1 Roberto Cencioni Kimmo Rossi Challenge 2 – Objective 2.2 Language based Interaction DG Information Society and Media Unit INFSO.E1 Language Technologies.

••• 1

Roberto CencioniKimmo Rossi

Challenge 2 – Objective 2.2

Language based Interaction

DG Information Society and Media

Unit INFSO.E1Language Technologies& Machine Translation

[email protected]

ICT 2008, Lyon,

26 Nov 08

••• 2

Outline

• Opening remarks

• FP7 ICT Call 4 – Essence

• FP7 ICT Call 4 – Ingredients

• Q&A

• CIP ICT-PSP Call 3 – Opportunities

• Q&A, close

••• 3

Here we are

• a new unit established in July 2008– Language Technologies & Machine Translation (INFSO.E1)– high expectations vs. low rate of EC S&T activity in the last

few years

• language is everywhere– written & spoken; documents, messages, databases,

webpages, multimedia objects etc; information as well as meta-information

• but our resources are limited, so initial focus on– multilingual technologies, services, applications

• two instruments in 2009:– Research: FP7 ICT, call 4

Objective 2.2 – Language based Interaction– Innovation: CIP ICT-PSP, call 3

Theme 5 – Multilingual Web

• total budget of 40 Meuro

••• 4

• Why?

– new online paradigms centred around communication, collaboration, co-creation … but significant language barriers remain

– EU comprises 27 countries & 23 official languages

– single European Information Space – one of the i2010 objectives

– EC communication on Multilingualism (Sept ‘08) calls fora broader policy framework & joint action

• Purpose: support & enhance

interpersonal & business communication

information access & publishing

across languages

Baseline

••• 5

A few facts

• EU official languages: 23 x 22 = 506 pairs– EC MT (Systran core engine) has 18 pairs in operation

& 10 more pairs at prototype stage

– 60+ national, regional & minority languages within the EU

• English accounts for 30% of today’s Web content– 50% in 2000, 35% in 2004

– Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese … growing very fast

• nearly 1,5 billion internet users worldwide (2008)– c 320 million native EN speakers in the world

• basic requirements for the “digital translation market”:– volume– access– personalisation

real quick, real cheap

••• 6

Can’t this be doneelsewhere?

• indeed EU RTD projects often exhibit multilingual features

• yet approaches are too often naïve, short term, sectoral

• hence a dedicated focal point

– stimulating upstream research

– enhancing research capacity

– thus enabling more ambitious & impactful domain specific actions

••• 7

Research vs. Innovationdivision of labour

• from

– long term foundational research (FP7)

• through

– applied research & technology development (FP7)

• to

– integration & demonstration (FP7 + PSP)

– infrastructure & resources (FP7 + PSP)

• different scale of ambition (€)

• different level of maturity (technologyservice)

• different timescales & partnerships

••• 8

FP7-ICT Call

I. WorkprogrammeR&D topics & outcomes

••• 9

What technologycan offer today

• machine translation & translation memory

– making sense of online content

– improving productivity of human translation

– automatic translation of “acceptable” quality in specific domains / language pairs

• information search & retrieval

– find relevant information across languages

• information extraction, filtering, categorisation

– incl. summarization, routing & alert services, …

– for a variety of purposes eg business intelligence

• speech technology

– command & control, dictation systems

– call center services, conversational systems

••• 10

Trends

• new requirements, new approaches– from Web 1.X to Web 2.0 – we are all content producers

– from static & uni-directional to dynamic, volatile, collaborative

– from service to self-service, translations are needed “on the fly”

are language technologies up to the task?

• what happens to online content– disappearing document?

– Europa website: 6 million “documents”

– elusive distinction between content & service

how to manage effectively multilingual content

• multilingualism on the rise– in the EU (from 4 to 23 languages) and globally

– English gains ground but mother tongues remain

online content becomes even more multilingual

••• 11

What technology might offer tomorrow

• machine translation– MT that learns from its mistakes – embedded in products/services, can cover any use

context esp.online: chats, blogs, dynamic content ...– broader coverage, fill in missing languages

• information search & retrieval– truly multilingual access to information: query in any

language, content automatically translated

• website content development & management– new content is translated automatically– changes automatically applied in all language versions

• speech technology– real-time speech-to-speech translation (eg phone call,

in a conference)

••• 12

Challenges for MT

• bring MT to the users

– understand what users need

– novel use scenarios

– communication rather than translation

– better evaluation metrics

• MT that learns & adapts

– how to exploit feedback from users

– how to use readily available “world knowledge”

• towards a paradigm shift?

