In 2001, the European Union launched its eContent Programme, committing approximately 100 million Euro between 2001 and 2004 in order to support the the production, use and distribution of European digital content (e-content) on the global networks. It intends to reach its goal by supporting the growth of a healthy and competitive EU digital content industry fit to exploit the opportunities created by new technologies.

As the adequate support for multilingual and cross-cultural information provision and access is seen as the key enabler for the development of a European mass market for online products and services, and for a wider deployment of European content in other regions of the world, this programme addresses the fundamental issue of turning technological advances into enhanced business capabilities and market penetration, including new export opportunities.

One of the action lines of the eContent Programme is aimed at encouraging co-operation in the European content and language industries, thus helping to improve the competitiveness of both sectors by supporting the design, production and distribution of high-quality e-content in an increasingly multilingual and multicultural environment.

The Localisation Research Centre (LRC) has been the educational, research and infrastructural support centre for the localisation industry in Ireland, one of the world centres of localisation, since 1995. It has an Industrial Advisory Board representing twenty of the world's leading localisation service providers, eContent publishers, software developers, tools developers and training organisations.

The European Localisation Exchange Centre (ELECT) will build on these foundations and become the focus point for the multilingual and multicultural digital content industries in Europe. It will provide reliable information on best practice, facilitate easy access to know-how and technology, make available guidelines on linguistic and cultural customisation, and enhance the visibility and recognition of this industry in Europe and world-wide.

Now is the time to bring the localisation industry and eContent providers together and to provide them with the technical, educational and infrastructural support to accelerate the development of the eLocalisation and the eContent industries in Europe. The European Localisation Exchange Centre (ELECT) will provide this support.

ELECT is one of the first projects to be funded by the European Union under its eContent programme. As an accompanying measure it will play a key role in the realisation of the aims of the eContent programme.

The proposed keynote presentation will introduce the eContent programme and provide an overview of the activities planned by the ELECT consortium.