}

Elhuyar, looking to the future

2005/05/01 Lopez Viña, Rakel - Marketin sailaElhuyar Fundazioa Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

In 2005 we started a new stage which formed Elhuyar: We have acquired and rehabilitated a building in the Osinalde industrial estate of Usurbil. The new building will open on 6 May. We want to advance in this new stage together with the science disseminators, the partners of Elhuyar, the agents of the Basque language.

Elhuyar was founded in 1972 by a group of engineers from San Sebastian with the aim of uniting Basque and the world of science. The objective of this amateur group was to socialize science in Basque, and its first works were to make technical translations and publish the magazine Elhuyar. These first voluntary works were professionalized. Therefore, in 1981, in order to respond to the new situation, it was decided to endow the group with legal personality: Born Elhuyar Kultur Elkartea.

In recent years Elhuyar's activities have multiplied and further professionalized: We have created a R&D&i unit and have fully entered the field of linguistic engineering; we carry out technical translations; we publish technical dictionaries in Basque, monolingual dictionaries and bilingual dictionaries; dictionnaire Elhuyar, Euskera-French dictionary / fran ais-basque; we publish school materials; we manufacture CD-ROM for children and young people; in addition, we have three scientific outreach programs.

To respond to all these performances, the template has doubled in five years. In 2002 Elhuyar became a Foundation and we have now acquired and renovated a building in an industrial estate in Usurbil.

We have reorganized the structure and created two societies dependent on the Elhuyar Foundation: Elhuyar Aholkularitza and Eleka Ingeniaritza Linguistikoa. The
starting point of Elhuyar Aholkularitza was the standardisation plans of the Basque language, but we have expanded the range of services and products and currently offer advice in all areas. On the other hand, in order to carry out cutting-edge projects in new technologies, we created the company Eleka together with the IXA group of the UPV. Eleka's main activity focuses on the field of linguistic infoengineering, offering innovative solutions for knowledge management to companies and organizations using information technologies.

We can say that the dream that was born 33 years ago, that Elhuyar group, is today a solid reality. With the new headquarters, we have opened the window of future of Elhuyar, since we have a much better infrastructure to continue developing our projects of scientific dissemination and normalization of Basque.

Partners of the Elhuyar Foundation

Since Elhuyar became a foundation in 2002, we have wanted to offer individuals, companies and public and private entities the opportunity to participate in our project. Thus, at present, the Elhuyar Foundation has the collaboration of almost 200 private partners, as well as the guarantee and support of important companies and institutions: Batz, CAF, EITE, Eroski, Indar, Tecnalia, Tecnolat and the Department of Education, Universities and Research of the Basque Government and the Department of Industry, Commerce and Tourism.