ISSUES FOR COMMENT AND DISCUSSION BY THE PANEL

A. Research Collaborations

1. From the perspective of your company/agency, what are 
   the most important components of an academic site's 
   activities? Do they concern the specific research 
   conducted at the site? The manner in which students are 
   trained? The potential for exchanges of individuals 
   between sites? The regular interaction and exchange of 
   information? What other components are important?
   
2. In what ways can academic research sites most fruitfully 
   collaborate with your company/agency, as well as with 
   industry and government in general?
   
3. In what ways would it be possible for industrial sites 
   to keep academic research relevant to speech technology 
   (without sacrificing the more speculative, open-ended 
   nature of academic work)? 
   
4. Do you believe there are advantages in academic sites 
   forming collaborative networks that go beyond the 
   traditional collaborations formed for individual 
   research projects? And if so, what would these be? Do 
   you believe that geographical proximity is an important 
   factor in collaboration or not? Are there any 
   disadvantages of forming collaborative networks among 
   academic sites? And if so, what would these be?
   
5. What are the most important qualities you look for in 
   hiring individuals from academic sites for your research 
   group?
   
6. What concerns do you have concerning intellectual 
   property that might arise from academic-industry 
   research collaborations? Are there currently mechanisms 
   in place at your company/agency to handle such concerns? 
   If so, what would these be?
   
B. The Future of Speech Technology

1. Are there research topics that you believe academic 
   research sites should focus on over the next five years 
   that industry itself is unlikely to address during this 
   interval? If so, what would these be and how would you 
   view the relationship between academic and corporate 
   sites pertaining to these research topics?
   
2. In view of the current demand for speech-tech-trained 
   individuals in industry (at the Ph.D, MS and BS levels) 
   how should academic institutions balance the amount of 
   training focused on basic research relative to the more 
   practical side of speech-tech for students ultimately 
   destined for industry? From your own perspective, what 
   is currently missing from academic programs? 
   
3. What do you foresee as the most significant challenges 
   in the development of truly robust speech recognition 
   systems that work under a wide variety of acoustic and 
   speaking conditions?

4. Is speech recognition and synthesis technology ever 
   likely to be as reliable as what humans are capable of 
   doing? Are humans ever likely to feel completely 
   comfortable verbally interacting with machines? If not, 
   what impact are these issues likely to have on the 
   research performed at academic sites?
   
5. Do you view a speech-controlled internet as being a key 
   technology, or will individuals keep using a 
   mouse/keyboard and (perhaps shortly) a palm-top PDA 
   (with pen) to interact with the web and internet?
   
6. What do you believe is (are) likely to be the key 
   financially successful application(s) of speech 
   recognition technology in the near future, as well as in 
   the long term - dictation, telecommunications, hands-
   free interaction (as would occur in a car) or something 
   else? What are the long term financial prospects for 
   speech technology in general? Is it likely to make large 
   amounts of money for companies in and of itself? Or will 
   it be more like a commodity that is integrated into 
   larger applications and services?