March 16, 2020 Results of the 2nd Multilingual Speech Translation Contest

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT, President: Dr. Hideyuki Tokuda) jointly made an appeal for new ideas and proofs of concepts (PoC) to eliminate language barriers, in order to accelerate the further spread of multilingual speech translation technology, and the emergence of a diverse range of translation services. Further to this, MIC is announcing the results of the 2nd Multilingual Speech Translation Contest where awards, such as the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Award, were conferred on excellent submissions.

1. Overview

MIC and NICT jointly made an appeal for new ideas and proofs of concepts (PoC), such as new methods of using multilingual speech translation technologies, to eliminate language barriers and accelerate the further spread of multilingual speech translation technology, and the emergence of a diverse range of translation services. Further to this, MIC held the 2nd Multilingual Speech Translation Contest where awards, such as the Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Award, were conferred on excellent submissions.
228 submissions were received for the Idea Contest, which sought new ideas to eliminate the global language barrier. The submissions which passed the initial judge screening were then considered by a judging panel on December 14 (Saturday), 2019, and 8 finalists were conferred with awards.
In addition to the prototypes by the award winners of the above Idea Contest, 15 submissions were received for the Prototype (PoC) Contest, which sought prototypes for new products, apps and services. The submissions which passed the initial judge screening were then considered by a judging panel on March 14 (Saturday), 2020, and the below 2 winners were decided.
With consideration of the purpose of the Basic Policies for Countermeasures against New Coronavirus Infections (decided by the New Coronavirus Infectious Disease Control Headquarters on February 25, 2020), however, the method of giving prototype presentations and demonstrations, as well as the judging of them, was changed to a remote method that took place online.

2. Results of the Prototype (PoC) Contest

3. Future plans

Further details about the award-winning ideas and prototypes mentioned above will be published on the dedicated webpage for the Multilingual Speech Translation Contest (https://tagen.go.jp/ ).
This contest is implemented under the Cabinet Office’s Public/Private R&D Investment Strategic Expansion PrograM (PRISM) budget, and it is managed and organized by Toppan Printing Co., Ltd.