Workshop "Digital technologies and indigenous languages".

ByPaula Silva
January, 2024. From January 10-12, the Department of Computer Science of the University of Chile (DCC U. Chile) hosted the workshop "Digital Technologies and Indigenous Languages" (https://ws.dcc.uchile.cl/), organized by the Subdirección de Pueblos Indígenas de la FCFM, with Claudio Gutiérrez, DCC U. Chile academic and IMFD researcher, the local host of the event.

The objective was to explore how digital technologies can play a crucial role in the revitalization of minority languages. To this end, talks, workshops and a training camp designed to develop innovative projects and initiatives were held. The most noteworthy were talks on Aymara, Quechua, Mapuzugún, and the presentations "Natural Language Processing and Indigenous Languages: An Introduction" by Antonis Anastasopoulos, from the Department of Computer Science at George Mason University in the United States; "Education in Indigenous Languages: Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas Universidad de Chile" by Professor Doris Sáez Hueichapan, from the Subdirección de Pueblos Indígenas de la FCFM; the talk "International Decade of Indigenous Languages in the context of global and national priorities", given by Alexey Tsykarev, from the University of Colorado at Boulder, United States, and the tutorial on Digital Tools by Professor Alexis Palmer, also from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

At the beginning of the activities, Professor Claudio Gutiérrez welcomed the attendees and said: "This event is an opportunity to explore the connections between digital technologies and indigenous languages in our country. We know that there are many local efforts, particular initiatives and we wanted to meet to try to cross experiences. The idea is to share knowledge, experiences and initiatives, to bring together professors with linguistics and computer science students, who we hope in some way will be motivated to take these topics for their memory, for their thesis, for their career, and we want to cross-fertilize with people who work with different communities in the promotion and revitalization of indigenous languages".


The event was supported by the North American Chapter Association Computational Linguistics (NAACL), the Millennium Institute for Foundational Research on Data (IMFD), the National Center for Artificial Intelligence (CENIA) and NIC Chile.

Source: Communications DCC U. Chile