The future site of the Flanders Language Valley is much like any other muddy building plot. Except that construction workers recently uncovered two rusting explosives. Not that the discoveries came as a particular surprise, mind you, for the new buildings are located just outside the Flemish town of Ieper – or Ypres – names synonymous with the bloody battlefields of the first world war. In fact a small Irish military cemetery is visible just outside the grounds. Eighty years since the end of the 1914-18 conflict – ‘the war to end all wars’, as it was heralded at the time – the 65 acre site is being prepared to house what its creators have dubbed as Europe’s answer to Silicon Valley, bringing together entrepreneurs at the cutting edge of speech and language technology. Its centerpiece is Lernout & Hauspie, a Belgian company founded 12 years ago which specialises in core technologies – automatic speech recognition, text-to-speech, text-to-text and digital speech compression. And the driving force behind both Lernout & Hauspie and the Flanders Language Valley, surprise surprise, is one of the most dynamic duos in European enterprise today – Messrs Lernout & Hauspie themselves – equal and unrivalled in their determination to contribute to the renaissance of the entire Flanders region. Why? "Because", says Pol Hauspie, "the people and government of this area believed in us and backed us before we were successful and before it was fashionable to do so. Therefore to give something back to the region seems to me to be entirely natural." Jo Lernout nods his head in approval. "It really was the least we could do", he adds.

Hardly surprising that Lernout & Hauspie should have received the seal of approval from the very highest of quarters, with Luc Van den Brande, the Flemish Prime Minister, referring to the two men as having created an ‘economic earthquake’ in the region: "Lernout & Hauspie and its Flanders Language Valley project are role models for Flemish industry and for the Flemish economy. Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie have taught us to embrace the culture of enterprise. There’s no denying that in the most promising economic sectors one needs enormous capital to survive. But survival isn’t good enough; it’s crucial to be part of the small selection of the crème de la crème and preferably the best. Lernout & Hauspie has proved that this is possible."

‘Twas not always thus. "We were looking for a market niche that couldn’t suddenly be swept away by the Americans and Japanese", Pol Hauspie affirms bluntly, casting his mind back to the early days. "We thought that speech technology – a combination of high tech and linguistics – corresponded to this region of Flanders in which we have 3 official languages." No one doubted that this was a good idea – or held back from lavishing praise on the two men who were able to foresee back in the 1980s that speech would be the interface between man and machine. Up until then controlling computers and other machines by simply speaking to them had been high on most technological wish lists for decades, with many-a-science fiction hero having more than the odd word or two with his spacecraft or computer. Most people were impressed with the presentational patter of the company’s co-chairmen and founders – but not sufficiently so as to part with their funds. Enter the government of Flanders, who could see the advantages of the company’s technology being launched onto a booming market. Not bad for a bunch of bureaucrats.

"But we needed more money than they were able to provide", Pol Hauspie explains, "because this technology is extremely expensive to develop. "So we went to the people of the region – ordinary people – farmers, family and friends. We raised over $20m in this way. Some went in with $3000 – others much larger sums. People could see the technology for themselves– and after all its sexy technology – and we said to them that its not a matter of whether or not things will take off but merely when."

They were right. Through their brilliance and determination Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie succeeded in forging their company into a world-wide market leader in speech and linguistic products, technologies and services. Divided into four divisions – Core Speech Technologies, Dictation, Translation and Localization, and Internet Services, the company raced its way up the company rankings with breathtaking speed, soon establishing itself as the number 25 company in Belgium, with a world-wide turnover of $99.2 and 1800 employees operating in 15 countries. Of course the 600 or so local investors had reason to be extremely grateful to the company’s founders – for they received their money back many times over. But gratitude did not feature high on the Lernout & Hauspie agenda.

"We were kept alive by the people of this region – so it was only logical when we became successful for us to further invest in the area. Call it altruistic egotism or egoistic altruism – call it what you like – we feel emotionally indebted to this part of Belgium.

The Lernout & Hauspie method of paying off debts was the creation of the Flanders Language Valley. Together with a venture capital fund and a support foundation, the idea simple enough - to create a "unique breeding ground" for the development and commercialisation of speech and language technology-based products. The FLV fund is the first venture capital fund in the world to focus exclusively on applications in speech and language technology. Since December, 1995, it has made 26 investments worth $59.3m and has attracted high profile investors including Microsoft, which has taken a small stake. The year before last year it was floated successfully on the Nasdaq. The other core element of the FLV is its foundation, a comprehensive support system whose services are free for companies that settle in the valley. It includes intensive training programs designed to meet the shortage of IT workers in Europe head-on, in addition to organising infrastructure at the FLV site, such as shops, banks and a day care center for children. So far the valley, now in the last throes of construction and expected to open in September of this year, has attracted 14 high-tech companies, mostly American, with another 100 expected to join. Belgian weather aside, the FLV appears to have all the ingredients necessary to become Europe’s answer to Silicon Valley. Key to all of this, of course, is the geographic position of the region itself: not only is Flanders within easy reach of Europe’s most powerful markets, it is also home to unusually high numbers of educated, multi-lingual people.

