Despite of the strike emptying the streets of Brussels that Monday, 30 January 2012, the CELAN Round Table attracted 35+ high level stakeholders in the Language for Business arena. During the first part, Wolfgang Mackiewicz, CELAN coordinator, gave a short introduction after which the Steering Committee members presented the activities carried out so far. Here are the presentations for downloading:
CELAN Overview - Margaretha Mazura, EMF
Language needs for European Businesses - Gustavo Gonzalez-Qujano, COTANCE
Language Industry Stock Taking - Christian Galinksi, INFOTERM
CELAN platform and tools - Mike Hammersley, FAV
Chaired by Professor Stephen Hagen, an expert panel consisting of representatives from industry and the learning environment reflected on CELAN results and discussed the best way to raise awareness about the importance of multilingualism to businesses. Some of the key outcome were: Sensibilise the young for languages; give real-life use cases as examples, ideally around a successful (language) business model; raise awareness of opportunities in a global world; and finally, the confirmed fact that "not one size fits all".
The Business Platform for Multilingualism meeting the following morning enlarged the audience while contributing to the findings of the Round Table. The meeting was kick-started by Belén Bernaldo de Quirós, Head of Unit for Multilingual Policy at DG EAC. She gave an overview of the political landscape of multilingualism at EU level, emphasising the most recent Council Conclusions on Mobility that gave a clear mandate to the EC to support initiatives like the Business Platform. [Presentation of B. Bernaldo]
Kristina Cunningham, Deputy Head of Unit, gave an overview on "Languages for competitiveness and employability", while Peter Birch, Head of Sector, EACEA, pointed out the synergies with other LLP projects in his presentation "Languages for business - the LLP experience". The presentations were followed by interactive "World Café" type sessions that discussed the role of higher education for language learning, the way businesses can be reached, and gave indications on the future activities of the Business Platform.
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