Blizzard Challenge 2021

Read these first

• First, please read the Call for Participation in the Blizzard Challenge 2021 in PDF format
• Then, read and agree to the Blizzard Challenge 2021 Rules before participating
• You should only register for the challenge if you actually intend to submit an entry to the challenge and to comply with all the rules.

The organising committee this year is led by Zhenhua Ling from USTC with assistance from The University of Edinburgh.

Registration

Register by emailing blizzard@festvox.org. We need to know your

• preferred team name - the organisers may adjust this so that all teams have meaningful, unique names
• affiliation - the name of your University and lab, or your Company
• the name of the main contact person - this must be exactly one person who is responsible for all communication with the organiser
• contact details:
  • main contact person's email address - should be an institutional email address
  • backup email address(es)
  • postal address
  • phone number

Data download

Complete the licence and download the data - only available to registered participants in the challenge, so please wait for your registration to be accepted before completing the license.

Development tools

• available via : http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/blizzard/, which include submitted synthetic speech and listener scores for some previous Blizzard Challenges, which may be helpful during development

Questionnaire

• A questionnaire is included with the test materials. Please complete and include it within your submission.

Mailing list

There is a mailing list for discussion and announcements for the challenge:

 blizzard-discuss@festvox.org

Participants must join the list by sending a message to

 majordomo@festvox.org

with the following line in the body of the message

 subscribe blizzard-discuss

Once you are a member you will be able to mail messages to blizzard-discuss@festvox.org

Timeline

The timeline shown on this web page now is preliminary and subject to change.

  Mar 17    2021 - challenge announcement and registration open
  Mar 29    2021 - database released
  May 03    2021 - team registration closes
  Jun 07    2021 - test sentences released to participants
  Jun 14    2021 - deadline for participants to submit synthetic speech (23:59 AoE)
  Jun 18    2021 - last date for payment of the entry fee
  Jul       2021 - evaluation systems go live
  Aug 09    2021 - end of the evaluation period
  Aug 16    2021 - release of results
  Sep 06    2021 - deadline to submit workshop papers (23:59 AoE)
  Sep 27    2021 - notification of acceptance
  Oct 23    2021 - Blizzard Challenge 2021 Workshop (online event)

Workshop

Coming soon

Any questions?

• Please contact blizzard@festvox.org if you have any questions

Previous challenges

• Blizzard Challenge 2020
• Blizzard Challenge 2019
• Blizzard Challenge 2018
• Blizzard Challenge 2017
• Blizzard Challenge 2016
• Blizzard Challenge 2015
• Blizzard Challenge 2014
• Blizzard Challenge 2013
• Blizzard Challenge 2012
• Blizzard Challenge 2011
• Blizzard Challenge 2010
• Blizzard Challenge 2009
• Blizzard Challenge 2008
• Blizzard Challenge 2007
• Blizzard Challenge 2006 papers and results: http://www.festvox.org/blizzard/blizzard2006.html
• Blizzard Challenge 2005 papers and results: http://www.festvox.org/blizzard/blizzard2005.html