Last week, we had the privilege of hosting international students from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore at our Durham headquarters to educate the next generation of communicators on how natural language generation is revolutionizing the way the world interacts with their data.

Dr. Christopher Cummings, Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication at the university, and his undergraduate students traveled nearly 10,000 miles to various academic and non-profit institutions across North Carolina, in addition to Automated Insights, to learn about science communication and how professionals communicate their work on many different topics to diverse audience. Nanyang Technological University is ranked 12th among top young universities globally.

We spent the morning discussing our cutting-edge work leveraging natural language generation (NLG) and how Wordsmith has revolutionized over 50 industries including business intelligence, financial services, communications and media, and sports.

Nanyang Technological University

One of the most important roles we have as the industry leader of NLG is to inform the public about what exactly it is that our platform does and why it plays a necessary role for innovation. Natural language generation, because it’s a subset of artificial intelligence, tends to evoke apprehension due to misunderstanding and misrepresentation. It’s imperative we sit down and have these discussions – to answer questions, dispel any misconceptions, and give insight, which is exactly how we spent our time with the NTU students.

Nanyang Technological University

Some of the questions we addressed and discussed with the NTU students include: how do we communicate and ease concerns as they relate to artificial intelligence and natural language generation, is there ever a possibility humans won’t be involved in the process, and what are the key components to developing an effective narrative? As many of the students work for Fortune 500 companies as well as varying forms of media, we talked heavily on our work with the Associated Press. We spoke on the convergence of natural language generation and automated journalism and how they complement each other well to help journalists be more successful in what they do. We discussed our approach towards data storytelling, what makes our platform unique, the functionality of Wordsmith, the NLG principles that move us from benign datasets to readable reports, and our vision for the future on what this means for society.

With any new technology, people are driven to rethink the way they’re currently using their data and technology. Whether it’s how they’re reporting on their data, generating content on a mass scale, or making it easier and more accessible for employees across an organization to use, innovation promotes further professional and corporate growth. There is deep value to emerging technology, we just have to start the conversation.

Nanyang Technological University