Signing of CNGL Intellectual Property Agreement enables €14M Industry Contribution to Localisation Research

Mr Takeshi Fukunaga, DNP signs agreement along with industry and academic partners

DCU today (Friday May 30th) hosted the Inaugural convention of the Centre for Next Generation Localisation (CNGL), which included the signing of an Intellectual Property Framework agreement, facilitating €14M in industry funding contributions to the Centre’s research.

CNGL is a Centre for Science Engineering and Technology (CSET) established with funding of €16.8M by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). The centre brings together thirteen different partners spanning international industry, including IBM, Symantec, Microsoft and Dai Nippon Printing, local SMEs and Irish universities. The industry contribution will bring the total value of the centre to over €30M over 5 years.

Under the leadership of DCU’s Professor Josef van Genabith, CNGL brings together a dynamic research group, incorporating over 100 researchers, to tackle the formidable obstacles presented by language and cultural barriers, enabling people to interact with digital content and products in their own language, according to their own cultural and personal needs.

The Inaugural CNGL Convention was formally opened by Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, President of Dublin City University and was addressed by Professor Fionn Murtagh, Director of the Information, Communications & Emergent Technologies Directorate at Science Foundation Ireland. A keynote address was given by Jaap van der Meer from The Netherlands, a Language Industry pioneer and Director of the Translation Automation Users Society (TAUS).

According to Professor van Genabith, the rapid completion of the Intellectual Property Framework agreement shows the commitment of the Irish government and all the centre partners to maintain Ireland’s leading role in the localisation industry. “Localisation as an industrial process was developed in Ireland 25 years ago, and has produced €17 billion in exports since. This significant research centre will help Ireland to move forward in an increasingly competitive global marketplace, and to continue its move up the value-chain by positioning Ireland as a focus for advanced scientific research in the industry”.

DCU President Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski paid tribute to the Industry partners and the academic institutions. “I would like to pay particular tribute to Josef van Genabith for his work in leading and bringing CSET to fruition. Localisation has been a significant industry in Ireland for some time. This particular project relies heavily on collaboration and partnership that we have established. It is important in the national interest that we all work together”.

Professor Fionn Murtagh from Science Foundation Ireland showed how recent census information reflects the multi-lingual nature of Ireland’s population.

In his keynote address, Jaap van der Meer said, “the sector needs to think outside the box, to automate and collaborate so to supply the billions of people worldwide with information. Everyday there are more words translated by machines than humans. Online free engines translate three billion words a day”.

The centre’s academic partners include University College Dublin, the University of Limerick, and Trinity College Dublin in addition to DCU where the Centre is based. The industry partners involved include IBM, Microsoft, Symantec, Dai Nippon Printing and Idiom Technologies and Irish firms Alchemy, VistaTec, SpeechStorm and Traslán.