 2009, and we look forward to 2010.
Interspeech Student Panel Discussion
The ISCA-SAC organized a student panel discussion session during Interspeech 2009. The aim was to offer students a fruitful discussion with senior researchers regarding different methods of research. This year, we addressed the question of 'Research in Academia vs Research in Industry' and the invited speakers were: Geoffrey Zweig (Microsoft Research), Philippe Bretier (Orange Labs) and Mike McTear (University of Ulster).
ISCA 10th Anniversary Design Contest
This year, ISCA is celebrating its 10th anniversary. In order to promote this event, a poster design contest on the topic of the 10th anniversary was announced in early 2009 by ISCA-SAC. It turned out to be a really difficult task to select a winner out of the 72 candidates. The ISCA Board selected five posters for the final round, these consisting of contributions by Karem Laguna, Robert Lawley, Jamal Issawi, Alberto Forcada and Johanna Vinterhav. Out of these finalists, one poster came out on top according to the jury's judgement. The winning poster was presented by the president of ISCA, Prof. Isabel Trancoso, at the opening ceremony of the Interspeech 2009 conference. The winner of the 'ISCA 10th Anniversary Poster Design Contest' is Jamal Issawi (Lebanon).
Online Grant Application System
ISCA-SAC managed the Online Grant Application System (OGAS) during Interspeech 2009. OGAS was developed in 2008 by student volunteers to facilitate the grant application process for both the applicant and the ISCA grants coordinator.
Communications
One of ISCA-SAC's main goals is in the transition of the website to Web 2.0 while simplifying access to the large range of information available on the website. A first version of the newly developed website, including a blog was launched in late 2009.
In order to develop a more interactive exchange with students and senior researchers working in the field of speech communication science and technology, ISCA-SAC has embraced new methods of social networking. A facebook group and a twitter page were created in early July 2009. Each group has already 60 and 16 members respectively.
Transcription of Saras Institute Interviews
In conjunction with the IEEE-SLTC e-newsletter and the History of Speech and Language Technology Project, student volunteers have worked hard to provide transcriptions of interviews from various researchers who have made seminal contributions to the development of speech and language technology. The students transcribed interviews with the Joseph Perkell, Lauri Karttunen, William Labov, who described how they came to be involved in the field of speech technology. These are available in 1 2 3 articles in the e-newsletter.
Upcoming Projects
During 2010, ISCA-SAC will keep on maintaining the services it used to offer during the previous years; this includes managing the online grant application system for the 2010 ISCA sponsored conferences and workshops, and mainly for the Annual Interspeech 2010 conference taking place in Makuhari, Japan.
During the conference, ISCA-SAC is planning to organize one or two scientific events including a Panel Discussion or a Round Table Lunch discussion. All the students are gladly welcome to attend and participate. In addition to Interspeech, ISCA-SAC is co-organizing the Young Researchers' Roundtable on Spoken Dialog Systems YYRSDS-10.
ISCA-SAC is also planning to widen its coverage by increasing efforts to contact Masters and PhD students around the world, and advertising its activities and work.
One of the goals ISCA-SAC is also working to achieve in the future is to reach young researchers in developing countries, by for example, creating special interest groups. This project aims at boosting the possible regional efforts and collaborations among students in these countries.
We welcome student participation at any level, and are always open to new ideas from anyone; please feel free to contact us on our web page or by email at volunteer[at]isca-students[dot]org.
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