On July 7 the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) high-level event and the WSIS International Award Champions' Greeting took place at the Palexpo International Conference Center in Geneva, Switzerland, where Jānis Ziediņš, Deputy Director for Digital Development at the Culture Information Systems Centre, received the WSIS Champion Award, which was awarded to Latvian state administration language technology platform Hugo.lv. The platform was developed with the support of the European Union in cooperation with the Culture Information Systems Centre (CISC) and the language technology company Tilde.
Hugo.lv is a Latvian state administration language technology platform that provides modern, artificial intelligence (AI)-based public administration e-services to the citizens of Latvia. Hugo.lv offers automated translation into 24 European languages, speech recognition and synthesis, a Latgalian written language spelling tool, a light language tool, as well as virtual assistants for public administration institutions based on a single platform.
Hugo.lv has won the WSIS Champions Award in the project category “Cultural Diversity and Identity, Linguistic Diversity and Local Content”. Initially, the top 20 projects in each category were selected from the projects submitted from around the world and nominated for the Champions Award, which has now been awarded to the top 5 projects in each category. As stated on the WSIS Award website, “champions demonstrate exceptional progress and leadership in their attempts to bridge the digital divide, foster digital inclusion, and accelerate the use of ICTs for social good. They serve as exemplary models for local and international replication and are acknowledged for their innovation, leadership, and sustained commitment to development through ICTs.”
Jānis Ziediņš, Deputy Director of CISC and Project Manager of Hugo.lv, emphasizes: “The Hugo.lv platform has become an essential pillar of the country's digital transformation over the past ten years since its creation, and is widely used by both public administration employees and citizens. Hugo.lv not only provides high-quality machine translation and speech technology solutions, but also promotes the sustainability of the Latvian language in the digital era. Receiving the award does not mean stopping after successfully completed work, on the contrary – we see new challenges and goals to strive for. Our next step is to strengthen Hugo.lv as an open language technology platform that serves both public administration and society. We are constantly continuing to work on improving machine translation and speech technology, and together with partners we plan to begin work on creating a large Latvian language model.”
Artūrs Vasiļevskis, Chairman of the Board of the language technology company Tilde: “We at Tilde are pleased that the Hugo.lv platform and the language technology solutions integrated into it are appreciated not only in Latvia, but also on an international scale. The WSIS Champion Award is proof that innovative and practically applicable technologies based on artificial intelligence and promoting the development of the Latvian language can also be competitive on a global scale. Our goal is to create language technologies that serve the entire society — public administration, businesses and citizens. Therefore, we attach special importance to openness and cooperation. Currently, Tilde is developing a large language model (LVM) for European languages, on behalf of the European Commission, which will be specially adapted to the needs of the Baltic languages, but will also include support for the Ukrainian and Turkish languages. It will be a secure open-source solution that can be adapted for various purposes and applications. Such a large language model will further strengthen the place of our language in the digital era, promote technological sovereignty, ensure access to high-quality language technologies, and open up wider opportunities for future innovations.”