GALA Blog

The European Commission wishes to promote SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises) in their international activities. SMEs have ideas that sometimes cannot be implemented because they depend on the availability of data resources or specialized tools that are too expensive to obtain and maintain. In some areas, data pooling, sharing, and reuse are further complicated by Europe’s many languages. Actions under SME-DCL aim to make it easier for innovative players, especially SMEs, to exploit and contribute to large digital resource pools. User-centered experimentation will also be supported, with the aim of demonstrating the integration of data-intensive technologies within innovative solutions and processes.

The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Work Programme 2011-2012, under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), is divided into eight Challenges of strategic interest to European society. Challenge 4 and strategic objective 4.1 have been designed specifically for SMEs, with a focus on the need for multilingual digital content.

Challenge 4: Technologies for Digital Content and Languages

Digital content is the foundation of a knowledge based society. Not only is knowledge stored in digital content; it is also from digital content that knowledge is extracted and exploited by individuals and organizations across modalities and languages. This makes it crucial for information stored digitally to be readily and reliably accessible over time to European citizens and enterprises. In addition, in every step of its lifecycle digital content should be be adequately supported and enhanced, as businesses respond to changes in the technology landscape.

The EC recognizes that SMEs require special support, but would like to see evidence that the proposed idea has a definite potential and will result in something that is both useful and viable. Therefore, EC encourages experimentation with innovative technologies, solutions, and processes at the first-use stage that will yield the desired results.

The call should achieve the following objectives:

• Improved European competitive position in a multilingual digital market, achieved through the provision of better services to citizens and businesses.
• Novel forms of partnership between new program entrants and established players, reduced development costs, and shorter time-to-market, all of which stimulate innovation and help expand markets.
• Result-driven knowledge transfer among research centers (and their spin-offs), progressive technology providers (especially SMEs), data brokers/aggregators, and content providers.

Outline proposals (5 pages max.) should be submitted by 28 April 2011. The complete information package and submission rules can be found on

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=UserSite.CooperationDetailsCallPage&call_id=392#prereg and

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/language-technologies/fp7-sme_en.html

If you would like more information on the SME-DCL call, please contact infso-e1@ec.europa.eu.

The University of Washington (Seattle) is launching a new training program for future localization managers and professionals looking to grow their careers beyond project management.  To help the program board develop a curriculum that will train our next generation of localization managers, companies with localization professional are encouraged to share their company’s job descriptions for professionals in positions of localization managers and above.

Descriptions may be posted here, on the GALA LinkedIn group discussion on this topic, or, if you prefer not to post online, you can also share your input by sending job descriptions directly to Julianna Jones (juj@uw.edu) — no company names needed, just the title and description.

Thank you!
Laura Brandon

Language and localization really became an ‘industry’ forty years ago. That’s when professionals began to organize into language service providers, professional quality became tantamount and companies began to respect the value of project management and translators with subject matter expertise. The industry has grown very successfully since then. There are more than 5,000 LSPs internationally. Technology providers support the industry and have developed constantly evolving tools to make work flow better and more efficiently. As an industry, the market for outsourced language services was over US $9 billion worldwide in 2006, growing at 7.5 percent per year to US $12billion in 2010 (according to Common Sense Advisory).

Yet the tough economy and technological advances sometimes stand in the way of growth. So what is the true state of our industry? Hans Fenstermacher, an industry leader and founding member of GALA, asks many questions about the industry: “The industry is having an identity crisis of sorts: in-source or outsource? humans or machines? professionals or crowds? desktops or clouds? more technology or better services?” He adds, “These questions have always been there, but they seem to be more insistent today. How should language service and technology providers position themselves today? One thing seems clear, we need to be much more diverse in our approach to the language business than ever before. To satisfy growing requirements, we need all elements of our industry. So, translators: start your MT engines! LSPs: get your workflow game on! Clients: stop insisting, and start collaborating!”

Hans’ engaging questions and answers set the state for a major discussion on our industry at GALA 09, 14 – 16 September, in Cancun, Mexico. Joining Hans, who will represent GALA, will be the executive director of LISA, the president of ATA and the head of the Localisation Research Centre. Don De Palma, industry leader and analyst at Common Sense Advisory, will moderate the session. It promises to be the most complete overall discussion of the language and localization industry ever presented.

GALA 09 will also feature Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, as the keynote speaker as well as a plethora of other speakers focused on everything from managed crowdsourcing to automated translation to public relations and marketing in the industry. Early registration for GALA 09 runs through 25 July. You can register and learn more about speakers at the conference website.

As for the state of the industry, comments are welcome! We may use questions and discussions from this blog and from Linked In discussions as fodder for our panelists…we’d like to hear your perspective.