When Cristina Gallach (Sant Quirze de Besora, 1960) speaks of “the new economy” of the Spanish language and of the co-official languages, it is as if he had before him a “new frontier” to explore, in the inspiring sense that kennedy gave this expression. She explains that the conjunction of language and digital technological development generates “an extraordinary potential for revolution” and is convinced of its transforming capacity: “We had never thought about the economic energy that language has.”
The recently appointed special commissioner of the Government for the Alliance for the Economy of the Language, has received from the vice president Nadia Calvino the mission of coordinating the management of 1,100 million euros from European ‘Next Generation EU’ funds, assigned to the Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) baptized as ‘New Language Economy’. Among other issues, this PERTE intends to coordinate the efforts of public and private investment to make Artificial Intelligence think in Spanish (at least 30 million will be used exclusively to support projects in co-official languages), to promote the learning of Spanish in the world and so that scientific publications do not only speak in English. And in this new assignment, Cristina Gallach he is doing the same as in each of his successive tasks in forty years of a brilliant professional career: trying to transform reality.
“All the big technology companies, such as Google, Microsoft or the firms grouped in Ametic, recognize natural language processing in Artificial Intelligence as a great business niche. In addition, there are a large number of small companies, ‘start-ups’, ‘escale-ups’. We want to promote a business forum where we can generate contacts between all of them”, it is proposed.
Journalist, by training (he worked at EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA between 1986 and 1990), and Master in International Relations from Columbia University (New York), Cristina Gallach She is the only Spanish woman who has been in relevant positions in the three major international organizations (the European Union, the UN and NATO, along with Javier Solana); in particular, between 1996 and 2018 and in tasks related to communication. This has allowed him to experience first-hand the great historical events in Europe since the end of the 20th century. Not in vain, in July 2009 she was selected by the newspaper ‘Financial Times’ as one of the 30 most influential personalities of the European institutions.
After that, in Spain she was appointed in July 2018 as the Government’s High Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, in order to promote the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that she herself helped design from her previous position, as Deputy Secretary General of the UN for Information. In February 2020 she became the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, until July 2021. And currently she has been commissioned to promote the ‘New Economy of Language’.
This same week she has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UA) and in her acceptance speech she made a particular invitation to the attendees: “Today I invite you to a journey that began more than forty years ago… A journey personal and professional experience that has taken me all over Europe and that has allowed me to follow and at times influence the geopolitics of our continent”.
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“As a journalist and high-ranking international official, I have witnessed historic moments first-hand and have been able to contribute to positive changes that have filled me with optimism. But there have also been dark moments,” she reflected. These days, like everyone else, Gallach she is extremely worried about the consequences of the invasion of Ukraine. “We are going into a European period of long instability”, fears this senior civil servant experienced with the fall of the wall, the correspondents in Eastern countries, the enlargement of NATO to include former members of the Warsaw Pact, the Russian war in Georgia or the first uprisings in Ukraine, among other events experienced in the first person. “But we have to firmly defend our European social-liberal, democratic, human rights system,” she concludes.
Gallach he is a person of action. The word “transformation” springs up in his conversation and that is what he now wants to put into practice in his new tasks, related to the ‘New Economy of language’. He says Gallach that she sees language “as a fuel”, and refers to the 18th century, when coal went from being a fuel for the home to becoming the protagonist of the industrial revolution, thanks to the steam engine. In the 21st century, she sees in the language that we all use in our daily social relations, the “fuel” of the next industrial revolution, that of Artificial Intelligence. And from this vision, Gallach is once again very clear that we must act now: “If we do not make this transformation, the voice assistants are going to speak to us in Mexican Spanish; instead, we aspire to be spoken to in Spanish, in Catalan, in Basque, in Galician » And he warns: “If the co-officials do not enter Artificial Intelligence, they will disappear as digital languages”.
equality activist
Cristina Gallach is the founder of ‘Global Women Leaders, Voices for Change and Inclusion’, a global association, made up of 60 women who have been in the highest positions in the United Nations, to promote multilateralism, equality and inclusion. She is the founder and honorary president of the ‘Women in International Security’ network, in Brussels, where she mentors young professionals.