The "Nós" project gets underway, the largest regional initiative in support of the Galician language, developed at USC by CiTIUS and ILG
The Xunta and USC are formalising an initial contribution of 150,000 euros to launch diagnostic and action‑planning work, together with a strategy to attract Next Generation funds, an initiative aimed at placing the Galician language at the forefront of intelligent technologies.
The path towards normalising the use of Galician in the digital environment promoted by the "Nós Project" is opening up through an initial allocation that will enable the start of the process of designing and planning actions. The rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela, Antonio López, the Regional Minister for Culture, Education and University, Román Rodríguez, and the director of the Galician Agency for Technological Modernisation (Amtega), Mar Pereira Álvarez, reported on Tuesday on the agreement that formalises the first financial injection for the provision of resources for a project that the USC rector described as "essential for the future of the language in the digital context". Antonio López highlighted the significance of this initiative, which aims to be "a driving force for revitalising the language, as well as research and industry in this field, through the interrelationship of technology, artificial intelligence and the humanities".
In turn, the head of the Culture department pointed out that this is an "ambitious, nationwide project, conceived for the short, medium and long term, and one in which public support is essential to ensure that we can reach where the market does not".
The collaboration agreement between both institutions represents an initial investment of 150,000 euros, which will give rise to the definition, design and planning of the initial proposal for the action strategy and the securing of European funds with which the Xunta de Galicia intends the "Nós Project" to reach 15.5 million euros.
In a coordinated, collaborative manner, CiTIUS and the Instituto da Lingua Galega (ILG) from USC, together with the Xunta itself, through the Secretariat-General for Language Policy, the Centro Ramón Piñeiro para a Investigación en Humanidades and Amtega, will begin cataloguing the resources available to carry out the planning of the different parts of the "Nós Project" in two main areas: speech processing and text processing. In this process, the working teams, coordination strategies between them and methods for monitoring and evaluating quality, both of the resources and of the resulting tools, will be defined.
Voice assistants and advanced telecare
The ultimate goal of the "Nós Project" is to place Galician at the forefront of artificial intelligence and language technologies so as to enable the natural use of this language in digital interactions between people and technological devices. The initiative seeks to develop a wide range of high‑quality digital linguistic resources in Galician, free of charge and open‑source, so that they can be used by citizens and by all types of companies and institutions, enabling access in the Galician language to a broad array of digital products, both present and future.
Along these lines, the project will work towards the presence of Galician in voice assistants, automatic subtitling of audiovisual content, support for medical diagnosis, advanced telecare services, administrative procedures through virtual assistants, among other developments.
The path towards normalising the use of Galician in the digital environment promoted by the "Nós Project" is opening up through an initial allocation that will enable the start of the process of designing and planning actions. The rector of the University of Santiago de Compostela, Antonio López, the Regional Minister for Culture, Education and University, Román Rodríguez, and the director of the Galician Agency for Technological Modernisation (Amtega), Mar Pereira Álvarez, reported on Tuesday on the agreement that formalises the first financial injection for the provision of resources for a project that the USC rector described as "essential for the future of the language in the digital context". Antonio López highlighted the significance of this initiative, which aims to be "a driving force for revitalising the language, as well as research and industry in this field, through the interrelationship of technology, artificial intelligence and the humanities".
In turn, the head of the Culture department pointed out that this is an "ambitious, nationwide project, conceived for the short, medium and long term, and one in which public support is essential to ensure that we can reach where the market does not".
The collaboration agreement between both institutions represents an initial investment of 150,000 euros, which will give rise to the definition, design and planning of the initial proposal for the action strategy and the securing of European funds with which the Xunta de Galicia intends the "Nós Project" to reach 15.5 million euros.
In a coordinated, collaborative manner, CiTIUS and the Instituto da Lingua Galega (ILG) from USC, together with the Xunta itself, through the Secretariat-General for Language Policy, the Centro Ramón Piñeiro para a Investigación en Humanidades and Amtega, will begin cataloguing the resources available to carry out the planning of the different parts of the "Nós Project" in two main areas: speech processing and text processing. In this process, the working teams, coordination strategies between them and methods for monitoring and evaluating quality, both of the resources and of the resulting tools, will be defined.
Voice assistants and advanced telecare
The ultimate goal of the "Nós Project" is to place Galician at the forefront of artificial intelligence and language technologies so as to enable the natural use of this language in digital interactions between people and technological devices. The initiative seeks to develop a wide range of high‑quality digital linguistic resources in Galician, free of charge and open‑source, so that they can be used by citizens and by all types of companies and institutions, enabling access in the Galician language to a broad array of digital products, both present and future.
Along these lines, the project will work towards the presence of Galician in voice assistants, automatic subtitling of audiovisual content, support for medical diagnosis, advanced telecare services, administrative procedures through virtual assistants, among other developments.