The Eurecat technology centre has picked up an award at the AMETIC Artificial Intelligence Summit 2024 held in Madrid in the R+D+i on AI Award category for developing smart tools leveraging generative artificial intelligence free software to produce automatic audiovisual content summaries which help Catalan Broadcasting Corporation-3Cat staff to do their jobs.
AMETIC, the association representing the digital industry sector across Spain, presented the award to Eurecat at the seventh edition of this event which showcases artificial intelligence’s role as a major enabler of digital transformation in numerous industries.
In the winning project Eurecat has combined speech transcription models providing word-level time codes with large natural language models able to generate extractive textual summaries to automatically create a video summary featuring the key parts of a news item or interview.
A graphic interface has been developed for user interaction whose features include customising the video summary by selecting the number of most significant sentences, a second level of summary with the most important parts of each sentence and an option to delete silences of a specified length to make the final summary video more vibrant.
The award-winning technological developments have been accomplished through a high-impact project run by the CIDAI (Center of Innovation in Data Technologies and Artificial Intelligence) which fosters the uptake and transfer of this technology through innovative solutions as part of the Artificial Intelligence Strategy of Catalonia (Catalonia.AI). Promoted and coordinated by the Catalan Government through the Secretariat for Digital Policies in the Ministry of Business and Labour, the Catalonia.AI strategy is designed to bolster the country’s AI ecosystem and lead the generation of knowledge, social and business applications and the creation of AI-based solutions which unlock economic growth and enhance people’s lives.
The Catalan Broadcasting Corporation-3Cat has engaged in the project as promoter of the challenge to drive the search for innovative solutions by tapping cutting-edge artificial intelligence technologies. It has also been involved in the project’s assessment stage including testing with News, Image and Documentation staff who have shared their feedback and suggestions.
The award-winning project is part of a high-impact CIDAI initiative whose partners in addition to Eurecat include the Intelligent Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Research Center (IDEAI) at the UPC and the Computer Vision Center (CVC) at the UAB. These two organisations together with Eurecat and 3Cat are members of the CIDAI alongside the Government of Catalonia and other businesses, public administrations and research centres.
“This recognition and the hard work done by CIDAI are a good example of the robustness, maturity and diversity of the AI research, innovation and development ecosystem in Catalonia which is building on its position as a leader in southern Europe by rolling out this technology,” commented Lluís Juncà i Pujol, Director General for Innovation and Digital Economy in the Government of Catalonia.
Rafa Redondo, head of the Image Line at Eurecat’s Multimedia Technologies Unit and principal investigator of the project, picked up the award. “Deep learning models have brought a disruptive leap in the capacity we had to process information, in this case audio and text,” he argued. “When we blend that with the ability to operate across several domains, we can devise innovative applications such as this one which can lighten the burden of many repetitive and tedious tasks for professionals.”
“Open source makes it possible to share knowledge and innovation capacity across institutions and businesses very quickly and efficiently,” he added. “This has a direct impact as a social good as long as these technologies are put in place with appropriate security methods.”
“This award encourages the CIDAI to continue fostering the uptake of AI by connecting relevant challenges put forward by companies or organisations with research and innovation organisations in Catalonia,” pointed out Joan Mas, CIDAI’s Director.
“Helping to meet the challenge posed by 3Cat has enabled us to work with new generative AI technologies which are highly significant for the media industry.”
“Engaging in these projects brings us into contact with technology research centres,” said Alberto Alejo, head of the Engineering unit at 3Cat. “By harnessing the challenges we set and the solutions they deliver we can unlock projects which go beyond proofs of concept to furnish innovative solutions applicable to the medium.”
The event brought together industry leaders to share knowledge and discuss the business, innovation and employment opportunities afforded by artificial intelligence.
