The Geographical Outreach Committee is organized by the ISCA board and chaired by a board member responsible for geographical outreach. Currently this board member is Professor Nobuaki Minematsu, University of Tokyo, Japan. The purpose of this committee is to extend the services of ISCA to different parts of the world, especially those regions where many speech researchers may not be able to attend Interspeech conferences and participate in the many speech research activities easily.
Currently the work of the Geographical Outreach Committee is focused on four regions where the speech researchers are under-represented in most ISCA programs, and the major goal is to have a sub-committee for each of these regions to make region-specific efforts. These sub-committees are:
(a) Sub-committee on Eastern Europe
(b) Sub-committee on West Asia and North Africa
(c) Sub-committee on South Asia
(d) Sub-committee on Sub-Saharan Africa
In addition to the Geographical Outreach Committee, another important channel for ISCA to extend its services to different parts of the world is via Special Interest Groups (SIGs) focused on some specific languages. Currently there are seven Language SIGs with such functionalities as listed below.
- SIG on Under-resourced Languages-SIGUL
- SIG on Chinese Spoken Language Processing-SIG-CSLP
- Association Francophone de la Communication Parlee-AFCP
- Associazione Italiana di Scienze della Voce-AISV
- SIG on Iberian Languages-SIG-IL
- Indian Language Speech Processing-SIG-ILSP
- ISCA SIG on Russian Speech Analysis-SIGRU
More information about the Language SIGs can be found under the section of SIGs.
Geographical Outreach Committee
(I) Chair
- Prof. Nobuaki Minematsu, University of Tokyo, Japan
(II) Sub-committee on Eastern Europe
Coordinator:
- Prof. Rodmonga Potapova, Dept Head, Moscow Linguistic University, Moscow (Russia)
Members:
- Dr. Andrey Ronzhin, Head of Speech Informatics Group, St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation, St. Petersburg (Russia)
- Prof. Taras Vintsiuk, Head of Speech Science and Technology Dept, Int. Research and Training Center of Information Technology and Systems, Kyiv (Ukraine)
- Prof. Boris Lobanov, Head of Speech Recognition and Synthesis Laboratory, National Academy of Sciences, Minsk (Belarus)
- Dr. Catalin Grigoras, National Institute of Forensic Expertise, Bucharest (Romania)
- Prof. Edward Shpilewski, Director, Institute of Computer Science, University of Bialystok, Bialystok (Poland)
- Prof. Jozef Juhar, Technical University of Kosice, Kosice (Slovakia)
- Prof. Slobodan Jovicic, Belgrade University, Belgrade (Serbia)
- Prof. Dimitar Popov, Konstantin Preslavsky University of Shumen, Shumen (Bulgaria)
(III) Sub-committee on West Asia and North Africa
Coordinator:
- Prof. Chafic Mokbel, University of Balamand, Balamand (Lebanon)
Members:
- Dr. Ossama Emam, Manager, Human Language Technology, IBM Egypt Branch, Giza (Egypt)
- Dr. Mohamad Mrayati, Senior Advisor on Science and Technology, Ministry of Economy and Planning, Riyadh (Saudi Arabia)
- Prof. Mustafa Yaseen, Dean, Faculty of Information Technology, Amman University, Amman (Jordan)
- Prof. Oumayma Al Dakkak, Higher Institute of Applied Science and Technology, Damascus (Syria)
- Prof. Mansour M. Alghamdi, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia)
(IV) Sub-committee on South Asia
Coordinator:
- Prof. Thippur Sreenivas, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (India)
Members:
- Prof. Rajeev Sangal, Director, International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad (India)
- Prof. S.R. Savithri, Head of Speech and Language Sciences, AII Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore (India)
- Prof. Udaya Narayana Singh, Director, Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore (India)
- Dr. Virach Sornlertlamvanich, Thai Computational Linguistics Laboratory, NICT Asia Research Center, Pathumthani (Thailand)
- Dr. Hammam Riza, Science and Technology Network Information Center (IPTEKnet), Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT), Jakarta (Indonesia)
- Dr. V. Ramasubramanian, Siemens Corporate Technology, Bangalore (India)
- Dr. A. R. Weerasinghe, Director, University of Colombo School of Computing, Colombo (Sri Lanka)
(V) Sub-committee on Sub-Saharan Africa
Coordinator:
- Prof. Justus Roux, Director, Center for Language and Speech Technology, University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch (South Africa)
Members:
- Dr. Tunde Adegbola, Associate lecturer, University of Ibadan, Ibadan (Nigeria) (also Executive Director of the African Languages Technology Initiative)
- Mr. Nimaan Abdillahi, Director, Djibouti Institute of Science and Information Technologies, Djibouti (Djibouti)
Archive of Reports
What can Geographical Outreach Committee do for you?
