World’s largest spoken language conference, INTERSPEECH 2023, to get underway in Dublin

16 August 2023

Almost 2000 international scientists, researchers and professionals will descend on Dublin this weekend for INTERSPEECH 2023, the premier international conference on the science and technology of spoken language processing. Taking place from August 20th to 24th in Dublin’s Convention Centre, the conference is being organised by ISCA (International Speech Communication Association) and the SFI ADAPT Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology at Trinity College Dublin. Three ADAPT Centre PI’s are General Chairs of the event – Professor Naomi Harte of Trinity College Dublin, Professor Julie Carson-Berndsen of UCD, and Professor Gareth Jones of DCU.

The theme of this year’s conference is ‘inclusion’ and for the first time, INTERSPEECH announced the integration of cutting-edge AI-driven technology that will provide automatic closed captioning in real-time for delegates.  Powered by Speechmatics, this pioneering initiative signifies a huge leap forward in conference innovation, accessibility, and global standards.  

Speaking about the conference, Co-Chair of INTERSPEECH and Principal Investigator at the SFI ADAPT Centre at Trinity College Dublin, Professor Naomi Harte, said: “We are delighted to be hosting INTERSPEECH in Dublin.  It highlights the strengths of Ireland’s expertise in the area of language technology and provides a platform for international scientific debate on the transformative power of speech technology and the pivotal role it plays in fostering inclusivity and effective communication.”   

Speechmatics CTO Will Williams commented: “For a research community that has made so much progress on the Speech Recognition problem, it’s only fitting to live transcribe our own events and improve accessibility. It’s Speechmatics’ pleasure to offer this for INTERSPEECH 2023. We hope our mission to ‘understand every voice’ translates into more engaging talks where you don’t miss a word.”

The conference will feature the latest hot-topic issues in the area of science and technology of spoken language processing and feature a number of internationally renowned speakers. Topics to be discussed include mitigating AI bias in speech processing systems; speech and language in health; connecting speech technology for children’s speech; and multi-talker methods in speech processing.  In addition a number of international speakers will present keynote addresses.  These include Professor Shrikanth (Shri) Narayanan from the University of Southern California.  He will highlight some advances and possibilities in this multifaceted speech research realm, including capturing and modeling the human vocal instrument during speaking and how related technological and clinical applications leverage this technology.  Professor Virginia Dignum of Umeå University in Sweden will speak about balancing innovation and social responsibility and the need for a responsible approach to AI that emphasizes trust, cooperation and the common good.  Prof Martine Grice of the University of Cologne will present her research on the relevance of intonation for directing attention and boosting recall.

The diverse programme for INTERSPEECH 2023 offers something for everyone and the conference is now offering a day registration rate for anyone interested in attending.  More information about the conference can be found on the website (https://interspeech2023.org).

Conference management for INTERSPEECH 2023 is being done by Keynote PCO, one of Ireland’s leading conference organisers.