Odyssey 2024

Odyssey 2024: The Speaker and Language Recognition Workshop will be hosted at Quebec City Convention Center, Quebec, Canada, during June 18 – June 21, 2024. 

The workshop is an ISCA tutorial and research workshop held in cooperation with the ISCA Speaker and Language Characterization special interest group. In an age where artificial intelligence and machine learning are redefining human-computer interaction, it is imperative that we address the disparities that can arise in speaker and language recognition systems. These disparities often affect individuals with diverse accents, linguistic backgrounds, or speech variations, creating a digital divide that must be bridged.

The theme of this workshop, "No Speaker Left Behind", underscores our commitment to overcoming these challenges. We are dedicated to forging a path towards more equitable and accessible voice technology, where every voice is recognized, understood, and empowered.

This workshop will bring together a diverse community of researchers, industry experts, policymakers, and practitioners from around the world. Our goal is to provide a platform for deep discussions, knowledge sharing, and the presentation of cutting-edge research and technologies. By fostering an inclusive and collaborative environment, we aim to develop a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by underrepresented speakers and to explore new avenues to address them.

Attendees can anticipate an engaging program that encompasses keynote addresses, panel discussions, poster presentations, and technical talks covering a wide spectrum of speaker and language recognition topics. This year, we extend a warm invitation to submissions on interconnected areas like speaker characterization in health applications. These include but are not limited to research on emotion recognition for mental health, diagnosing diseases and syndromes through speech analysis, and exploring the nexus between hearing and its influence on speech production. The addition of these novel themes will facilitate fruitful interactions between researchers from those fields and the speaker and language recognition community.

Furthermore, the aim of this workshop is to continue offering ample networking opportunities, allowing participants to connect with like-minded professionals, establish new partnerships, and engage in dialogue that has the potential to shape the future of speaker and language recognition systems. This aligns with the successful precedent set by previous workshops in Martigny (1994), Avignon (1998), Crete (2001), Toledo

(2004), San Juan (2006), Stellenbosch (2008), Brno (2010), Singapore (2012), Joensuu (2014), Bilbao (2016), Les Sables d’Olonne (2018), Tokyo (2020), and China (2022). 

Join us at the 2024 Odyssey workshop on Speaker and Language Recognition: "No Speaker Left Behind" and be a part of the collaborative effort to advance the field, and promote inclusivity. Together, we can forge a future where the speaker and language recognition technology truly serves and empowers every individual, leaving no speaker behind.