– inspiration from:

machine learning, cognitive systems, psycho-linguistics, sociology, semantic web, data mining, new computing paradigms ...

••• 13

a) Core research exploring new avenues for machine translation (IP)

ground breaking, multidisciplinary, high risk – high promise research

architectures & technologies that learn and adapt flexibly & effectivelyto different languages, domains & tasks

catering for new forms of language & communication (eg online communities; dynamic, volatile …)

b) Problem oriented research for specific tasks & usage contexts (STR)

online translation for the masses

translation in distributed collaborative environments

managing multilingual communication & content

automatic acquisition & annotation of language resources

c) Community building & networking (NOE)

reinvigorate European machine translation (MT) community

build bridges between MT & MLT and other relevant disciplines

help develop & coordinate shared technical infrastructure, promote reusability & interoperability, foster evaluation

FP7-ICT Call 4 at a glance

••• 14

Core research. Explore new research avenues (one IP, up to 8 M)– break new ground, foster a novel multi-disciplinary approach to

machine translation

– architectures & technologies that can learn and adapt flexibly& effectively to different languages, domains & tasks

– catering for new forms of language & communication (eg online communities)

– high risk but high promise (accuracy, speed, scalability)

– language & translation models coupled with data driven, machine learning methods

automatic acquisition & representation of linguistic facts

semantics, models of world knowledge relevant for translation

approaches inspired from social networks …

Outcome a)IP

••• 15

Outcome b)STR

Problem oriented research. A clearly defined usage context (~5 STR’s, c 12 M)– online translation for the masses

wide coverage (beyond GoogleTranslate); adequate quality, suitableat least for gisting/browsing; language embedded in documents, web pages, multimedia objects …

– translation in distributed environments support non-linear collaborative interplay between authors, translators,

editors/publishers & active users; innovative integration of automatic, interactive & human translation beyond current practice; technologies as well as processes & social interaction

– managing multilingual content & communication a superset of the above addressing the development & management

of online content & services esp. their versioning & maintenance in multiple languages

– acquisition & annotation of language resources (nearly-)automatic, high volume, high performance mining the web as well available repositories (eg corpora) and

public information sources

••• 16

Outcome b)managing multilingual

Web content

• methods, techniques, metrics … for developing & managing multilingual web content & services

– much more than translation; significant cultural elements

• think of

– one big website in many languages, or

– several interrelated websites, one country/language each

• now think of how to maintain the integrity & consistency of such resources, effectively & over a long period of time

– and how to detect & repair gaps or inconsistencies

• so, beyond the “translation” step:

– design, authoring, versioning & maintenance of (multiple, parallel, interconnected …) websites, portals or repositories

– in a distributed collaborative environment, possibly across organisational boundaries

••• 17

Outcome c)NOE

Community building & networking (1 or 2 NoEs, up to 6 M)– reinvigorate Europe’s machine translation (MT) community

bring together key players from scientific, technical & commercial circles (esp. SMEs)

stimulate cross-border cooperation (teams, institutions, national initiatives)

assess skills, foster training & exchanges; support smaller teams & not well-served languages

identify gaps, establish roadmap encompassing technologies, resources & applications

– build bridges between MT & MLT community and other relevant disciplines stimulate dialogue between diverse communities; identify opportunities & bottlenecks

initiate integrative research, prepare the ground for further collaboration

explore medium to long term approaches, identify possible shifts in paradigm

– develop & coordinate shared technical infrastructure, reusability & interoperability, evaluation infrastructural support: portal services, inventories & repositories of general

interest tools & raw/annotated datasets, their documentation

active promotion of reusability & open-source; harmonisation of representation & annotation schemes

foster widely recognized benchmarks ...

