Speech Industry Names Top Performers
Each year the speech technology industry recognizes significant contributions and achievements of individuals and companies within the industry.
The Top Ten Leaders Speech and the Speech Solutions Awards are sponsored by Speech Technology Magazine and selected by their peers in an online poll. The awards were presented last night at the SpeechTEK Gala and Awards Ceremony sponsored by SpeechWorks and their partners. After nominations are submitted to Speech Technology Magazine, members of the industry vote online at http://www.speechtechmag.com to select those awards recipients. The Top Ten Leaders in Speech are recognized as the 10 most influential people in the speech technology industry over the previous year. 2002 recipients are:
- Steve Chambers, Sr VP of Sales and Chief Marketing Officer, SpeechWorks
- Ron Croen, Chairman and CEO, Nuance
- Eric Doggett, Chief Executive Officer, Glenayre
- Dr. X.D. Huang, General Manager, .Net Speech Technologies Group, Microsoft Corp
- Dr. James A. Larson, Chairman, W3C Voice Browser Working Group
- Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, Corporate Vice President, Natural Interactive Services Division, Microsoft Corp
- Mike McCue, President, Tellme Networks
- W.S. "Ozzie" Osborne, Director of Segment Strategy, IBM Pervasive Computing
- Stuart Patterson, Chief Executive Officer, SpeechWorks
- Robert P. Schechter, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, NMS Communications
For the first year, STM is awarding the Lifetime Achievement Award. That award went to Dr. Victor Zue, Director, MIT Laboratory of Computer Science.
The Speech Solutions Awards are presented to companies for outstanding accomplishments bringing new products and services to the marketplace. These were voted on by the readers of STM.
- Best TTS Solution/Desktop - AT&T Natural Voices, Desktop Edition
- Best TTS Solution/Telephony - SpeechWorks, National Weather Service
- Best Verification Solution - Nuance, Verifier 3.0
- Best Embedded Solution - SpeechWorks, Speech2Go
- Best Voice Platform - Tellme Networks, Voice Application Network
- Best Persona - SpeechWorks, Julie, the voice of Amtrak
- Best ASR Solution/Desktop - IBM, ViaVoice
- Best ASR Solution/Telephony - Nuance, Nuance 8.0
- Best Input Device Solution - Clarity, CVC
- Most Innovative Solution - Phonetic Systems, Fonecta Deployment.
"The recipients of the Top Ten Leaders in Speech and Speech Solutions Awards are clearly deserving of the recognition they receive from their peers," says John Kelly, publisher and editor-in-chief of Speech Technology Magazine. "They are the force behind the innovations and energy that are driving the growth and stature of the speech technology industry. Speech Technology Magazine extends its congratulations to all this year's recipients."