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Contact:

Igor Leturia

Elhuyar Fundazioa

Contact details:

i.leturia@elhuyar.com

(+34) 943 363040

2009/10/26

AnHitz project receives award in Poland

AnHitz has been awarded the prize for the best application at the international workshop CLA’09 (Computational Linguistics-Applications), held in Mragowo (Poland). AnHitz is a virtual expert person in scientific and technological themes. It expresses itself in Euskera, the Basque language. The AnHitz project is a strategic research project into linguistics technology, voice technology and visual technology. The VICOMTech-IK4 and Robotiker-Tecnalia technological centres, the Elhuyar Foundation and two research groups from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) (the IXA and Aholab groups), took part in this project from 2006 to 2008. On finishing the project, they presented a demonstration application of the same name and based on the incorporation of these technologies. AnHitz is an emotional 3D avatar that expresses itself in Euskera and is an expert in scientific and technological themes. It is capable of understanding questions put to it and provides answers. Moreover, it responds when questioned with one or more words, AnHitz knowing how to search for documents that include these words or groups of words and to translate them into Basque.

From the 12 to the 14 of October, the IMCSIT multiconference was held in Mragowo (Poland), the principal conference on ICTs in this country. Within this an international workshop on language and technology was organised. 15 applications were presented at this, amongst them being AnHitz, presented by Elhuyar Foundation member Mr Igor Leturia. AnHitz received no less than two prizes: the first for the best application for information searching and the second for the best application at the workshop.