••• 18

What we don’t do

Not supported under Call 4:

• approaches that do not promise to deliver performance along with portability, scalability & maintenability

– yes: emphasis on automation, flexibility & cost effectiveness

• developments addressing immediate commercial concerns

– no: adding a language pair to an existing product

• proposals that do not address « language transfer »

– yes: focus on mapping a source language into one or several target languages

• issues covered by other Challenges and Objectives

– no: HMI, interaction with robots, ambient intelligence …

• topics well covered by recent & ongoing projects

– no: sign languages, dialogue systems …

••• 19

Practical info

FP7-ICT Objective 2.2 – Language based interation

budget: 26 Meuro under Call 4

managed by: Unit E1

Email: [email protected]

EC contact: Mr Kimmo Rossi

• inquiries: available

• pre-proposals: from Dec 1st until 3 weeks before the call closing date (Apr 1st)

Language Technology Days: 14-15 January 2009, Luxbg

ICT Proposers’ Day: 22 January 2009, Budapest

••• 20

Web sources

INFSO.E1 website (under construction):

cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/language-technologies/..

• FP7-ICT: ../fp7-call4_en.html

• ICT-PSP: ../cip-psp_en.html

– Events & Presentations

– Call guidance notes

– Background material & useful Links …

EC contact: Mrs Susan Fraser

••• 21

FP7-ICT Call

II. Practicalities &Success Factors

••• 22

LT Days

14-15 January, 2009

Luxembourg, JMO conference complex

EC presentations, sessions w/ext speakers, proposal clinics, self-presentations & posters

Agenda & registrations:

cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/

language-technologies/fp7-call4_en.html

••• 23

Pre-proposals& Clinics

3 pages max, mail to: [email protected] • describe the problem your proposal addresses, in particular

– specify the intended user profile and related tasks

– describe actual or prospective applications

– detail data sets: source(s), typology, volume

• how will the proposed project contribute to the outcomes and impacts set out in the work programme? – what are the key innovations?

– what will be the main concrete results?

– what public outputs are foreseen?

– what impact do you expect?

• describe the consortium – give partners' names or profiles and the intended skills mix

– indicate the intended instrument (if known)

• indicate the scale of your ambition

– what is the estimated effort (man-months)

– how long will the proposed project last?

– what amount of EU funding are you looking for?

••• 24

Overall approach

• research for a purpose, problem driven

• centred around people & tasks, data & flows

– a compelling use case is as important as the underlying research

• meaningful demonstrator(s)

– field validation & assessment

• active promotion & dissemination of results beyond purely scientific circles

– public outputs, public final showcase

••• 25

Instruments

• IP

– up to 4 years, 5-8 Meuro (EU funding)

• NoE

– up to 3 years, 3-6 Meuro

• STR

– up to 3 years, 2-3 Meuro

••• 26

Partnerships

• keep the consortium manageable:

IPs 7-11 partners

STRs 5-7 partners

NoEs 3-4 “core” partners

• select competent, committed & reliable partners; geography not an issue!

• industry, SME, academia … participation as dictated by project needs

• user/industrial/commercial organisations to provide a demanding problem & validation context

••• 27

Language coverage

• most of the work is expected to be language independent– flexibility & ease of adaptation to other languages are indeed key

factors

– many of the ancillary tasks & tools are language independent anyway

• project outcomes must however be validated in 3+ languages– preferably belonging to different linguistic families

• target languages are chosen & justified by the proposers bearing in mind the following priorities (from high to low):1. EU official languages

2. nationally recognised languages

3. regional languages

4. minority languages

• Non-EU world languages linked to global markets & exports can be considered as well– on a proposal by proposal basis

••• 28

Target industrialsectors

• look for– huge & growing data volumes – competitive pressure– high growth & innovation– international markets

• obvious candidates– ICT & media– manufacturing– process industries eg pharmaceuticals– energy & utilities– engineering & construction– financial services …

••• 29

• RTD content– narrow scope, little or no EU dimension

– lack of focus, aims too general

– lack of innovation, current state of art missing

• planning– links missing between objectives & work plan

– milestones missing or too general

– risk factors not addressed, no contingency plans

– no monitorable indicators, no metrics

• management– consortium not balanced, gaps in the skills mix

– lack of integration between partners

– vague management structure

– weak or narrow dissemination plans

– ill-defined exploitation prospects

Reasons for failure

••• 30

• Quality

• Impact

• Effectiveness

but also

• Relevance wrt. WP

• Credibility

Evaluators will have access to Web sources: previous projects, teams & skills, background & reference documents …

Success factors .1

••• 31

It’s a project, not a dissertation:

– problem?

– user?

– data?

– outputs (incl. public ones)?

– metrics?

– impact?

– exploitation channels?

