(Central and South-East European Resources, part of META-NET).

Human Language Technology Days 2012 intends to promote language technology and its research, economic and societal potential, by gathering experts and users who will discuss the important issues on the future of languages and language processing in a multilingual European and global digital information society. How does massive digitisation of information, knowledge and everyday communication affect our language? Will our language change or even disappear? Will Polish be used in the communication channels of 21st century on equal grounds with other European languages? What steps do we need to take in order to assure that? Under the high patronage of the Minister of Science and Higher Education and the president of the Polish Academy of Sciences, we have gathered speakers from the European Commission, IBM, Google, Polish Academy of Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and many other European research infrastructure institutions.

This event, at the same time, is a Road Show of European language technology, a presentation of the state-of-the-art services in which development of language resources and language tools are currently at and how they can be used for research and business. Particular attention will be drawn to language technology for Polish and the role it plays in research, administration and business within the digital information society.

, which offers numerous possibilities to have bilateral discussions with the European Commission staff on 26 September 2012 about Language Technology related calls, namely ICT Call 10 and SME-DCA call.

and look forward to seeing you in Warsaw!

Earlier this year, on June 20/21, hundreds of people from the extended Language Technology community gathered in Brussels for META-NET’s annual conference event – META-FORUM. Among them not only researchers keen to discuss their work, but also representatives of language communities, national and European administration, and many businesses and industry leaders showcasing products and services at the industry showcase META-EXHIBITION which ran in parallel with the main event.

META-FORUM, as the name suggests, serves as a gathering point, a hub for these diverse communities of interest to meet and discuss developments, problems and opportunities presented by the challenges of a modern and multilingual Europe. This year’s event themed “A Strategy for Multilingual Europe” proved to be another exciting and fruitful meeting for the community.

Proceedings opened on the first day with an address on the “Technological Challenges of the European Multilingual Society” from Thibaut Kleiner a member of the cabinet of Neelie Kroes (Commissioner for the Digital Agenda and Vice-President of the European Commission) which gave a warning to the assembled delegates that the language technology community in Europe has to demonstrate that it can make the step from research to innovation or risk losing funding. The day went on to include a joint session with the European Federation of National Institutions for Language (EFNIL) on Europe and its languages including key results from the META-NET Language White Paper Series, a session on home grown European Language Technologies, and a joint session with LT Innovate on future directions in European LT including the Strategic Research Agenda for Multilingual Europe 2020. Day one finished off with the presentation of the annual META Prize and Seal of Recognition awards and presentations from the winners.

The second day’s agenda was as packed as the first. Sessions included a discussion on plans for LT research and innovation on the European level with Roberto Cencioni and Kimmo Rossi representing the European Commission. META-NET’s own META-SHARE infrastructure was showcased and future plans and directions were discussed with the assembled community representatives. Next, national representatives got a chance to present plans for LT research and innovation in member states and regions in the afternoon. META-FORUM 2012 was brought to a close with a keynote address from Fernando Pereira of Google who highlighted Google’s work to develop highly scalable language technology workflows and to create links between natural language text, external knowledge bases, and other types of data.

For those who were unable to attend, or if there was a presentation you want to see again or share with your colleagues who couldn’t make it, there’s good news! We’ve compiled a report summarising the main points of each session. The report provides a synopsis of each speaker’s presentation (including slides), their main points and relevant links to other resources. In addition you’ll also find links to videos of each presentation and panel discussion as well as the opening session by and the closing keynote address. Please have a look and share with your colleagues. Feel free to share your thoughts with us on the discussion forum, on social media through Facebook or Twitter, or email office@meta-net.eu.