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SpeechTEK Europe 2010
26 - 27 May 2010 • Copthorne Tara Hotel • London, UK
SpeechTEK University • 25 May 2010
SpeechTEK Europe 2010 - Thursday, 27 May 2010
Track A
The Future of Speech Technology
09:00 - 10:00
Wolfgang Wahlster, CEO and Director, German Research Centre for AI - DFKI GmbH

Professor Wahlster provides an invaluable overview of research in European universities and company laboratories in the areas of speech, multimodal, and multilingual technologies, looking forward to technologies that will be available in the market place within two years. His keynote will help attendees develop plans for the types of applications they will be able to build and deploy in the future.

Professor Wahlster is the Director and CEO of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and a Professor of Computer Science at Saarland University (Saarbrücken, Germany). In addition, he is the Head of the Intelligent User Interfaces Lab at DFKI. He has published more than 170 technical papers and 8 books on language technology and intelligent user interfaces.

Sponsored By
Coffee break in the Exhibition Hall
10:00 - 10:30
A201 – Designing Real World IVR Applications
10:30 - 11:15
MODERATOR: Susan Hura, Principal - SpeechUsability

Experienced developers present their key learnings and insights for developing speech applications for the real world. Brian Budd describes an approach to design documentation that has successfully been used during the implementation for a major UK financial institution. Michael McTear explains the design of an application for diabetics to use the telephone to report their readings for weight, blood sugar and blood pressure on a regular basis with speech or touchtone input and to receive feedback on users’ conditions.

Documenting the Complete Design
Brian Budd, Lead Engineer, GRB Technology - Barclays Bank PLC
Design of an Automated Voice Application for Home Monitoring of Diabetes
Michael McTear, Professor - Ulster University
A202 – Panel: Advanced Speech Recognition Techniques and Experiences
11:30 - 12:15
MODERATOR: James Larson, Vice President - Larson Technical Services
Rebecca Jonson, Research Manager, Products dept. - Artificial Solutions
Karl Pichotta, User Interface Software Engineer - Versay Solutions
Guillaume Leroux, IVR and Voice Services Expert - France Telecom - Orange Labs
Jan Dziekan, VUI Expert - Telekomunikacja Polska R&D

Statistical Language Models (SLM) are an alternative to the context-free grammars frequently used by speech recognition systems. What are the pros and cons and the strengths and weaknesses of SLMs? Are SLMs really natural language processing? How expensive are SLMs to create and maintain? How to implement SLMs and make them work efficiently? How can the dialogue manager recover when an SLM fails to recognise the user’s utterance correctly?

Lunch
12:15 - 13:45
A203 – Panel: New Uses of Text-to-Speech Synthesis
13:45 - 14:30
MODERATOR: James Larson, Vice President - Larson Technical Services
Lars Ballieu Christensen, Managing Director - Sensus ApS
Mario Soro Fernandez - Telefonica Spain
Carlos Gonzalez Alvarez, Director IT Division - ICEX - Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade
Matthew Aylett, Chief Technical Officer - CereProc Ltd

With the improvement in quality of human-like voices generated by text-to-speech synthesis engines, new applications and uses are emerging. This session reveals how you can put speech synthesis to work in new ways. Learn how one company uses a synthesised voice as its brand. Discover how Interactive Digital Assistants created by integrating synthesised voice with an avatar can be accessed both via desktop computers and mobile devices. Find out how Braille can be generated from text, making voice dialogues available to visually impaired users.

Learn how synthetic voices can be personalized to sound like a specific person, and what new applications can be enabled by personalized synthetic voices.

 

Coffee break in the Exhibition Hall
14:30 - 15:00
A204 – Analytics
15:00 - 16:00
MODERATOR: Caroline Leathem, Interaction Specialist - Verizon Business EMEA

Telephone recordings, email, chat, surveys, and tweets, all contain valuable information about how your organisation performs. This session will reveal how to capture and analyse information from multiple formats and media to improve business. Learn the pros and cons of various analytics technologies and how the right combination of technologies delivers higher accuracy, more efficiency and better intelligence. Discover how to analyse this information and determine what actions to take to improve business practices.

Multichannel Analytics: The Voice of the Customer Extends Beyond Speech
Steven Graff, Vice President of Technology and Chief Architect, etalk - Autonomy
How Speech Analytics Delivers the Right Answers Even Without Knowing the Questions
Rahm Fehr, Director of Speech Analytics EMEA - Verint Systems
Cutting Through the Haze – Solving Business Challenges with Interaction Analytics
Allan Drew, Divisional Director – Customer Services - London Borough of Lambeth
Conference Closes
16:00 - 17:00

SpeechTEK Europe’s Avatar Challenge presents a collection of newly-developed avatars designed for a range of business applications. Find out the winners of the ‘expert's prize’ and ‘people's choice’ in SpeechTEK’s Avatar Challenge.

