LBDA 2018 Summit: AI Empowers Education and Research

On May 25, 2018, the LBDA 2018 Summit opened in London. Hosted by the Language Big Data Alliance (LBDA) and organized by Global Tone Communication Technology Co., Ltd. (GTCOM), the event was themed “the Impact of AI and Big Data on Education and Research.” Over 200 experts of AI, big data and language technology gathered at the event and some key figures included Hannelore Lee-Jahnke, Honorary President of CIUTI and Co-chair of LBDA; Ben Page, CEO of Ipsos MORI; Khalid Choukri, Secretary General of European Language Resource Association; Tom Jackson, Digital Director of HarperCollins Publisher; Farhin Khan, Data and AI Technology Solution Professional of Microsoft; Stuart Petersen, Chief Strategy Officer of Arria NLG; Lee Rossiter, Director of Deep Learning at Novatech; Michael Berns, AI thought leader and mentor at Digital Reasoning; and Eva Zhang, Business Development Director of Alicloud. Participants had in-depth exchanges on how to let big data, AI and other technologies better empower education, research and publishing within the cooperative, open and win-win framework of LBDA.

LBDA Co-chair Hannelore Lee-Jahnke delivering her welcome speech

Hannelore Lee-Jahnke, LBDA Co-chair and CUITI Honorary President, delivered a welcome speech and introduced what LBDA had been doing to promote the development of AI and big data. A major task of the summit is to a build data and research platform that gathers more universities and research institutes so as to promote AI and big data development and their application in education and research.

Eric Yu, Secretary General of LBDA and CEO of GTCOM, delivering his keynote speech

In his keynote speech, Eric Yu, LBDA Secretary General and GTCOM CEO, introduced LBDA’s development and the achievements made through collaborative innovation among LBDA members, as well as JoveEye, GTCOM’s new big data platform for scientific research. Based on GTCOM’s cross-language analysis technology, JoveEye analyzes 120 million patents, research-related open source news, social media posts, and other types of data from around the world through cross-language full-text semantic retrieval, hype cycle curve, patent cluster map, value analysis and various other exclusive algorithms and models to produce highly valuable results which are helpful to users engaged in scientific research. Eric Yu said that GTCOM would do more to offer open access to and share its technologies so as to promote the growth of LBDA.

Ipsos MORI CEO Ben Page, ELRA Secretary General Khalid Choukri and HarperCollins Digital Director Tom Jackson, and Farhin Khan, Data and AI Technology Solution Professional of Microsoft delivering their speeches.

Stuart Petersen, Chief Strategy Officer of Arria NLG; Eva Zhang, Business Development Director of Alicloud; Michael Berns, AI thought leader and mentor at Digital Reasoning; and Lee Rossiter, Director of Deep Learning at Novatech (second in the left to right), at the forum

In the forum section, Stuart Petersen, Chief Strategy Officer of Arria NLG; Lee Rossiter, Director of Deep Learning at Novatech; Michael Berns, AI thought leader and mentor at Digital Reasoning; and Eva Zhang, Business Development Director of Alicloud, had discussions and shared their opinions on the application of AI and big data in education, research, and publishing, and they gave full recognition to LBDA’s role in promoting AI and big data development.

Also present at the event were representatives from Chinese LBDA members: Prof. Ping Hong of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, LBDA deputy secretary general; Prof. Li Jing, Deputy Director of the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, Tianjin Foreign Studies University; Vivian Lei, Academic Affairs Department head and Cheong Weng Lam Christy, Registry Division head at Macao Polytechnic Institute; and Prof. Qin Ling, Director of the Training Center of Xidian University. They shared the achievements of LBDA members’ joint efforts with the audiences and made their contribution to the international exchanges within the LBDA and the development of the organization.

LBDA and ELRA signing a strategic agreement

This event was the debut of LBDA in Europe and a major step of its globalization. During the summit, LBDA Co-chair Hannelore Lee-Jahnke and ELRA Secretary General Khalid Choukri signed a strategic agreement on behalf of their respective organizations and LBDA received membership applications from over 20 research institutes. These together will propel LBDA’s development in Europe. LBDA is currently preparing for a European committee which is expected to be established within the year.

At the LBDA 2018 Summit

About ELRA

European Language Resource Association (ELRA) is the most famous organization of the language technology and language resource industry in Europe and even the world. It is dedicated to identifying and exploring language resources and their application in various industries. Its partners include Apple, Google, Microsoft and many other renowned companies.

About LBDA

Language Big Data Alliance (LBDA) is a global multi-sector and multi-language alliance based on open and shared big data resources for research application. With over 200 member institutions worldwide, it is an open platform built for the multilateral cooperation and resource sharing among government bodies, enterprises, higher education institutions, and research institutes. Its purpose is to promote the application and development of AI and big data in teaching, practice, and research by providing open access to resources such as language materials, machine translation, speech recognition, etc.