As many as 120 experts and scholars from over 30 countries around the world participated the 19th International Conference on Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing – CICLing 2018, opened on March 19th at University of Science and Technology – USTH (also called Vietnam France University).
The six-day event (from March 18th-24th) hosted by the Department of Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT) provided an opportunity for participants to present their individual research and exchange knowledge as well as discover culture and cuisine of Vietnam.
The conference was co-organised by CICLing 2018 Committee, ICT international joint laboratory (ICT Lab) of USTH, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, University of La Rochelle, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), the Natural Language and Text Processing Laboratory of the CIC, IPN, and the Mexican Society of Artificial Intelligence (SMIA). ICT Department of USTH was the host of the event.
Significant event in Intelligent Text Processing area
Text Processing is a crucial technique, aiming at helping computers understand human’s language to assist people in language-related activities such as translation, text data analysis, voice identification, information searching and so on – said Dr. Nguyen Thi Minh Huyen – Associate Dean of Faculty of Mathematics, Mechanics and Informatics cum. Head of Department of Informatics, Hanoi University of Science – Vietnam National University.
This year’s event saw attendance of four well-known international speakers in Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing, including Prof. Pushpak Bhattacharyya – Former President of the Association of Computational Linguistics. During presentation time, four speakers presented their latest research on computational linguistics and natural language processing based on machine learning, multimedia information and human-machine interaction.
In addition, within the framework of CICLing 2018, a workshop on Vietnam Language and Speech Processing – VLSP 2018 was held on March 23rd. The marginal workshop hosted by the Vietnamese Natural Language Processing Association (CICLing) in collaboration with CICLing 2018 included four competitions on competency analysis, name and voice identification as well as spoken Vietnamese synthesis.
According to Dr. Minh Huyen, many difficulties have faced the Vietnamese language processing due to the complicated structure of Vietnamese as well as the limitation of human resource and research in this field.
Therefore, CICLing 2018 and the marginal workshop were platforms for domestic and international experts to understand the development process and address problems in natural language processing in Vietnam, thus opening up new research collaboration.
Research and application of Vietnamese language processing is significant for the development of IT in Vietnam, especially when the country is fostering the application of artificial intelligence in every aspect of life and the 4.0 industrial revolution, Dr. Huyen added.
Affirming credibility of USTH in research
CICLing is ranked 20th in the list of the most prestigious seminars and magazines on computational linguistics by Google Scholar in 2017. The annual international conference gathers hundreds of excellent scientists and researchers in the field of computational linguistics and information processing throughout the world.
Being chosen by the international scientific community as the host of international conferences like CICLing has affirmed the reputation and credibility of USTH in the field of information technology particularly and research generally, said Antoine Dounet, co-chair of ICT at the University of La Rochelle.
He also added that computer science in the world has rocketedly been developing, creating more and more jobs for people. However, the competitiveness in the industry is rather high, especially when the 4.0 industrial revolution has been promoted in Vietnam. Meanwhile, despite good knowledge, Vietnamese students are generally weak in English and lack of environment to gain practical knowledge. This is why USTH actively promotes international research exchange activities such as CICLing.
In 2017, USTH also reached the top 10 leading universities and research institutes in international scientific publications in Vietnam, ranked by Nature Index.
CICLing is considered as the premise for USTH to continue holding large international conferences and conducting related research activities.