Track B
The Future of Speech Technology
09:00 - 10:00
Wolfgang Wahlster, CEO and Director, German Research Centre for AI - DFKI GmbH

Professor Wahlster provides an invaluable overview of research in European universities and company laboratories in the areas of speech, multimodal, and multilingual technologies, looking forward to technologies that will be available in the market place within two years. His keynote will help attendees develop plans for the types of applications they will be able to build and deploy in the future.

Professor Wahlster is the Director and CEO of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and a Professor of Computer Science at Saarland University (Saarbrücken, Germany). In addition, he is the Head of the Intelligent User Interfaces Lab at DFKI. He has published more than 170 technical papers and 8 books on language technology and intelligent user interfaces.

Sponsored By
Coffee break in the Exhibition Hall
10:00 - 10:30
B201 – Testing and Tuning
10:30 - 11:15
MODERATOR: Nava Shaked, Head of Multidisiplinary studies - HIT Holon Institute of Technology. Israel

Testing and tuning of speech applications are vital for good customer experiences. Darren Chapple will explain how to integrate testing into the overall project plan, how to minimise the impact of outside influences on testing, and how to improve testing efficiency. Stuart Walsh addresses the new problem of testing and tuning systems using VoIP. Learn how to measure end-to-end voice quality, how to test VoIP networks and assure their scalability, and how to improve the overall technical performance.

Quality Assurance Techniques for Voice Solutions
Darren Chapple, Quality Assurance Lead and Project Manager, EMEA Professional Services - Verizon Business
Fine Tuning VoIP and Networks for Optimal Performance with Speech Technology
Stuart Walsh, Head of Engineering - Empirix
B202 – Panel: The Ultimate VUI Q&A
11:30 - 12:15
MODERATOR: Susan Hura, Principal - SpeechUsability
Caroline Leathem, Interaction Specialist - Verizon Business EMEA
Manja Baudis, Head of Speech Science - Die Lautmaler - Manja Baudis & Zeno Wolze GbR
David Attwater, Senior Scientist - Enterprise Integration Group
Oliver Huber, Senior Speech Consultant, Global Speech Engineering Team - Avaya
Lunch
12:15 - 13:45
B203 – E-Learning Applications of Speech Technology
13:45 - 14:30
MODERATOR: Caroline Leathem, Interaction Specialist - Verizon Business EMEA

The education sector presents one of the biggest opportunities for speech technology. This session reveals how the use of speech technology services delivered on mobile phones can provide educational services to millions who would otherwise be underserved. A fascinating case study demonstrates how speech recognition technology can be combined with other criteria to assess the speaker’s pronunciation quality. Learn about cloud computing architecture and the challenges with mobile solutions, business problems, use cases, business models, marketing challenges, and the problems of integrating speech with visual interfaces.

Speech Technologies on Mobile Devices in Education
David Topolewski, CEO and Mobile Learning Evangelist - Qooco
Using e-learning and ASR to Improve the Pronunciation of Foreign Languages
Carlos Laparra, CTO - VoxWeb Voice Solutions
Miguel de la Rocha, UK Country Manager - VoxWeb Voice Solutions
Coffee break in the Exhibition Hall
14:30 - 15:00
B204 – Cutting Edge Advances in Speech Technology
15:00 - 16:00
MODERATOR: Nava Shaked, Head of Multidisiplinary studies - HIT Holon Institute of Technology. Israel

These presentations describe three new technologies that have the potential to improve business practices and make business more competitive. Learn how high-definition voice provides businesses with a crystal clear, high-quality real-time conversation. Discover a new approach to spontaneous speech transcription and how it can improve real-time conversation. Review various methods, philosophies, and related pros and cons about how to implement speaking avatars on the Web, kiosks, mobile applications, embedded devices, and live TV shows.

HD Voice, What's all the Noise About? The Potential and the Pitfalls.
Niklas Enbom, VP, Software Development - Global IP Solutions
Efficient Algorithm for Transcription of Spontaneous Speech
Ami Moyal, Head of Afeka Center for Language Processing - Afeka Academic College of Engineering
Authoring the Behaviour of a Digital Assistant in Multimodal Environment
Carlo Benvenuti, Sales Director - H-care Srl
Conference Closes
16:00 - 17:00

SpeechTEK Europe’s Avatar Challenge presents a collection of newly-developed avatars designed for a range of business applications. Find out the winners of the ‘expert's prize’ and ‘people's choice’ in SpeechTEK’s Avatar Challenge.




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