– …

Success factors .2

••• 32

Success factors .3

• preserve your credibility: select one proposal & make it win

• ensure that the proposal brings out both innovation & exploitation potential

• full depth of participation rather than long list of organisations with limited involvement

• key individuals, expertise & achievements rather than long list of previous projects

• make the proposal compelling for a busy reader (the first 5-10 pages are key!)

••• 33

Time schedule

• call due to close 1 April, 2009

• evaluation & selection until end June

• negotiation from mid-July on

• contract awarding in December

• projects due to start Q1 2010

… highly selective & demanding process

••• 34

ICT-PSP Call

Overview(subject to forthcoming adoption of WP,

call budget & schedule)

••• 35

ICT-PSP Call 3,Q1 09

ICT Policy Support Programme (PSP) within the Competitiveness & Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) (adopted in October 2006)

• geared towards innovation & ICT uptake:

– development of the Single European information space

– strengthening of the internal market for ICT products and services and ICT-based products and services

– stimulation of innovation through the wider adoption of and investment in ICT

• ensure seamless access to ICT-based services

• improve the conditions for the development of digital content, taking into account multilingualism & cultural diversity

Takes over eContentplus activities from Jan 2009

••• 36

• translation & interpretation market (exc. in-house):– c $15 billion; €1.1 billion for EU institutions alone (2006)– top EU-based translation company posted a revenue of

$175 million in 2006• market fragmentation

– big players < 1000 employees– est. 300,000 full time salaried translators worldwide

(37% in Europe)• a good European base

– SDL, Star, RWS, XRX, Euroscript, Logos, Moravia, VistaTEC, Semantix …

– ESTeam, Lucy Software … • a largely untapped potential

– 4x according to some companies

“Europe’s language is Translation”

••• 37

Business world

• new models: Most companies follow the age-old translate-edit-proofread model of translation. Collaborative, web-based technologies allow translation to become more agile, faster, and better with fewer steps (CSA Inc.)

• new markets: Language Weaver is entering the three new strategic markets – Web Content, Business Intelligence and Customer Care – to provide high-volume, high-speed, and accurate automated translation solutions at a price that would have been unfathomable just a few years ago

• new approaches: If you don't see your native language here, you can help Google create it by becoming a volunteer translator. Check out our Google in Your Language program

• and then of course:

Unfortunately for Google as a person with 7 years of translation experience myself I can tell that you will hardly ever find a translatorwho will agree that machine translation can be useful for anything. (a Russian translator)

••• 38

ICT-PSP Call 3,Theme 5:

Multilingual Web

• 3 objectives:

– machine translation for the multilingual Web (pilot projects)

– multilingual Web content management (pilot projects)

– standards & best practices for the multilingual Web (thematic network)

• 14 Meuro in total, around 6 projects

“The duration of the pilot is expected to be 24 to 36 months within which there should be a 12-month operational phase.”

••• 39

ICT-PSP Call 3,Theme 5:

Multilingual Web

• research: no, at least not ICT research …

• development/engineering:

– optimisation, customisation, integration … of existing (state of the art) methods, tools & services with a view to defining new approaches, offerings & practices

• demonstration:

– innovative combination is key; new business models, processes & services, organisational setups, usability …

– evaluation along user, technical & (socio-)economic dimensions

• problem orientation:

– useful & useable although possibly not perfect; think ROI

••• 40

Scope & defs

• MT as defined in the ICT-PSP workprogramme encompasses

1. fully automatic machine translation, whatever the technology

2. interactive computer-aided translation (eg TM)

3. a suitable combination of 1. and/or 2. with web based

– human translation, proof-reading & post-editingincl. where relevant methods inspired from social networks

– workflow & content management systems, …

• innovative & effective combination of people, processes& technology; the end result is not science, rather

– more and/or better output

– save time

– cut cost

• emphasis on language transfer, from source language to target language(s)

– language input-output (e.g. speech-to-text) is not the focus

– cross-platform, multi-format content access/delivery is key

••• 41

Language coverage

• some of the work is expected to be language independent– flexibility & ease of adaptation to other languages are key factors

– content authoring & management, collaboration & workflow … are language independent anyway

• project outcomes must be validated in 3+ languages– preferably belonging to different linguistic families

• target languages are chosen & justified by the proposers bearing in mind the following priorities (from high to low):1. EU official languages

2. nationally recognised languages

3. regional languages

4. minority languages

• Non-EU world languages linked to global markets & exports can be considered as well– on a proposal by proposal basis

