LT-Innovate Summit 2012 – where talk is priceless

On 19 June, the LT-Innovate Summit 2012 (LT-Innovate.eu) drew experts from across the entire spectrum of the language technology industry, who got to grips with the issues surrounding the development of products using intelligent content, speech and translation technologies.

With worldwide demand for language services continuing to grow much faster than the economy at large (by around 10-13% per year in recent years, even during the economic crisis), and research indicating that around one million European SMEs may be losing trade as a result of lack of language competences and resources, the time is ripe, according to LT-Innovate’s movers and shakers, for companies to find new market opportunities and for society at large to truly begin to benefit from the enormous potential of the digital revolution.

According to research, the global market for outsourced language services and technology will hit $33.5 billion in 2012, according to a study by independent market research firm Common Sense Advisory. In its annual industry research report, Language Services Market 2012, the firm details the findings of its comprehensive study, identifying 26,104 unique suppliers of translation and interpreting services across 154 countries.

The European Commission has stated that its support for LT has now been in place for around 40 years, with much sustained effort taking place throughout 1980-1990, which resulted in some pioneering machine translation and translation memory technologies: “The EU support for LT is now being revived due to renewed political commitment following the enlargement of the EU and new challenges emerging from globalized markets. More and more commercial transactions are being done online and there are more consumers using the web that do not speak English than those who do.

“While a few years ago English may have been seen as the lingua-franca of the internet, the amount of online content in other languages has exploded, leaving English-language content covering only 29% of what is available online. Recent e-commerce statistics indicate that two out of three EU customers buy only in their own language. This suggests that language is a significant barrier to a truly Europe-wide digital single market. Of course, language barriers do not only impact on e-commerce activities, but also on access to virtually all online services.

“Europe, with its people and skills, and variety of languages accounts for 50% of the worldwide language services market, and the experience and expertise is there to provide tangible results. However, there are several R&D issues which must be addressed in the immediate future in order to better meet the challenge.”

Working around the motif of Language=Intelligence, a full house of delegates for LT-Innovate 2012 were involved in a series of Innovation Focuses and Showcase Presentation Sessions throughout the day, covering subjects as diverse as the Semantics of Cross-Border Government Services, Intelligent Helpers – Virtual Assistants, Avatars, Robots and Intelligent Skills – Education &Training, Skills for Business, People & their Languages.

In particular, language technology stakeholders discussed the needs, strategies, innovation opportunities and business trends. The summit brought together all major players such as vendors and buyers, experts and investors, researchers and policy makers, enhancing the visibility of the fragmented European LT landscape, establishing LT as a key enabling technology for Europe, and assessing whether LT really is, as is claimed, the missing piece in the Digital Single Market puzzle’.
During the Plenary Opening Panel, moderator Jochen Hummel, of ESTeam, said: “Most key objectives of the European Union’s policy drive to encourage innovation, to create a digital single market, to regain global competitiveness and to address societal challenges can only be achieved if knowledge can be seamlessly shared across language borders and if communication is not an issue. This implies a powerful language infrastructure – or ‘Language Cloud’ – which makes content accessible to anybody, anywhere, in any language!

“The European Language Technology industry has a solid scientific and engineering base. It has the potential to turn the obstacles of the European multilingual market into opportunities and turn out products fit for the global markets. Language Technology represents a strategic asset. Europe should treat it as one of its crown jewels!”

And IDIAP Chairman Professor Hervé Bourlard, who is also the funder of successful LT start-up Koemei, followed on from Hummel’s statement that what was needed in Europe were ‘language highways’, saying: “Europe’s investment in pipes should go hand-in-hand with an investment of comparable magnitude into creating multilingual conversational middleware that would allow people to access content generated by anybody, anywhere, anytime seamlessly through any device and in any language of their choice.”

Chris Lewis, who works with IDC UK to leverage the multiple in-country knowledge bases and skills that exist across IDC in Asia/Pacific, EMEA, and Latin America, as well as in the US, said that his own visual impairment meant that he was taking a particular interest in the Summit’s findings, as the improvement of language technology was clearly key to improving the lives of similarly affected citizens worldwide: “Quite simply, LT is the single most important technical enabler since the invention of the internet – it must be nurtured, improved and perfected at all costs.”

And LT-Innovate Secretary-General Philippe Wacker added: “A multilingual infrastructure is as important for Europe as a broadband infrastructure! Making content produced in any language available to 500 million Europeans is the real opportunity in the decade ahead.”

During the Innovation Focus Sessions, LT stakeholders demonstrated the potential for innovation in LT in iEnterprise, iServices, iHealth, iHelpers, iSkills and Partnering. Click here for more information on these sessions.

The LT-Innovate Company Showcase Awards also took place during the Summit, with the companies taking part assessed and scored on their contributions to language technology innovations; the top-rated companies were presented with their awards during the gala dinner that concluded the day’s events, and were as follows:

1. LingleOnline
2. Bitext Innovations
3. 3DS Exalead
4. Multilizer
5. Call Trunk Holdings
6. XTM International
7. Yocoy Technologies
8. Kwaga
9. NICE Systems

10. TEMIS

11. Textkernel

12. Interverbum Technology AB

Members of European Parliament Amelia Andersdotter, Katarina Neveďalová and Séan Kelly presented the trophies during the Awards Ceremony, and highlighted the importance of languages and language technologies in the multicultural environment of Europe.
During the Summit’s Closing Panel, LT-Innovate Senior Advisor Ruben Riestra concluded: ”The further development of the European LT sector can be achieved through fostering attractiveness for LT vendors’ services, unleashing growth potential, leveraging usage of key resources, acting within and beyond Europe and delivering value to all stakeholders.”

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