Below are possible initial actions which may be taken by the sub-committees of the Geographical Outreach Committee to extend ISCA services to the specific regions.
(1) If in the regions there are any regional, national or local associations (or similar organizations) of speech researchers (or on related areas), it is possible to develop some sister association relationship between such associations and ISCA, such that members of such organizations can become members of ISCA at reduced membership fees, and vice versa, and possibly something more.
(2) If in the regions there are some regional, national or local workshops, courses, meetings, conferences or events on speech related areas, it is possible to have them partially sponsored by ISCA, and invite via ISCA speakers and participants from other parts of the world to attend such events. It is also possible to hold some currently exisiting ISCA workshops or events in the regions in order to promote the activities in the regions.
(3)The sub-committees may recommend students or young researchers in the regions to apply for grants to attend conferences, workshops and events held worldwide sponsored by ISCA.
(4) The sub-committees may help to distribute relevant information about ISCA services to speech researchers in the regions, such as the ISCA Archive, the membership fee structure, grants, ISCApads, etc., especially those not limited to ISCA members, for example the abstracts of all papers in the ISCA Archive which are openly accessible from the Internet, the web-based services, and the many special interest groups on different areas which can be participated on-line without ISCA membership, and so on.
(5) The sub-committees may help to promote and disseminate to the global research communities information regarding the research activities in the regions via ISCA channels, to increase international knowledge about the activities. For example, ISCA can help to distribute the journals or reports published in the regions, the call for papers of conferences and events held in the regions, information regarding major research projects in the regions, important research accomplishments in the regions and distinguished scientists and researchers in the regions, and so on.
(6) The sub-committees may consider to establish one or more Language Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for research activities on the specific languages used in the region. Such Language SIGs can become more direct channels through which the ISCA services can be obtained. The Italian Language and the Chinese Spoken Language Processing are good examples.
(7) ISCA has a distinguished lecturers program, through which the sub-committees and others may invite lecturers to travel to their regions to give lectures to promote research activities in the regions at ISCA's expenses.
(8) The sub-committees may recommend distinguished researchers in the regions to participate in various research related activities, for example to review papers, to serve as journal editors or scientific committee members, session chairs or invited speakers of conferences and workshops, and so on.
(9) The sub-committees may consider the special situation of their region and propose to ISCA any other possible actions which may be taken to help the researchers in the regions. For example some approaches are specially useful for the regions or to handle some special difficulties or to solve some special problems for the regions, and so on.
(10) Other measures helpful to the research activities in the regions can also be proposed by the sub-committees and considered by the ISCA board.
ISCA is pleased to have the following companies as "ISCA Industry Liaisons".
About Appen
Appen develops and market sophisticated computer-based speech and language technology products and services for major international information and communication companies and services for major international information and communication companies and government organizations.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.appen.com.au/index.php/en/home.html
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About Apple
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone. In the area of speech and language processing, Apple has been pursuing a wide range of R&D activities centered around speech recognition, speech synthesis, statistical language modeling, voice authentication, speaker adaptation, dialog interaction, metadata extraction, and semantic classification. Over the years, many of the ensuing technologies have been successfully deployed into released products, thus helping to enhance the user experience for millions of Apple customers around the world.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.apple.com
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About AT&T
AT&T is bringing it all together for our customers, from the revolutionary iPhone 3GS to next-generation TV services and sophisticated solutions for multi-national businesses. We're recognized as one of the leading worldwide providers of IP-based communication services to businesses. We also have the nation's fastest 3G network and the largest international coverage of any U.S. wireless carrier, offering the most phones that work in the most countries; the largest number of high speed Internet access subscribers in the United States.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.research.att.com
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About BBN
BBN is a high-technology company which provides research and development services. BBN is based next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It is perhaps best known for its work in the development of packet switching.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.| Website: http://www.bbn.com
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About Carnegie Speech
Carnegie Mellon University is dedicated to speech technology research, development and deployment. CMU has a historic position in computational speech research, and continues to test the limits of the art.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.| Website: http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu
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About Deutsche Telekom
Deutsche Telekom AG, DTAG is a telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It is the largest telecommunications company in Europe.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.telekom.com
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About European Media Laboratory GmbH (EML)
The European Media Laboratory GmbH is a private IT enterprise established by Klaus Tschira, one of the founders of the SAP AG software company. In accordance with its motto “Think beyond the Limits!”, EML is successfully pursuing research and development in the fields of human-computer interaction and automatic speech processing.
