Press release: LT-Innovate Summit 2013 - Language Technologies win recognition as an indispensable building block of the European Digital Single Market

Press release (PDF version) dated 17 June 2013

LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGIES WIN RECOGNITION AS AN INDISPENSABLE BUILDING BLOCK OF THE EUROPEAN DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET

Brussels, 17 June 2013 - LT-Innovate, the Forum for Europe’s Language Technology Industry, organises the 2ND LT-INNOVATE SUMMIT on 26 - 27 June 2013 at the EU Thon Hotel in Brussels (75, rue de la Loi).

The yearly LT-Innovate Summit aims at gathering Language Technology suppliers, buyers, researchers, investors and policy makers.

Jochen Hummel, Chairman of LT-Innovate and CEO of ESTeam, declares himself pleased with progress made since last year's Summit:

"Last year, we had to remind European leaders that language technologies are of strategic importance in a multilingual continent. There is no way we can become leaders in the 'knowledge society' if we do not master the very technologies that are at the heart of searching, analysing, enriching, translating and communicating seamlessly the zettabytes of data that are currently floating through the global networks. This year, we can proudly state that the European Commission listened to the LT community and included language technologies as a core component of the next generation of infrastructures into which it is planning to invest. Let us face the facts: there will be no European Digital Single Market without Language Technologies! If there is one core technology for Europe to invest in as a matter of absolute priority - privately and publicly - it is Language Technology!".

The Summit will be attended by more than 200 Language Technology stakeholders. Philippe Wacker, LT-Innovate Secretary General explains: "Around LTi's core membership of LT vendor companies, represented by more than 50 company CEOs, we have assembled representatives of organisations that have important language technology needs, from such diverse areas as publishing, tourism, healthcare, petrochemicals, automotive, IT software, European governmental bodies, etc. We are putting emphasis on developing a dialogue with these big LT users to ascertain their needs and to put our members in a position to respond to language-related challenges across many industrial, cultural and societal sectors of activity".

The Summit will culminate in the celebration of the LT-Innovate 2013 Award Winners, the most innovative LT companies of the year.

So far, 30 companies have been shortlisted for the Award. They will present their products and solutions at the Summit and a jury of experts will designate the 12 winners on 27 June.