ISCA DL 2007 Trip Report: prepared by Chin-Hui Lee (Nov. 19, 2007)
1. Leaving ATL at dawn on Nov. 7 and returning to ATL at night on Nov. 18
2. First Talk in Singapore:
 Location: Nanyang Technological University
 Time: 9:30-11:30am on Nov. 9, 2007
 Attendance: 50 people from academia, industry and government
 Topic: Fundamentals and Technical Challenges in Speech Recognition
 Impact: In addition to the increasing speech research effort led by Dr.
Haizhou Li at Institute for Infocomm Research, the lecture also raised
interest in government agencies to invest more funding in speech R&D.
3. Second Talk in Manila:
 Location: De La Salle University
 Time: 9:10-11:00am on Nov. 12, 2007
 Event: “Cutting Edge Researches in Digital Signal Processing Lectures”
 Attendance: about 200 undergraduate students, and 50 DSP researchers
 Topic: Statistical Natural Language Processing: Lessons from Automatic
Speech Recognition
 Impact: The study of Tagalog, the key local language, has been gathering
momentum. The lecture has opened up dialogues between researchers in
the Philippines with the international speech community. We expect a
local speech community to be formed soon for initial database collection
and evaluation methodologies. There is a recent increase in funding for
speech research. Prof. Rachel Edita O. Roxas will take the lead.
4. Third Talk in Bangkok:
 Location: Chulalongkorn University
 Time: 1:15-3:00pm on Nov. 15, 2007
 Event: Second Speech Community Forum
 Attendance: 60 people from academia, industry and government
 Topic: Fundamentals and Technical Challenges in Speech Recognition
 Impact: Dr. Chai Wutiwiwatchai of the National Electronics and
Computer Technology Center hosted the visit as a part of Thailand’s 2nd
Speech Forum (the first was held in Feb. 2007). The lecture again opens
up dialogues between Thai speech researchers with international speech
communities. Dr. Wutiwiwatchai has set a long term goal to bid for an
Interspeech conference in Bangkok in the future.
5. Summary: I think ISCA is serving developing countries well with the planned DL
tours. The Lecturer also acts as an ambassador. I found people are very engaging
in such comfortable settings when the DL fits into part of an event, such as in
both Manila and Bangkok. The DL is also a contact for follow-up discussions.