UNESCO to Host LT4All 2.0 Conference, Focusing on Language Technologies for Community Empowerment
UNESCO will host the second edition of the Language Technologies for All (LT4All) conference, known as LT4All 2.0, from February 24-26, 2025. The event will take place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, and aims to advance the development and application of language technologies.
This hybrid conference, organized within the framework of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL 2022-2032) and commemorating the Silver Jubilee of International Mother Language Day 2025, is co-organized by UNESCO, the International Language Resources Association (ELRA), and its Special Interest Group on Under-resourced languages (SIGUL). The primary goal is to leverage technology to empower communities by promoting multilingualism and preserving cultural heritage.
The event will explore the pivotal role of language technologies, from basic tools to complex translation systems, in enabling access to information in various languages and fostering cross-cultural understanding. This effort aligns with UNESCO’s commitment to safeguarding endangered languages and promoting linguistic diversity.
Advancing Multilingualism in the Digital Age
UNESCO recognizes the importance of multilingualism and its contribution to social development, emphasizing inclusion and the preservation of cultural heritage. The organization adopted the 2003 Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace to underscore the importance of multilingualism in the digital age.
This recommendation calls for legislative, technical, and other measures to promote multilingualism in cyberspace, recognizing the internet’s ability to foster development through enhanced access to information.
Building on Previous Success
The inaugural LT4ALL conference, held in 2019 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, focused on “Multilingualism for Building Knowledge Societies.” That event underscored the crucial role of language in fostering inclusive, cross-cultural dialogues and prompted initiatives from major tech companies to develop language technologies for diverse linguistic communities, including creating speech corpora and machine translation systems.
