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Multilingual Europe Technology Alliance

META-FORUM 2011 - Programme



June 27: META-FORUM 2011 (Day 1)

Room: Function Lobby

08:00–18:00 Registration and conference desk

Room: Budapest Ballroom


Opening Session
09:15–09:30 Welcome address by Zsolt Nyitrai (Hungarian Secretary of State for ICT at the Ministry for National Development, Hungarian Government, Budapest) (video)
09:30–09:45 Welcome address by Zoran Stančič (Deputy Director-General at Directorate-General Information Society and Media, European Commission, Brussels) (video)
09:45–10:00 Special Guest: “Europe’s Languages and their Technology”
10:00–10:15 Hans Uszkoreit (DFKI, Germany): “META, META-NET and META-FORUM” (video)


Keynote Lecture
Chair: Jan Odijk (University of Utrecht, Netherlands)


10:15–10:50
Thomas Hofmann (Google, Switzerland): “Language Technologies for Better Internet Services” (video)
10:50–11:00
Q/A - Discussion
11:00–11:30
Coffee break


Session 1. Multilingual LT Research in Europe: Trends & Challenges
Chair: Antonio Branco (University of Lisbon, Portugal)


11:30–11:45
Josef van Genabith (Dublin City University and Centre for Next Generation Localisation, Ireland): “An Overview of Multilingual LT Research in Europe” (video)
11:45–12:00

Steve Renals (University of Edinburgh, UK): “Moses: The Success of an Open-Source Machine Translation Platform” (video)

12:00–12:15
Jan Hajic (Charles University Prague, Czech Republic): “META-RESEARCH: Leading-Edge Machine Translation Research for Multilingual Europe” (video)
12:15–12:30
Q/A - Discussion (video)
12:30–14:00
Lunch


Session 2. European Language Technology Industries
Chair: Adriane Rinsche (LTC, UK)


14:00–14:15
Jochen Hummel (ESTeam GmbH, Germany, and LTBA, Language Technology Business Association): “Visibility for the European Industrial LT Landscape” (Slideshare) (video)
14:15–14:30
László Podhorányi (Vice Director General, Vodafone Hungary): “Interactive Language Technology at Vodafone” (video)
14:30–14:45 Johannes Bursch (Daimler, Head of Corporate Language Management, Germany): “Role and Challenges of the Corporate Language Management at Daimler AG” (video)
14:45–15:00 Laszlo Tihanyi (Morphologic, Director of Translation Business Unit, Hungary): “Introducing iTranslate4” (video)
15:00–15:15 Rose Lockwood (INMARK Estudios y Estrategias, S.A., Spain): “Language Technology – From Research to Innovation” (video)

Q/A - Discussion (video)


Session 3. Supporting Innovation in Language Technology
Chair: Gudrun Magnusdottir (ESTeam, Sweden)


15:15–15:40
Roberto Cencioni (Head of Language Technologies & Machine Translation Unit, Directorate General for Information Society and Media, European Commission, Luxembourg): “EC support for LT – What has been done so far, what are the future perspectives?” (video)
15:40–16:05
Stelios Piperidis (ILSP, Research Centre “Athena”, Greece): “META-SHARE: An Open Resource Exchange Infrastructure for Stimulating Research and Innovation” (video)

Q/A - Discussion (video)
16:05–16:40
Coffee break


Session 4. Are Europe's Languages in Danger?


16:40–16:55
Andrejs Vasiljevs (Tilde, Latvia): “The META-NET White Paper Series on European Languages” (video)

16:55–17:45
Panel Discussion: Language Communities taking an Active Role in LT Research and Innovation with representatives from:
  • Estonia: Kadri Vider (Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, Research Policy Department, Chief Expert)
  • Lithuania: Rimvydas Vaštakas (Vice-Minister, Ministry of Transport and Communications)
  • Netherlands, Belgian Flanders, Suriname: Peter Spyns (Dutch Language Union, Nederlandse Taalunie)
  • Denmark: Sabine Kirchmeier-Andersen (Director of the Danish Language Council, Copenhagen)
  • Moderator: Algirdas Saudargas (Member of the European Parliament, Lithuania/Belgium)
(video)


