The Microsoft announcement highlights that they encouraged applications from a variety of institution types, including universities, non-government organizations (NGOs), start-ups, and research institutions, among others.
The initiative was launched “in consultation with the Council of Europe,” and “in close coordination with the APERTUS project,” a large language model (LLM) project led by researchers from the Swiss institutions EPFL and ETH Zurich.
Though no longer live, a previous version of the LINGUA web page stated that awardees would be eligible to win up to USD 50,000 in funding, with larger amounts possible on a case-by-case basis. They would also receive up to two years of Azure credits, as well as technical support and collaboration from the AI for Good Lab, EPFL, and ETH Zurich.
According to the Microsoft announcement, 11 projects were chosen from institutions all over Europe, over half of them universities or other academic institutions. In total, the announcement estimated that these projects cover languages spoken by about 65 million people.
The 11 awardees included projects aimed at “16 languages and dialects across 10 countries.” The projects focus on a range of topics relevant to European low-resource languages, from preservation for languages with small speaker populations like Ladino, to data “collection and digitization” for poorly documented language varieties like Greco-Romani.
Online Response
Posts supporting the initiative have garnered some positive attention from commenters online.
For example, in a LinkedIn post, the CEO of Microsoft Switzerland, Catrin Hinkel, said, “technology should reflect the richness of the communities it serves. With LINGUA, we’re taking concrete steps to ensure that Europe’s linguistic diversity becomes a strength in the AI era.”
One commenter on her post wrote, “it’s inspiring to see concrete action towards bridging the language gap in AI and empowering diverse communities.”
Similarly, another commenter said, “the focus on underrepresented languages not only enriches the AI landscape but also reinforces the importance of cultural diversity in technology. This initiative is a significant step toward making technology accessible and representative for everyone.”
At the time of writing, Microsoft has not announced another open call round for the LINGUA initiative. However, the award announcement does state that “further projects will receive support through Azure compute credits.”
