Welcome to Odyssey 2026 –The Speaker and Language Recognition Workshop– hosted at Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal, during June 23 – June 26, 2026.
[CHECK] The workshop is an ISCA tutorial and research event organized in cooperation with the ISCA Speaker and Language Characterization Special Interest Group.
In this edition, we aim to build upon the previous edition’s focus on diversity, moving beyond traditional speaker and language recognition systems toward broader speaker characterization. This includes not only addressing disparities that affect individuals with diverse accents, linguistic backgrounds, or speech patterns, but also considering emotional states, physical traits, speech-affecting conditions, and more. Beyond, recent advances in characterizing this wide range of speaker attributes raise important privacy and security concerns that must be carefully discussed.
This workshop will bring together a diverse community of researchers, industry experts, policymakers, and practitioners from around the world. Our goal is to provide a platform for deep discussions, knowledge sharing, and the presentation of cutting-edge research and technologies. By fostering an inclusive and collaborative environment, we aim to develop a deeper understanding of the open challenges in speaker characterization, explore new avenues to address them, and discuss the implications of current developments related to privacy and security.
Attendees can anticipate an engaging program that encompasses keynote talks, panel discussions, poster presentations, and technical talks covering a wide spectrum of speaker and language recognition topics. This year, we extend a warm invitation to submissions on interconnected areas like speaker characterization in health applications and privacy and security in speech. The addition of these novel themes will facilitate fruitful interactions between researchers from those fields and the speaker and language recognition community.
Furthermore, the aim of this workshop is to continue offering ample networking opportunities, allowing participants to connect with like-minded professionals, establish new partnerships, and engage in dialogue that has the potential to shape the future of speaker and language recognition systems. This aligns with the successful precedent set by previous workshops in Martigny (1994), Avignon (1998), Crete (2001), Toledo (2004), San Juan (2006), Stellenbosch (2008), Brno (2010), Singapore (2012), Joensuu (2014), Bilbao (2016), Les Sables d’Olonne (2018), Tokyo (2020), Beijing (2022), and Quebec City (2024).
Join us at the 2026 Odyssey workshop on Speaker and Language Recognition and be a part of the collaborative effort to advance the field.
