LBDA Summit 2019 Launching Ceremony held at the Macao Polytechnic Institute
The Language Big Data Alliance (LBDA) kicked off its annual conference in the morning of April 2, 2019 at Macao Polytechnic Institute, featuring the theme of "Future, Infinite". Macao Polytechnic Institute (MPI) is a founding institution and council member of LBDA and was the host of this year's annual conference. The conference was attended by experts and scholars of diverse fields from around the world. Officiating guests included: Ip Peng Kin, Office Chief from GSASC of the Macao SAR Government; Gou Renmin, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Youth Affairs of the Liaison Office; Huang Youyi, Hannelore Lee-Janke and Wei-He Zhong, Co-Presidents of LBDA; Im Sio Kei Marcus, President of MPI and Teng Sio Hong, Acting Deputy Director of the Macao SAR Government's Higher Education Bureau, among many others.
In his opening speech, Prof. Im Sio Kei Marcus, President of MPI, welcomed all representatives from member institutions of LBDA, as well as all other experts and scholars attending the conference. According to Prof. Im, in alignment with China's "One Belt, One Road" Initiative and the blueprint of the "Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area" strategic plan, MPI is committed to conducting rigorous research in artificial intelligence and machine translation at its core, taking a firm foothold in Chinese-Portuguese bilingual data services, and establishing the Chinese‑Portuguese‑English Machine Translation Laboratory. Within less than three years since its inception, the Laboratory has successively launched the Chinese‑Portuguese Official Document Aided Translation System that is tailor-made for Macao's public administration agencies and units, and the well-received "Diz lá!" Chinese-Portuguese smart-phone application. In order to further enhance the quantity and diversity of its machine translation corpus data, MPI successfully held the first and second sessions of the “Global Chinese-Portuguese Translation Competition” in 2017 and 2018, respectively. The third session of the competition is currently underway and has attracted over 160 teams from Portugal, Brazil, the Chinese mainland and the Macao SAR, an unprecedented scale for such an event.
Huang Youyi, Co-President of the Language Big Data Alliance (LBDA), delivered a speech saying that the membership of the Alliance has grown to more than 240, including all provinces and regions of the country, including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. International institutions have increased to around 30, including those from Europe, America and Australia. The LITx Academy online resource-sharing platform, established by the LBDA, was well applied internally, and the Alliance also contributed to the success of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Successful work has been completed in the context of China's Essential Glossary projects, and large-scale national machine translation review projects have been carried out. In addition, good results were achieved in the expansion and development of projects in Europe, USA, Russia and Australia. A welcoming address was given by LBDA´s Co-President Hannelore Lee-Janke, followed by speeches by Zhang Xiaodan, vice-president of the GTCOM, and Lai Xu Long, Vice President of China University of Geosciences. Subsequently, with the joint witness of the guests, the Chinese-Portuguese-English Voice Recognition Simultaneous Interpretation System was launched. Following these, the official unveiling ceremony was also held for the “GTCOM-China University of Geosciences: Geoscientific Big Data Lab” and the “GTCOM-Centre of Cultural and Financial Research, Central University of Finance and Economics: Financial Big Data Lab”.
The opening ceremony in the morning was followed by the University Presidents Forum on "Big Data Promoting Global Education in the Era of Artificial Intelligence" presided over by Zhong Weihe, Co-President of LBDA. Speakers in this forum session included Huang Youyi, Co-President of LBDA; Zhu Chaowei, President of Sichuan International Studies University; Lai Xulong, Vice President of China University of Geosciences; Hannelore Lee-Janke, Co-President of LBDA. This forum session featured very inspiring keynote speeches followed by active and in-depth discussions with the participants.
This annual conference’s afternoon session probed into "The application of artificial intelligence and big data in practice", presided by Han Lili, Director of MPI’s School of Languages and Translation. Haruki Matsuda, President of Kaodensha Co. Ltd, delivered the keynote speech. Other speakers in this session included Lu Shijie, Chairman of the Cultural and Financial Research Center of the Central University of Finance and Economics; Guo Qing, Director of the MTI Center of Southeast University; Zhang Yunfeng, Director of MPI’s Portuguese Teaching and Research Center, and Zhang Jide, Secretary of the School of Foreign Languages of China University of Geosciences.
The subsequent "Forum on Sharing Global Education Resources" was hosted by Professor Liu Heping from Beijing Language and Culture University. An inspiring keynote speech was made by Professor Wang Lifei of Beijing Language and Culture University. This was followed by active discussions contributed by Professor Zhang Ailing of Shanghai International Studies University, Professor Ping Hong of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Stanley Kan, R&D Director of Macao Professional Development Association and Bu Zhanting, Vice Dean of the School of Foreign Languages of Qingdao University. All speakers expressed their perspectives on integration and sharing of educational resources based on their respective regions or institutions, including its current status and future prospects.
Representatives from LBDA member institutions, experts and scholars, have had in-depth and fruitful discussions on the data and the educational development in the era of artificial intelligence, education resource sharing, artificial intelligence and big data in the field of teaching, scientific research and other current applications. It is believed that leveraging the tide of the vigorous development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and with the backdrop of the era when our motherland China is vigorously progressing in the "One Belt, One Road" initiative, science and technology, education and artificial intelligence will be integrated seamlessly to create a promising ‘Future’ that is ‘Infinite’ indeed.
