Information

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Context

  • Computational linguistics (or Natural Language Processing, NLP), is a branch of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), specialised in the processing and analysis of text and speech in natural language. These key applications being increasingly present in everyday tools (GPS, spellchecker, automatic translation software, etc.), it remains, however, a rather unknown domain to the general public.
  • It has been noticed, on a French-speaking scale, that after having enjoyed a significant attention from the authorities and media during several years (in respect of the emergence of the “internet network”), the computational linguistics field is nowadays less visible, whereas the fundamental stakes remain or even expand. For example, the actual growth of the Internet towards semantic Web or the big European ICT projects (digital libraries, information systems of the public sector, the access to multilingual web) will intensify the needs in the natural language processing field.
  • The language industry actors are numerous, but opportunities to meet each other, besides scientific conferences, are rather rare.

 

Objectives

  • Bringing the main actual trends on the market to light through lectures and accounts of key actors in research, industries and high institutions
  • Favouring interaction between professionals (bringing into contact supply and demand, B2B)
  • Stimulating professional networks specialised in natural language processing and, if possible, bringing out new possibilities of international collaborations and cross-disciplinary projects.
  • Informing the general public and heightening public awareness of the stakes and challenges of natural language processing
  • Making students of diverse academic backgrounds discover an often unsuspected branch of industry.

 

Organisation

MORNING : LECTURES & DEBATES FOR PROFESSIONNALS

Creating a meeting place for professionals (high institutions and government representatives, industrialists, teachers and researchers) and drawing up an inventory of the actual state of the art to federate the research and stimulate computational linguistics development within the French-speaking framework and in a multilingual context. 

AFTERNOON : EXHIBITION ACCESSIBLE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC

A discovery forum to present NLP applications to the general public (private users or professionals of the tools provided by computational linguistics, students). Opportunity for technology producers and service providers to present their activities on a stand.

 

Your participation

Technology producing companies or service providers : Taking part in lectures, present, on a stand, (and/or distribute brochures) products and services to private users or professionals, developing new contacts with potential partners, meeting numerous students specialised in natural language processing (linguists, engineers, computer scientists, psychologists, etc.)

 

Other companies : taking part in lectures, discovering products and services that could improve the internal running of your company or the services you offer to your customers (thanks to information research, document classification, information extraction, knowledge management, automatic translation or machine aided translation or writing, multimode interfaces, etc.).

 

Students : Discovering a rather unknown branch of industry and jobs linked to it, testing new applications. Discovering academic programs that lead to the language industry field.

 

Everyone : A unique opportunity to discover a research and applications domain that gave birth to technologies that are nowadays present in numerous everyday devices : office automation applications, GPS, phones, search engines, etc.

 

Event promotion

  • The partner networks and their information platforms: Infopole, Twist, SpoW, AST, AWT, FNRS, CFWB,etc.
  • Promotion proper to the “Semaine de la langue française en fête » in the scope of which this event falls.
  • Press release
  • Radio program on language industries (contacts in progress)
  • TV reports on the subject dedicated to the general public (contacts in progress)
  • Poster campaign
  • Specific communication towards the students of higher education and schools organised by the “Kot Ardoise” of Louvain-la-Neuve

 

Avec le soutien de la Communauté française - Service de la langue française 

 

CFWB     La langue française en fête   Innovons.be

Cental   Cluster TWIST   Kot Ardoise

Access and contact details     

 

Aula Magna

Location and date :

  • Université catholique de Louvain
  • Aula Magna, Louvain-la-Neuve
  • 17th of March 2010
  • 9h30 – 12h30 : Conférences
  • 14h00-18h : Salon Expo

How to get to the forum location :

 

 


Contacts : 

Prof. Cédrick Fairon Centre de traitement automatique du langage de l’UCL
Place Blaise Pascal, 1 – 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
E-mail : cedrick.fairon@uclouvain.be
Phone : 010/47 37 86
Fax : 010/47 26 06


Thierry Villers & Michel Black INFOPOLE Cluster TIC
Rue du Séminaire,  22 - 5000 Namur – BELGIUM
E-mail : thierry.villers@infopole.be
Phone : +32 81 72 51 42
Fax : +32 81 72 51 43


Sandrine Brognaux Kot Ardoise (étudiants)
Place des Brabançons, 2 – 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
E-mail : sandrine.brognaux@student.uclouvain.be
Phone : +32 474584808

Virginie Breuls de Tiecken TWIST Cluster
Rue de la Basse Marihaye 324 - 4100 Seraing
Email : virginie@twist-cluster.be
Phone : 0479/32 30 50

 

| 1/03/2010 |