HCSNet promotes interdisciplinary research in speech, language, and sonics. The Network connects leading and emerging researchers across disciplines, exploits previously unrecognised intersections, supports interdisciplinary graduate training and exchanges, provides database storage infrastructure, and consults with industry and government to set new research agendas.

By generating an explosion of new approaches and knowledge, the network aims to build Australia's reputation as a leader in communication science and technology via advances in areas as diverse as automatic speech recognition, distress call monitoring, hearing prostheses, web interfaces, and data retrieval and data mining systems.

In 2000, Macquarie initiated a unique undergraduate program in Language Technology. Macquarie's Centre for Language Technology is the largest and longest-established Australian research grouping in natural language processing, computational linguistics and language technology.

The CSIRO ICT Centre is the hub for CSIRO’s research in Information and Communication Technologies, with a mission to deliver the enabling power of ICT across many industries. Being part of CSIRO increases our ability to deliver solutions for the benefit of Australia, based on our understanding of the needs of the many sectors we work in.

We focus in areas where our work has the potential to create competitive advantage for Australia as well as leading to globally adopted solutions. We develop partnerships with businesses and governments to create streamlined paths to market for our research.

Microsoft Research (MSR) develops strategic technologies that make interacting with computers more natural. From the user interface to the most basic operating system components, our team of outstanding researchers focuses both on aggressive long-term goals and delivering innovative technology.

Appen is a global leader in the provision of innovative speech and language technology support, attracting a world-class client base that includes IBM, Microsoft, Toshiba, Siemens, Nuance, Telstra, and government and defence organisations.

Appen, based in Chatswood, NSW, has grown five-fold since 1999, and today exports account for 90 per cent of its revenue. In 2004 Appen established a subsidiary in the USA, and a year later operating centres in Pakistan and Jordan. In December 2005, Appen was announced Australian Exporter-of-the- Year in the ICT category.

Google is a global technology leader focused on improving the way people connect with information. Google's innovations in web search and advertising have made its website a top Internet destination and its brand one of the most recognized in the world. Google maintains the world's largest online index of websites and other content, and Google makes this information freely available to anyone with an Internet connection. Google's automated search technology helps people obtain nearly instant access to relevant information from it vast online index. For more information, visit www.google.com.

Xerox is a technology, document services and consulting company that is founded upon and thrives on innovation. The Xerox Innovation Group explores the unknown, invents next generation technology and creates new business and shareholder value through its global research centres.

The Xerox Research Centre Europe (XRCE) in France, focuses on creating innovative document technologies to support growth in Xerox content and document management services. It conducts sophisticated analysis of text, images, document structures and device data. Technology applications are developed which streamline document intensive processes, bridge the paper and digital worlds and ease the task of information management in multiple languages.

The Asian Federation of Natural Language Processing associations (AFNLP) was founded in 2004. Its mission is to promote information dissemination and research co-operation among researchers in the region, and co-ordinate initiatives of the region with those of the other regions in Natural Language Processing and the related fields. Member organisations include professional associations and research institutions/universities in Asia as well as major conference bodies initiated in the Pacific Asia region.

The AFNLP organises its flagship conference, the International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing (IJCNLP). The first and second IJCNLP were held in 2004 and 2005, in Sanya and Jeju respectively. The third conference will take place in 2007, in Hyderabad.

The AFNLP-Nagao Fund is to support presentation of Asian NLP research efforts at COLING/ACL 2006. About 10 awards will be made. Please refer to
http://www.rcl.cityu.edu.hk/nagao-fund for application details.

The European Language Resources Association (ELRA) was established as a non-profit organisation in Luxembourg in February, 1995.

ELRA is the driving force to make available the language resources for language engineering and to evaluate language engineering technologies.
In order to achieve this goal, ELRA is active in identification, distribution, collection, validation, standardisation, improvement, in promoting the production of language resources, in supporting the infrastructure to perform evaluation campaigns and in developing a scientific field of language resources and evaluation..

These activities are achieved through ELRA's operational body ELDA (Evaluation & Language resources Distribution Agency).

DSTO is part of Australia’s Department of Defence. DSTO’s role is to ensure the expert, impartial and innovative application of science and technology to the defence of Australia and its national interests.

Defence customers – the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and other parts of the Department of Defence – initiate much of DSTO’s research. DSTO complements this with its own forward looking research to position Defence to exploit future developments in technology.

The purpose of the Australasian Language Technology Association is to promote language technology research and development in Australia and New Zealand. ALTA organises regular events for the exchange of research results and for academic and industrial training, and co-ordinates activities with other professional societies.

The ACS (Australian Computer Society) is the recognised professional association for those working in Information and Communications Technology, seeking to raise the standing of ICT professionals and represent their views to government, industry and the community. A member of the Australian Council of Professions, the ACS is the guardian of professional ethics and standards in the ICT sector, committed to ensuring the beneficial use of ICT for all Australians. It provides both members and non-members with opportunities for professional education and networking, as well as enabling them to contribute to the development of their profession. Visit http://www.acs.org.au/ for more information.