The REAL Challenge throws out the gauntlet to students, challenging them to define the applications of the future where real folks will really need to use speech to interact with things. This Challenge is conducted by researchers around the world and coordinated by the Dialog Research Center at Carnegie Mellon University. It is partially sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
About two decades ago, researchers were using the internet, mostly to send and receive email. They were aware of the potential that it held and waited to see when and how the general public would adopt it. Practically a decade later, thanks to providers such as AmericaOnline, who had found how to make it easy to use, everyday people started to use the internet. And this has dramatically changed our lives. In the same way, we all know that speech is a natural means of communication and that we will eventually be rid of the keyboard when we want to speak to objects. The big question is what is the interface or application that will bring us into that era. We strongly believe that students are the ones who have the requisite free ranging imagination that will come up with an answer to this. And this is what they need to figure out in response to our Challenge.
Students can work alone or, exceptionally, in groups of two to come up with an idea and refine it. They will fill out a form describing their idea and why real folks would use it. If accepted, they will be invited to attend the REAL Challenge workshop on June 21, 2014 (with travel funding provided by the Challenge organizers for themselves, and an adult if they are minors). At the Workshop, they will present their ideas to other students and to major researchers in the field of automatic speech processing and spoken dialog processing. The most successful students will then team up with research teams in order to make their ideas a reality. Results will be presented at a workshop in the summer of 2015. There will be prizes for the best applications.
Each participating student will be given a mentor, someone who is a speech or spoken dialog researcher, who can help them and answer questions. The mentor can advise on how to fill out the proposal form and tell the student about tools they have and what they have created in the past. They can also describe what it is like to work in a research team. And they can serve as a sounding board for the students as they develop their ideas.
Participating students will also be able to attend webcasts on the following topics:
- what are some of the successful existing applications, how successful are they
- what techniques are used in speech and spoken dialog, what tools are available
- how to make a poster and how to present your ideas at the workshop.
Students who plan to participate can contact the organizers of the Challenge at any time to indicate their intention to participate, ask for a mentor and be put on the REAL Challenge mailing list by sending email to realchallenge@speechinfo.org.
Applications for the summer 2014 workshop are due on March 20, 2014. They will be reviewed by the scientific committee for quality and the accepted students will be notified by April 20, 2014. The application form is below. It must be accompanied by a recommendation from a teacher, a school guidance counselor, or a gifted program counselor.
Return to our website often for more information.
http://dialrc.org/realchallenge/ |