••• 42

Cont’d

• project’s language coverage driven by the need to:– address gaps & overcome barriers e.g. cross-border

communication for less-developed languages, or

– exploit opportunities e.g. address emerging markets & sizeable language communities

• impact is key, so: viability, sustainability, exploitation channels, deployment prospects …

• main findings must be pro-actively disseminated

• some form of public showcase is mandatory

• participants should include– private or public sector content owners & aggregators

– providers of language services, technology suppliers

– (online) communities of interest where relevant

• 6-7 partners/project, up to €2.5 million funding, up to36 months

••• 43

ICT-PSP Call 3Feb 09

3 intertwined objectives:

5.1 machine translation for the multilingual Web (projects)

information access: MT and other multilingual solutions for information access & use, esp. cross-lingual search & retrieval

information publishing: MT to create, distribute and (re-)use more widely & effectively online content in a multilingual environment

5.3 multilingual Web content management (projects)

communication: multilingual Web content development & management; design, authoring, versioning & maintenanceof multilingual Web sites, portals or repositories

5.2 standards & best practices for the multilingual Web (network)

conventions & best practices for multilingual Web content

••• 44

ICT-PSP, 5.3multilingual Web

content management

• methods, techniques, metrics … for developing & managing multilingual web content & services– much more than translation; significant cultural elements

• think of– one big website in many languages, or– several interrelated websites, one country/language each

• now think of how to maintain the integrity & consistency of such resources, effectively & over a long period of time– and how to detect & repair gaps or inconsistencies

• so, beyond the “translation” step (obj 5.1):– design, authoring, versioning & maintenance of (multiple, parallel,

interconnected …) websites, portals or repositories– in a distributed collaborative environment, possibly across

organisational boundaries

• so as to turn a multi-million endeavour into a viable proposition for a much broader range of companies & administrations

••• 45

ICT-PSP, 5.1machine translation for

the multilingual Web

5.1 can be seen as a subset & central component of obj 5.3 (its “translation box”)

• different usages:

– web at large, enterprise, public information repositories …

• different users:

– teams as well as individuals, engineers as well as analysts, sales & marketing, language professionals, … you & me

• different content rich, information bound sectors, private & public

• quality depends on task & user

– from raw translation & “gisting” up to error-free translation

• two important conditions:

– widely recognised, well argued problem; clearly identified target community

– thorough validation in a given domain / for a given task volume metrics

••• 46

ICT-PSP, 5.2standards & best practices

Thematic network

• covers the same broad issues as 5.3

– “the web as THE vehicle for multilingual content & services”

• provides a forum for multilateral exchange of experience & consensus building

• structure & tasks to be defined by the proposers, indicative list:– bring together a meaningful subset of the main stakeholders, possibly

through their own groups & associations– ICT & language industries, content aggregators/distributors, e-services,

multinational agencies, industry & de-jure standards bodies …

– analyse current situation, identify gaps & bottlenecks; assess market failures if any, specify technical & non-technical conditions to be met and the respective actors

– establish roadmap (trends, requirements, dependencies …) for further developments in the coming years

– stimulate consensus & active involvement/coordination; take part in leading conferences, liaise with primary associations etc.

– explore means to promote best practice (conferences, portals, publications, training …) beyond current channels

– propose suitable follow-on actions

••• 47

ICT-PSPInstruments & Funding

• pilot B projects:

– min. 4 partners from 4 different countries

– 50% of eligible direct costs

– flat 30% overhead rate of personnel costs

• thematic networks:

– min. 7 partners from 7 different countries

– lump sum; for 3 years and 1+10 participants:

coordinator: 95 Keuro

other participants: 24 Keuro each

ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/ict_psp/participating/index_en.htm

••• 48

Practical info

ICT-PSP Theme 5 – Multilingual Web

budget: 14 Meuro under Call 3

managed by: Unit E1

Email: [email protected]

EC contact: Mr Kimmo Rossi

• inquiries: from the call publication date (~Feb)

• pre-proposals: from publication until 3 weeks before the call closing date

••• 49

Events

Language Technology Days:

14-15 Jan 2009, Luxbg

ICT-PSP Info Day:

26 Jan 2009, Brussels (tbc)

Email: [email protected]

URL: cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/language-technologies/..

FP7-ICT: ../fp7-call4_en.html

ICT-PSP: ../cip-psp_en.html

••• 50

Thank you!