EML’s research results and products are integrated into market-ready IT solutions for everyday life, usable with-out tedious learning stages. EML collaborates closely with universities, research institutes, and industrial partners.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.eml.org
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About Google
Google Inc is an American public corporation specializing in Internet search. It also generates profits from advertising brought on its similarly free-to-user email, online mapping, office productivity, social networking and video-sharing services.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.google.com/research
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About IBM
International Business Machines, abbreviated IBM is a multinational computer, technology and IT consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, North Castle, New York, United States. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. IBM manufactures and sell computer hardware and software and offers infrastructure services, hosting services and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.research.ibm.com
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About Klwewl
Klewel is a spin-off of the Idiap Research Institute which is affilated with EPFL Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.klewel.com
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About Microsoft Research
Microsoft Research is a division of Microsoft, created in 1991 for researching various computer science topics and issues.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://research.microsoft.com/
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About Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories
Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories is the North American arm of the Corporate R&D organization of the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. As an open corporate lab, we collaborate with other research organizations, publish our results and measure our performance by the impact we have on the Mitsubishi Electric corporation and the world. We conduct application motivated basic research and advanced development.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.| Website: http://www.merl.com
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About Nokia
Nokia has sites for research and development, manufacture and sales in many countries throughout the world. As of December 2008, Nokia has R&D presence in 16 countries and employed 39,350 people in research and development, representing 31% of the group's total workforce. The Nokia Research Center, founded in 1986, is Nokia's industrial research unit consisting of about 500 researchers, engineers and scientists.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.nokia.com
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About Nuance
Nuance is the leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Our technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses, experience Nuance by calling directory assistance, getting account information, dictating patient records, telling a navigation system their destination or digitally reproducing documents that can be shared and searched. Making each of those experiences productive and compelling is what Nuance is all about.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.nuance.com
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About SAIL LABS Technology
SAIL LABS Technology is a leading global provider of speech recognition technology and was founded in 1999 in Vienna, Austria. We are one of the world's leading innovators in the field of Open source Intelligence (OSINT) and speech technology systems, creating cutting-edge software for speech and multimedia analysis solutions. SAIL LABS personnel has a proven track record in the field of natural language processing, acoustic modeling, language modeling, and speech recognition algorithms. This is complemented by profound skills and knowledge in software development, as well as linguistics, mathematics and computer science.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.sail-technology.com
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About SpeechCycle
SpeechCycle rich Phone Applications (RPAs) seamlessly integrate customizable voice user interfaces with enterprise applications and web services to deliver an immersive caller experience that is a generation beyond traditional natural language dialog systems.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.speechcycle.com
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About SRI International
SRI International is an independent, nonprofit research institute conducting client-sponsored research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses, foundations and other organizations. SRI also brings its innovations to the marketplace by licensing its intellectual property and creating new ventures.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.| Webiste: http://www.sri.com
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About Toshiba Research
Toshiba Research Europe Ltd in the United Kingdom is one of the globalised corporate level R&D organizations founded by Toshiba Corporation, Japan and consists of two laboratories, the Cambridge Research Laboratory (CRL) in Cambridge and the Telecommunications Research Laboratory (TRL) in Bristol.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.toshiba-europe.com/research/crl/stg/index.html
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About Vlingo
At Vlingo we unlock access to wireless data services. As the inventor of the mobile phone "voice user interface", Vlingo delivers a voice interface and technology that allows users to instantly access services and content on their device. These services include the ability to send text and email messages, call contacts, search the Web, update your Facebook or Twitter status and much more by just speaking into their phone.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.vlingo.com
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About Yahoo
Yahoo! Inc is an American public corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that provides Internet services worldwide. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine, Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, advertising, online mapping, video sharing, and social media websites and services.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.yahoo.com
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About Yap
Founded in 2006, Yap leverages a wealth of talent, in the art and science of speech recognition, to create a bulletproof foundation that can augment diverse services, from academic and commercial to government deployments. Our fully automated speech-to-text platform can enhance a wide array of third party applications or services, such as analytics, messaging, search, translation or voicemail. In the telecommunications sector, voice-driven capabilities offer end users a more natural way of interacting with their handsets, and are proven to deliver service providers higher ARPU from increased voice and data usage.
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | Website: http://www.yapme.com
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