"We are not political people", Jo Lernout points out. "We only have one agenda – Lernout & Hauspie and the FLV. But what is most satisfying of all is that hundreds upon hundreds of new jobs are being created here. And for every job in the world of high-tech 3 to 4 subsidiary jobs are in turn created. That might well mean that permission has to be granted for the construction of homes – and I might well have a word with the Minister of Housing, for example, to see what can be done to speed things up. Everything is changing here – exactly as happened in Silicon Valley fifty years ago."

"It might all seem pretty dazzling right now", Lernout continues, "but what you see today is just the beginning. In the decades to come we will witness the transformation of every electronic device people work with. Tape recorders have become digitalised - you will be able to plug them into your computer and the text of your interview will appear before your eyes. Your computer will be in your belt. And you will talk to your belt via your watch." Before developing his enthusiastic vision of the future, however, Lernout was anxious to introduce Max. ‘Pretty Max, Pretty Max’, he called out. Of course it doesn’t quite flow off of the tongue as our old friend Polly, but L & H’s Talking Max is a virtual talking pet parrot for personal computers. Employing L & H’s exclusive voice pattern recognition technology, Max is able to speak and respond to commands and phrases in any language. In fact like a real-life parrot Max can be trained to talk back to his owner, fly, move about his home and many other tricks besides.

If Max doesn’t grab you, then the chances are that Popeye will – even if you don’t eat you spinach. For this Popeye is a product designed to enable Internet service providers to offer their customers a simply way to move quickly through their e-mail without using a computer. How? By a using a showcase combination of automatic speech recognition, text to speech, speech compression, and natural language dialogue processing technologies to create a user-friendly voice interface. Hardly surprising, then, as a pioneer in the speech and language industry, that L&H should have been one of just 16 companies invited to participate in "The Future is Now!" exhibition at the Museum of Science in Boston last year when 50,000 children and adults saw demonstrations of how speech can be used to control lights, get stock quotes and sports scores by computer, control temperatures, and set alarms.

"Of course we have become rich", Pol Hauspie admits. "But what is rich anyway? I often have long, philosophical talks with Jo about this. To me its nothing whatever to do with money. After all, you can only protect yourself and your family so much, and you can only ever eat one steak a day. To me its all about doing something useful and worthwhile, to see this area coming back to life again after the terrible atrocities of the first world war. And do not for one moment think that this talk of the past is ancient history – every day you are reminded of it round here. For most days a bomb or grenade is found."

"I found one in my garden just a couple of weeks ago", Pol continues, "and a hand grenade with a pin in. I’ll tell you what gets my guts in this job, if you really want to know. Of course its technological – Popeye, Max and all that. But it’s also to do with employment and education. A couple of months ago we had a job and education event here at our HQ – on a Saturday morning – and we were expecting a couple of hundred people to turn up. In the event more than 3,200 signed in, and for the first time in the history of Ieper we had a traffic jam – right from the highway to our building. That gave us an unbelievable kickback, it was a moment of glory if you will, to see that there were people out there, of all ages and from all classes, people who were endorsing our message.

Benny Oreel, currently studying translation and interpretation services at the local Mercator High School, was one such potential recruit. "I chose Flanders Language Valley for my internship", he says, "because I felt that they, through the unusual combination of langauge and technology that is so particular to Flanders, have the expertise and growth potential to become an important player on the market of speech. As something of a computer ‘whiz-kid’ myself, I’d love to take part in this revolution.’

Music to the ears of Jo and Pol alike. Time for them, therefore, to perhaps sit back and relax? Hardly.

"To me success doesn’t exist", Jo Lernout concludes. "Its always only ever the way to something. We have to earn success each and every day. And in technology – it changes so fast, if you don’t stay humble and work hard, well – that can be very dangerous indeed. We do feel as if we are doing something important for the region both economically and socially. And of course that is something of which we do feel proud. But at no time do we turn around and say ‘hey, look at us, we are successful’. So we are pedalling just as hard as we were 10 years ago. The only thing I would say is that being involved in a partnership means that we do at least have the joy of being able to ride tandem!"