Linguists in tech- a Swiss perspective

The first Swiss multiplier event – 8 June 2022

WHAT

This multiplier event is the first of two events to be organized in Switzerland by the UPSKILLS project. Its goal is to bring together members of academia, students and companies across Europe to work on improving employability of language and linguistics students.

WHY

Many companies, including technology giants, work with language data and the demand for research skills in language-related domains is constantly growing. University curricula, however, are rarely oriented towards specific skills needed for research and industry (such as programming, data acquisition and handling etc.). As a result, language and linguistic students tend to be poorly prepared for research or industry careers. The UPSKILLS project addresses this gap with multiple activities to be presented at this full-day event.

WHEN

The event will take place on 8 June 2022, between 9am and 5pm. See the provisional programme below for details, which will be updated in due course.

WHO

The UPSKILLS team at the University of Zurich (Tanja Samardžić and Iris Hübscher) together with local organisers.
Contact details: iriscarmela.huebscher@uzh.ch and tanja.samardzic@uzh.ch

WHERE

This will be a hybrid event collocated with the conference SwissText 2022. The on-site venue is Polo universitario Lugano D1.03. Online attendance will be possible via a zoom link, which will be sent to all registered participants.

Registration is free of charge and is now available on this page (as of May 1st 2022):

on site: FULLY BOOKED!

zoom: https://forms.gle/Juo7yKJCmC1H88Kk8 

[Kindly note that there are only 30 places for on-site participation, while there is no cap when it comes to online participation.]

TARGET AUDIENCE

We expect participants from academia and companies, but the workshop will be open and accessible to anybody interested in the topic.

PROGRAMME

All times are CEST (UTC+2)

09:00 – 10:30  Presentation of the needs analysis: language, technology and the future of linguistic professions

Presenters: Stavros Assimakopoulos, Maja Miličević Petrović, Jelena Gledić

10:30 -11:00   Coffee break

11:00 – 12:30   Interactive panel discussion: What can we do?

Moderator: Iris Hübscher

Panelists: Andrea Rocci, Susanna Tron, Samuel Läubli, Genoveva Puskas, Stavros Assimakopoulos, Maja Miličević Petrović, Jelena Gledić

12:30 – 14:00   Lunch break

14:00 – 15:00  Presentation of the guidelines for integrating research into teaching

Presenters: Tanja Samardžić and Iulianna van der Lenk

Commentators: Martin Hilpert, Simone Ueberwasser, Sandrine Zufferey, Didier Maillat

15:00  – 16:00  A tour of the current state of the UPSKILLS materials (teaching content and educational games)

Presenters: Tanja Samardžić and Margherita Pallottino

Commentators: Martin Hilpert, Simone Ueberwasser , Sandrine Zufferey, Didier Maillat

16:00 – 17:00   Networking time