SpeechTEK Announces Participants in Conference Keynotes

LEXINGTON, Ky.--Sept. 4, 2003--

A who's who in speech technology has signed on to participate in five executive keynote sessions.

More than two dozen executives from leading companies developing and applying speech technology solutions will participate in five keynote sessions at the 9th annual SpeechTEK Educational Conference and Exposition, September 29 - October 2 at the New York Marriott Marquis. (www.speechtek.com)

Conference organizers released the list of participants today, a virtual who's who of the speech technology industry. The five SpeechTEK keynote presentations, three Wednesday and two Thursday, are structured to facilitate debate and discussion among industry leaders and interaction with attendees. http://www.speechtek.com/conference/keynotes.html

"Speech solutions have become an integral part of the business strategies for organizations all around the world," says John Kelly, publisher and editor-in-chief of Speech Technology Magazine, principal sponsor of SpeechTEK 2003. "We've expanded to five executive keynotes this year to make sure all of the big issues are fully addressed and conference participants get all their questions answered."

SpeechTEK traditionally begins with the Speech Leaders Roundtable: The State of the Industry, an analysis by key executives of where the industry is and where it is going. (8:00 AM, Wednesday, October 1) These industry leaders share their views in a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred discussion about speech and its impact. This Executive Keynote Panel pulls together industry visionaries who are leading the efforts in speech and can address your questions about speech technology issues and developments.

Participating:
Charles Berger, CEO, Nuance
Gene Cox, program director Pervasive Computing Product Management, IBM
Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, vice president Natural Interactive Services Division, 
    Microsoft
Stuart Patterson, President, ScanSoft
Eric Shepcaro, vice president Managed Applications Services, AT&T.
John Kelly, publisher and editor-in-chief, Speech Technology Magazine,
    moderator

As speech technology becomes mainstream, more and more companies are recognizing speech as an integral part of their IT solutions. Serious questions about short- and long-term strategies are having a major impact within organizations of all types and sizes on the various ways to use speech and on the speech industry as a whole. The Leaders Exchange: Capitalizing on Speech (10:30 AM, Wednesday, October 1) will put the spotlight on five senior executives representing leading IT organizations involved in speech debating how the industry is likely to react to a growing and volatile market.

Participating:
Paul Burke, senior member of the technical staff, Hewlett-Packard
XD Huang, general manager, .NET Speech Technologies Group, Microsoft
Tim Moynihan, director of product marketing, Intel
David Nahamoo, senior manager, IBM; and Curtis Tuckey, director of 
    voice laboratory, Oracle
Donna Fluss, DMG Consulting, industry analyst, moderator

Integrating Speech: Executive Debate (4:30 PM, Wednesday, October 1) will focus on how speech should be integrated into existing communications infrastructures including a discussion of best practices, how to lower deployment costs, the future of standards, hosted verses on-premises solutions and more. These leading executives will provide insightful and thought provoking commentary to make us all think of better and more useful ways to adopt speech into organizations.

Participating:
Bill Andrews, director of contact management, AT&T
Stuart Berkowitz, president and CEO, VoiceGenie
Eric Giler, CEO, Brooktrout, Inc.
Maureen Govern, senior vice president and CTO, Convergys
Dan Hawkins, Datamonitor, moderator

AT&T, Bell Canada, Blackfoot, CIBC, Sears, Thrifty, and Time are participating in The Customer Forum: 2003's Most Innovative Solutions (8:00 AM, Thursday, October 2). The companies have all been recognized by Speech Technology Magazine in 2003 for creative speech-service applications and will candidly discuss their deployment challenges. Learn how they evaluated speech as a solution, what their organizations think now that speech has been implemented and most importantly what their customers think of speech. More details concerning this Executive Keynote Session coming next week.

Another SpeechTEK tradition is the closing keynote session with leading industry analysts. Ask the Analysts (4:00 PM, Thursday, October 2) will review the major issues coming out of SpeechTEK 2003 and cover any issues attendees don't feel were given adequate attention during event. Following this Executive Session is the closing discussion of the Speech Solutions CHALLENGE led by Mark Plakias of the Zelos Group. Plakias will profile the participants and discuss the Peoples Choice Award for the CHALLENGE.

Participating:
Dan Hawkins, managing analyst, Datamonitor
Paul Kowal, president, Kowal and Associates
Judith Markowitz, president, J. Markowitz Consulting
Bill Meisel, president, TMA Associates
Mark Plakais, senior consultant, Zelos Group
Moderator, Dr. Jim Larson, manager, advanced human input/output, 
    Intel Corporation, chairman W3C Voice Browsers Working Group and 
    SpeechTEK conference co-chair

Several thousand corporate executives and managers are expected at SpeechTEK 2003. Dr. Larson, believes SpeechTEK offers attendees the broadest and most comprehensive conference agenda of any speech technology event. "SpeechTEK is the one conference where all-points-of view are represented," he says. "Our goal every year is to plan an event where someone can come and get an answer to any question they have about voice communications technology."

In addition to the keynote sessions there are 59 additional educational seminars featuring over 175 industry experts, analysts, authors and more. Over 100 companies will exhibit the latest solutions at the SpeechTEK EXPO, The Voice Solutions Showcase, which runs concurrently with the conference.

Launched in 1995, The SpeechTEK International Exposition and Educational Conference is recognized worldwide as the industry's premier event focusing on products, services, applications, solutions and innovations in speech technology. The annual trade show and educational conference attracts a global network of companies and enterprise customers who are developing and implementing speech products.

For information about conference registration SpeechTEK contact Chris Nolan, 1-877-993-9767 or click on https://secure.iproduction.com/registration-speechtek/

2003 sponsors are Microsoft, ScanSoft, Unisys, Convergys, Brooktrout Technology, IBM, AT&T, Intel, Loquendo, Nuance, SandCherry, LumenVox, and West Corporation.