Call for Proposals - ASRU 2019

Following on the success of the bi-annual ASRU workshop over the past few decades, the IEEE Speech and Language Technical Committee invites proposals to host the 2019 IEEE Workshop on Automatic Speech Recognition and Understanding (ASRU-2019). Past ASRU workshops have fostered a collegiate atmosphere through a thoughtful selection of venues, thus offering a unique opportunity for researchers to interact and learn.

The proposal should include the information outlined below.

• Workshop location and practicalities
  • Geographical location
  • Workshop venue (facilities, meeting rooms, network access during the workshop, audio/visual equipment)
  • Accommodation -- hotel availability and pricing
  • Meals
  • Transportation options -- major airports, logistics, visas
  • Climate
• Approximate workshop dates
  • Previous workshops have been held in the month of December
  • Status of venue -- whether workshop dates are being held pending IEEE SLTC selection  
• Approximate total cost to participants to attend, including accommodation, meals, and registration fees.
• Estimated budget for 200-300+ participants and expected sponsorships, including venue costs, administration, banquet, coffee breaks, publication costs, etc. 
• Committee Personnel
  • General chair(s)
  • Technical chairs
  • Local arrangements chair(s)
  • Other committee members and roles
• Tentative program
  • Dates for paper submission, notification of acceptance, proposals for demonstrations, early registration
  • Reception, talks, posters, demo session, banquet, etc.
  • Substantial program additions/changes vs. past instances of ASRU

The deadline for proposals is Friday, June 1, 2018.  Send proposals and questions to the workshop sub-committee: Jason Williams (jdw@ALUMNI.PRINCETON.EDU), Raul Fernandez (fernanra@us.ibm.com), Tim Fingscheidt (t.fingscheidt@tu-bs.de), and Kai Yu (kai.yu@sjtu.edu.cn).  In June, the IEEE SLTC will review proposals, and selection results are expected by July 1, 2018.

If you are interested in submitting a proposal, we encourage you to contact the workshop sub-committee in advance of submitting a proposal.  They can provide an example of a past successful proposal and example budget.  Further, proposers who make contact before Friday 6 April 2018 may be invited to briefly present in-person at the annual IEEE SLTC meeting at ICASSP 2018, 15-20 April 2018, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to obtain feedback from the SLTC (https://2018.ieeeicassp.org/).  Presentations should be reasonably specific but need not be complete.  Note that the SLTC does not have funding available for travel to ICASSP.

The organizers of the ASRU workshop do not have to be SLTC members, and we encourage submissions from all potential organizers.  IEEE SLTC members are welcome to participate on proposals, and the organizing committees of past ASRU events have included many SLTC members.  To maintain fairness of selection, SLTC members who are affiliated with an ASRU 2019 proposal will not participate in the ASRU 2019 selection vote.  Further, the members of the workshops sub-committee may not be affiliated with any ASRU 2019 proposal.  Please feel free to distribute this call for proposals far and wide, and invite members of the speech and language community at large to submit a proposal to organize the next ASRU workshop.

For more information on the most recent workshops, please see:

https://asru2017.org for information about ASRU 2017 in Okinawa, Japan

http://asru2015.org for information about ASRU 2015 in Scottsdale, Arizona

http://asru2013.org for information about ASRU 2013 in Olomouc, Czech Republic

And feel free to contact the workshops sub-committee with questions.

Jason Williams (jdw@ALUMNI.PRINCETON.EDU(link sends e-mail))

Raul Fernandez (fernanra@us.ibm.com(link sends e-mail))

Tim Fingscheidt (t.fingscheidt@tu-bs.de(link sends e-mail))

Kai Yu (kai.yu@sjtu.edu.cn(link sends e-mail))