Events Calendar

NL Seminar- Technologies for every language: how machine learning can reach everyone in the world

Speaker: Robert Munro, Idibon

Talk Title: Technologies for every language: how machine learning can reach everyone in the world

Series: Natural Language Seminar

Abstract: Speakers of more than 5,000 languages have access to internet and communication technologies. The majority of phones, tablets and computers now ship with language-enabled capabilities like speech-recognition and intelligent auto-correction, and people increasingly interact with data-intensive cloud-based language technologies like search-engines and spam-filters. For both personal and large-scale technologies, the service quality drops or disappears entirely outside of a handful of languages. Speakers of low-resource languages correlate with lower access to healthcare, education and higher vulnerability to disasters. Serving the broadest possible range of languages is crucial to ensuring equitable participation in the global information economy. I will present examples of how natural language processing and distributed human computing are improving the lives of speakers of all the world's languages, in areas including education, disaster-response, health and access to employment. When applying natural language processing to the full diversity of the world's communications, we need to go beyond simple keyword analysis and implement complex technologies that require human-in-the-loop processing to ensure usable accuracy. I will share results that show how for-profit technologies are improving people's lives by providing sustainable economic growth opportunities when they support more languages, aligning business objectives with global diversity.



Biography: Robert Munro is the CEO of Idibon, a company with the objective of providing language technologies for all the world's languages. In past work he has served as Chief Information Officer for the largest solar energy company in Sierra Leone; was the Chief Technology Officer for the largest use of big data technologies to track disease outbreaks globally; worked for the UN High Commission for Refugees in Liberia; lead the crowdsourced response to the 2010 earthquake Haiti; and has helped information processing in disaster response and election monitoring in more than a dozen countries. In current work, Idibon helps everyone from Fortune 500s to disaster response organizations process language data at scale. Outside of work, he has learned about the world's diversity by cycling more than 20,000 kilometers across 20 countries. Robert has a PhD from Stanford University.

Host: Aliya Deri and Kevin Knight

More Info: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/

Location: Information Science Institute (ISI) - 6th Flr Conf Rm # 689, Marina Del Rey

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Peter Zamar

Event Link: http://nlg.isi.edu/nl-seminar/