Conference highlights Ireland

Life

Ireland’s potential as a leader in the estimated €18 billion global content industry was highlighted at the Annual Localisation Research Centre Conference. The conference, concluding today, was attended by around 100 delegates from 20 countries, and included speakers from Intel, Symantec, Oracle, Microsoft, Lingotek, Applied Language Solutions, Asian Online, SDL.

Localisation is defined as the translation and adaptation of digital content to other languages, cultures and platforms. Localisation applies to basic word processing software to the latest multimedia computer games to complex software systems across healthcare, education and a range of global industries.

Centre Director, Reinhard Schäler said: "There are things that as English speakers we take for granted. Access to and understanding of a range of content across the web, the use of online banking systems, communication in Facebook, being able to sit down at most computers and type using the alphabet we’ve known since childhood. The adaption of all this content for accessibility to a range of languages is a €18 billion industry in which Ireland is one of the global leaders. Ireland was the location for the world’s first and largest US localisation multinational (Lotus) who set up in the mid-1980s supported by the world’s first dedicated service provider, Softrans International and Irish entrepreneur Brian Kelly. The localisation industry grew from there and companies like IBM, Microsoft, Symantec, Correl, Google, and Paypal followed. Ireland soon became the largest exporter of software and our strengths in localisation was the key to this."

The University of Limerick offers the world’s first dedicated postgraduate Localisation Programme, the MSc in Global Computing and Localisation, and is the home of The Rosetta Foundation, offering free localisation and translation services to non-profit organizations, among them the Special Olympics, Trocaire, and Concern, supported by a community of around 1,000 volunteers. LRC XVI is supported by the Centre of Next Generation Localisation (CNGL), a Centre for Science, Engineering and Technology (CSET), co-funded by Science Foundation Ireland.

TechCentral Reporters

Pictured (l-r): Paul Leahy, Oracle; Reinhard Schäler Localisation Research Centre; Martin Ørsted, Microsoft; Fred Hollowood, Symantec

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