Fabio Pianesi elected president of the ALT-EDIC Assembly of Members

Fabio Pianesi, Distinguished Fellow at Fondazione Bruno Kessler, was elected president of the Assembly of Members of ALT-EDIC (Alliance for Language Technologies European Digital Infrastructure Consortium), the organization that coordinates the development of language infrastructures and technologies for multilingual and inclusive artificial intelligence. The appointment was made official on June 18 at the Assembly of Members meeting in Villers-Cotterêts, France.

The election confirms Italy’s contribution to building the European language technology ecosystem, a pillar of trustworthy, open artificial intelligence capable of strategically leveraging the continent’s linguistic heritage.

As President of the Assembly of Members, Pianesi will lead the governing body that brings together representatives of the ALT-EDIC member countries: Belgium/Flanders, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France (host country), Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovenia.As President, Fabio Pianesi will be responsible for coordinating the work of the Assembly and the Supervisory Board and contributing to the definition and implementation of ALT-EDIC’s European strategic guidelines, thereby promoting cooperation among Member States and supporting the development of linguistic and multimodal resources and technologies that are open, interoperable, and accessible to the entire European ecosystem.

The appointment took place during ALT-EDIC Week 2026, an annual event that, from June 15 to 18, brought together representatives of the Member States, researchers, European institutions, and industrial partners engaged in the development of language technologies at the Château de Villers-Cotterêts, the headquarters of ALT-EDIC. During the week, meetings were held with the main European projects involving ALT-EDIC—including ALT-EDIC4EU and LLMs4EU—followed by the ALT-EDIC Forum and the Assembly of Members, dedicated to defining strategic priorities and future collaborations in the sector.

Fabio Pianesi, Alessio Brutti, Luisa Bentivogli, and Matteo Negri participated on behalf of Fondazione Bruno Kessler, confirming their involvement in the activities of the alliance and in European projects dedicated to language technologies.

A trained psychologist specializing in computer science, Fabio Pianesi has more than thirty years of experience in research on human-machine interaction, language technologies, and artificial intelligence. At FBK, he held positions of responsibility in the Cognitive and Communication Technologies Division and led the joint FBK-University of Trento laboratory dedicated to computational cognition.
Moving to 28Digital (formerly EIT Digital), he served as Director of Research, first as Head of External Relations; then, upon returning to FBK, he served as Chief Strategist for European Affairs. Over the years, he has gained significant experience in building European networks for research and innovation, contributing to the development of international collaborations and strategic initiatives in the field of AI.

The election to the presidency of the Assembly of Members comes at a crucial stage for ALT-EDIC, which is called upon to play a crucial role in the development and provision of the European ecosystem of sovereign infrastructures for language technologies, such as linguistic and multimodal models and the European Language Data Space, contributing to the promotion of artificial intelligence that reflects Europe’s linguistic and cultural diversity and richness.  In this context, FBK continues to strengthen its position as a leading voice in research and innovation policy and as an active partner in shaping European innovation strategies in the sector.