IIT Mandi hosts 15th winter school on speech and audio processing

The Institute has invited top international researchers in machine perception, soundscape analysis and deep learning, which deals with theories on the human ability to make sense of surroundings using sound, and create algorithms which can perform similar tasks

Mandi: Indian Institute of Technology Mandi is hosting the 15th Winter School on Speech and Audio Processing (WiSSAP) 2020. Inviting national and international researchers and professionals to train participants on the best practices in the area of machine listening, the winter school is being hosted by IIT Mandi from 8th to 10th January 2020. The theme for WiSSAP 2020 is Machine Listening: making sense of sound. The event will host invited talks and tutorials by eminent researchers in the field of machine perception, soundscape analysis and deep learning.

Machine listening deals with creating algorithms which can perform tasks based on the human ability to make sense of surroundings using sound, through computer simulations. Machine listening can aid researchers in developing intelligent assistive devices, self-driving cars, enhanced human-computer interactions, and so on.

Delivering the welcome address, Prof. Timothy A. Gonsalves, Director, IIT Mandi, said, "WiSSAP 2020 is an important step to leadership in Data Science for IIT Mandi. Fields like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Signal Processing are seeing rapid growth in a world where computing technology is growing exponentially. This School will provide participants from diverse backgrounds an exposure to different models and tools of machine listening."

Jointly sponsored by IEEE Signal Processing Society, National Mission on Himalayan Studies, Samsung, Amazon Alexa, ZAPR Media Labs and Pindrop, WiSSAP 2020 is hosting a number of international speakers including Dr. Paris Smaragdis from University of Illinois, Urbana – Champaign, Dr. Dan Stowell from Queen Mary University of London and Mr. Sharath Adavanne from Tampere University, Finland. Over the next three days, the invited international experts will discuss in-depth the latest research and the new research directions in the area of machine listening.

Dr. Paris Smaragdis will cover the topics related to the basics of Digital Signal Processing (DSP), Matrix factorisation for audio, and Deep learning for source separation. Dr. Dan Stowell will cover the topics related to Machine learning for audio, Environmental machine listening, and Learning with limited data. Sharath Adavanne will deliver an expert lecture on Sound event localisation and detection.

Speaking about the impact of Winter School, Prof. Padmanabhan Rajan, Associate Professor, School of Computing and Electrical Engineering, IIT Mandi, said, "The objective of WiSSAP 2020 is to expose students and researchers to the exciting field of machine listening which has applications in various domains including robotics, smart devices and so on. There is a tremendous scope in machine listening in the age of artificial intelligence-driven products and services"

The focus of WiSSAP-2020 is on Machine Listening, a challenging area of research. It refers to a vast collection of techniques developed over the years with the aim to improve the algorithms of machine listening with respect to machine perception, soundscape analysis and deep learning. With varied applications like self-driving cars, intelligent assistive devices and enhanced human-computer interaction, machine listening brings together various domains like audio signal processing and modelling, artificial intelligence and cognitive science In addition to these, there will be two lab sessions where participants will be involved in building machine listening algorithms.