Keynote Lecture
Chair: Tamás Varadi (Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary)
17:45–18:15
Bran Boguraev (IBM, TJ Watson Research Center, USA): “Building Watson: language technologies for Deep QA and the Jeopardy! challenge”
18:15–18:30
Q/A - Discussion

Rooms: Function Lobby, Margit, István, Erzébet

09:00–18:00
META Exhibition

June 28, META-FORUM 2011 (Day 2)

Room: Budapest Ballroom


Session 5. European Institutions and Multilingual Language Technologies
Chair: Koenraad De Smedt (University of Bergen, Norway)


09:15–09:35
Conrad Toft (Interinstitutional Language Technology Watch, EESC, Belgium): “Language Technology at European Institutions” (video)
09:35–09:55
Spyridon Pilos (Head of sector “Language Applications” Informatics Unit – Resources Directorate, Directorate General for Translation, European Commission, Luxembourg): “Machine Translation at the European Commission” (video)
09:55–10:10
Q/A - Discussion (video)


Session 6. Language Technologies for Multilingual Societies

10:10–11:00

Panel Discussion: Multilingualism in Small and Large Regions with representatives of:

  • India: Swaran Lata (Head of the Technology Development Programme for Indian Languages, Department of Information Technology, Government of India)
  • South Africa: Justus Roux (North West University, member of the HLT Expert Panel of the South African Government)
  • Catalonia: Marta Xirinachs (Government of Catalonia, Linguamón – House of Languages, Spain)
  • Wales: Jeremy Evas (Welsh Language Board)
  • Moderator: Spyridon Pilos (European Commission, Luxembourg)

(video)
11:00–11:30 Coffee break


Session 7. Case Study: The Central and South Eastern European Perspective
Chair: Khalid Choukri (ELDA, France)


11:30–11:45
Marko Tadic (University of Zagreb, Croatia): “The CESAR Project – enabling LRT for 70M+ Speakers” (video)
11:45–12:05
Maciej Ogrodniczuk and Adam Przepiórkowski (Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences): “Polish LRTs – CESAR's story” (video)
12:05–12:25
Svetla Koeva (Institute for Bulgarian Language, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences): “Furthering LRT in Bulgaria
12:25–12:45
Tamás Váradi (Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences): “Hungarian Language Technology – From Platform to Alliance” (video)
12:45–13:00
Q/A - Discussion (video)
13:00–14:30
Lunch


Session 8. A Strategic Research Agenda for Multilingual Europe
Chair: Nicoletta Calzolari (CNR, Italy)


14:30–14:40
Hans Uszkoreit (DFKI, Germany): “Introduction” (video)
14:40–15:00
Joseph Mariani (CNRS/LIMSI, France): “The Future European Multilingual Information Society” (video)
15:00–15:30
Hans Uszkoreit (DFKI, Germany): “The Strategic Research Agenda for Multilingual Europe – Summary of Discussions and Plan for Completion” (video)
15:30–16:00
Q/A - Discussion (video)
16:00–16:30
Coffee break


Session 9. META Prize and Seal of Recognition
16:30–17:00
Georg Rehm (DFKI, Germany) and Josef van Genabith (DCU, CNGL), Ireland): META Prize and META Seal of Recognition Award Ceremony


Closing Session
17:00–17:15
Hans Uszkoreit: “META: Towards Multilingual Europe”

 

Room: Lanchid

10:00–13:00
LT Business Forum (organised by the European Commission, Luxembourg)

 

Rooms: Function Lobby, Margit, István, Erzébet

09:00–17:00
META Exhibition

 

June 29, META-FORUM Satellite Event (Danubius Gellert Hotel)

09:00–13:00
PANACEA Users' Workshop
An independent workshop of one of our partner projects, this satellite event offers users of Language Resources a meeting point where they can discuss easier ways to provide their businesses and technology with much needed Language Resources.

This event is taking place at the Danubius Gellert Hotel.
http://www.meta-net.eu/events/meta-forum-2011/press-release