It’s a great pleasure to welcome everyone to the International Conference on Bangla Speech and Language Processing (ICBSLP) to be held on 21-22 September 2018, at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST), Sylhet, Bangladesh. Most conferences in Bangladesh are arranged in the capital city of Dhaka and participants often miss the natural beauty and tranquility of lush green riverine Bangladesh. The ICBSLP gives the participants an opportunity to attend a conference in Sylhet, a north eastern city in picturesque Surma Valley with scenic tea plantations, Haors and tropical forests. SUST, the hosting institution, is the first science and technology university of the country. It is comparatively new but has already established itself as a leading science and technology university of the country with the most IT enabled environment.
Out of every 100 people of the world, roughly 3 speak Bangla, which makes it the seventh most spoken native language in the world. In 1952, theBangla language movement of this country successfully achieved the language's official status as the state language. In recognition of this movement, UNESCO started celebrating 21 February as the International Mother Language Day since 1999. Bangla language is the most important element of our culture, history and heritage, which binds together roughly more than 200 million diverse people living in Bangladesh, India and the rest of the world.

As a part of the scientific and research community we feel it is also our responsibility to enhance the computer adaptability of the Bangla language through research, development and innovation. This conference plans to bring together leading national and international academicians, researchers and scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results about all the aspects of Bangla Speech and Language Processing, and to discuss challenges and their solutions. We welcome researchers to submit their original and unpublished research findings to this conference. Although our focus is in Bangla, we welcome relevant research results of other‎ families of languages in this region.

We believe the timing of this conference has special significance as well. The Bangladesh government has just launched a multimillion dollar ambitious project for the Enhancement of Bangla Language in ICT through Research and Development (EBLICT). The success of this project will largely depend on the research community and industry working together. By bringing together national and international scholars, ICBSLP 2018 will provide a common platform for these two entities to share ideas, build networks and work together for the success of this project.