On the occasion of obtaining the Presidency of the Council of the European Union by France, the French Ministry of Culture (General Delegation for the French language and languages of France) will organize  the inter-ministerial forum “Innovation, technologies and plurilingualism“.

The forum will be held from 7 to 9 February 2022 entirely online and it is the first initiative of the France Presidency, which paves the way for what will be important topics in the next six months: language, technologies and inclusion – and therefore accessibility.

The event will be opened by the Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, and will bring together participants from all over Europe and international players in the fields of translation, language, artificial intelligence and digital technologies in the service of multilingualism and inclusion in our societies.

Cristina Mussinelli, Secretary General of Fondazione LIA, has been invited to participate on the third day of the Forum, whose main focus is technology and inclusion.

How technologies can help EU citizens and especially disabled citizens? It is the focus of the round table Plurilingual technologies for the benefit of the citizen, and for digital inclusion, in which Cristina Mussinelli will share LIA’s experience and will explain the importance of guaranteeing everyone the right to read. The round table will also involve Kozma Ahačič, Director othe Institute of the Slovenian Language (Slovenia), Michael Filhol of LISN-CNRS (France) and a representative of the European Commission.

The Program

The forum will open with a focus on the theme of the European policies, digital transformation and translation, the main topic of Day 1.

The discussion will be centered on the role of translations in the circulation of works and knowledge in Europe and to the challenges of plurilingualism and digital transformation, especially in the culture and education fields.

The second day (February 8) is dedicated to Innovation, teaching, research and sharing. The focus will be language with an attention to innovation. There will be specific workshops to demonstrate innovative tools based on Artificial Intelligence and automatic languages. International experts will talk about what are the challenges and possibilities for culture and education in this research sector.

Day 3 (February 9) will focus on more ethical themes: Citizenship, diversity, social cohesion and sense of belonging. International personalities will speak about these and other EU values upon which the sense of belonging to Europe is built.

How diversity is valued and how does inclusion, today, pass through technologies? These questions will be answered through various round tables, which will collect case studies and examples of digital inclusion.

To follow this event and receive the related login links, you are invited to register on the platform of the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Here the instructions.