Language Line Services Launches Industry's First R&D Think Tank

MONTEREY, Calif., Aug. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Language Line Services, the global market leader in interpretation and translation services, today launched its Language Line Innovation Center, an R&D think tank to spur open innovation to improve language access across all technology platforms to all markets, from business to healthcare to government.  

Already the leading innovator in the industry, Language Line Services holds seven patents, with nine others pending, and has created most of the language access industry's existing technology and training platforms. The Center will support entrepreneurship among employees, while engaging business partners and customers for new ideas to meet and exceed customers' needs and maintain and expand its market leadership.  

"Our interpreters and translators are passionate about language access, so we're building an internal structure to tap into the already existing idea-fest that goes on here every day to make language as ubiquitous as cell phones," said Louis F. Provenzano, Jr., President and CEO of Language Line Services. "We must be platform-agnostic and bring all technological advances to our customers from hospitals and the nation's 911 emergency response system to businesses and state and federal courts."

The Center will host quarterly, open innovation meetings with representatives from each business unit, including sales leaders from healthcare, government and financial services. Its research will focus on providing immediate access to interpreters in critical situations through mobile and Internet-ready devices, as well as assessing needs and technologies on the horizon that offer opportunities for Language Line Services.

The company's tradition of innovation includes:

• Co-creation of the first national certification for interpreters in the healthcare industry;
• Patents for technologies that have greatly increased the use of dual-handset phones to a broader range of users, regardless of telephone network; and,
• Language data and demographic tracking abilities to spot trends years before even the U.S. Census Bureau does.

All of these tools, and others developed by Language Line Services, provide additional opportunities for an organization to better serve its limited English-speaking clients.

"There are more than five billion mobile cell phone users worldwide, and 90 percent have access to a cell network," Provenzano said. "Smartphone adoption is on the rise too, yet the language access industry remains largely tethered to landlines. Language is poised to be the killer mobile app over the next year, and we will play a leading role in driving that innovation."

About Language Line Services

Language Line Services, the global leader in telephone interpreting and language solutions, serves clients in government, healthcare, telecommunications, financial services, utilities, insurance and many other industries by quickly connecting them to their customers, patients and sales prospects in more than 170 spoken languages as well as American Sign Language (ASL) and Mexican Sign Language (LSM). Language Line Services is recognized as a trusted partner to thousands of public and private organizations throughout the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, providing easy access to the industry's fastest language interpreting service at highly competitive rates.

For more information about Language Line Services' suite of telephone, on-site and video interpreting, document translation, interpreter assessment and training programs, please call (800) 752-6096 or visit http://www.languageline.com.  

Contact:

Trent Freeman
Olmstead Williams Communications
310.824.9000
[email protected]
http://www.olmsteadwilliams.com

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SOURCE Language Line Services