Recent advances in machine learning, signal and information processing have brought about new opportunities to solve several long-standing technological challenges in acoustic speech processing. This symposium focuses on the use of such advances to improve the state of the art in hands-free, human-to-human and human-to-machine speech applications. It is well known that speech signals captured by distant microphones in real-world environments are generally corrupted by reverberation and interference from competing audio sources. These acoustic distortions pose a significant hinderance to the wider adoption of voice-driven applications. The objective of this symposium is to foster new signal and information processing trends in the field of speech by creating a platform that brings together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry to propose and exchange ideas and findings on this topic.