2010 ISCA Student Activities Update
Samer Al Moubayed, Catherine Lai, Matt Speed, Marcel Waeltermann
SLTC Newsletter, February 2011
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. After our work in 2008 and 2009 we are looking forward to a busy 2011.
Interspeech 2010
The ISCA-SAC were proud to host student-oriented events during Interspeech, held this year in Makuhari, Japan. The jewel in the crown was perhaps the student panel session, building on the success of the event at the previous year's conference. The theme of this year's panel session was "2010-2020 - Speech Technology in the Next Decade". The event gave research students an invaluable opportunity to discuss the likely challenges and themes for speech research over the next ten years, with prominent figures in the field. The contributing speakers and panelists were Alan Black (Carnegie Mellon University), Nick Campbell (Trinity College Dublin), Ciprian Chelba (Google) and Bowen Zhou (IBM Watson Research Center).
A very successful social reception was also held for students during the conference, allowing members to network in a more relaxed environment.
Website Goes Live
After an overhaul of the main ISCA website, the new ISCA students website has gone live after many months of development. The website features an interactive blog, a new forum, links to various ISCA resources and the ISCA grant system. Take a look now at http://www.isca-students.org/.
Contributions to YRDDS
The 2010 Young Researchers' Roundtable on Spoken Dialog Systems (YRDDS) was held at Waseda University, Tokyo in September and met with great success. The event is designed for students, post docs, and junior researchers working in research related to spoken dialogue systems. ISCA-SAC have a history of contributing to the event, with past and present members of the ISCA-SAC on the organising committee. ISCA-SAC looks forward to the 2011 event in Portland, Oregan.
Interspeech 2011
In 2011 Interspeech will be held in Florence, Italy. ISCA-SAC are very excited to be planning a number of student-oriented events for the conference, and looks forward to seeing you there.
Call for Volunteers
The ultimate goal of ISCA-SAC is to drive student-oriented events and support structures in speech and language research (read our mission at http://www.isca-students.org/?q=mission). To fulfil this we rely on our student volunteers.
Volunteering is a fantastic opportunity to really get involved and noticed in this research community. There are many different ways students can help out, and the nature of the tasks involved makes the work very flexible.
If you're interested in getting involved, contact the committee at volunteer [at] isca-students [dot] org