ad JayB, customic: First of all, sorry for getting back to you so late but I’ve been away (actually, I’m sitting in a booth right now but it is my poor colleague who has to work right now ;-). Secondly, thanks for suggesting me as a potential candidate for taking part in the Professor’s project. I do think it is a great idea and I would not mind playing a role in it, my current work and time schedule permitting (and provided the Professor thinks I could make a valid contribution to his project).
I might actually try to get into contact with him and talk things through. Since I am quite happy with my job as it is now I might not be able to join the “team” on a full-time basis. However, I could also imagine assuming some role of a “guest speaker, tutor” (whatever you want to call it) and would not mind offering my help for free (on an occasional basis) if it helps people who are serious about learning languages.
ad Steve: I’m sorry, but I obviously was not clear about what I was trying to say. I was not suggesting that managers of language schools in general are paid out huge premiums. When JayB was talking about the need to make money I was simply referring to the fact that money certainly is needed but considering the idea behind it I don’t think you need to make the institute a cash cow for managers (I was thinking more in terms of big banks, investment companies, car manufacturers and since I have been working for some of these companies I actually do know what some of these people earn and NO PERSON on this planet can work enough to actually deserve that kind of money). Apart from that, there are schools who provide their managers with quite attractive “benefits”. One of the largest language schools in Europe (it is also big in North America) is infamous for consistently underpaying their teachers while the students pay insane amounts per lesson.
There is no doubt that people working at such an institute need to get paid but I don’t think that this should pose more problems than for any other teaching institution. The question is to what extent voluntary participation of polyglots and other people will help fill any potential gap when it comes to the funding of the project. The Professor is also asking people with a sound business background to get into contact with him and I do believe that experienced fund raisers could help make this project a reality. At the end of the day, people wishing to study at the institute will also have to pay some money.
This is one thing that people need to understand also in times of free access to a lot of resources. If somebody provides a service he ought to be paid for it. I am not a fan of this “all for free” attitude where people just automatically expect everything to be free forever.
I’m not talking about spending a fortune for a language course abroad (even though I attended some reasonably priced courses and enjoyed doing so very much) etc. but rather about people complaining when they are asked to pay a few euros, dollars whatever for services that they keep using and obviously benefit from.
As for classroom teaching I don’t believe it has to be bad per se. Just think of how much progress Richard has made recently in a classroom setting studying Turkish. I have had some good experiences with a few of my teachers at school and at university, even though most of the time I had to invest a lot of effort to make sure my teachers don’t succeed in discouraging me from studying languages 
I see that “institute” more as a place where people can develop some team spirit and feeling of togetherness. As great as the new technologies are, they do constitute a certain risk of us getting more and more isolated sitting in front of our computers, listening to our mp3 players instead of going out there and actually meet people and talk to them.
Besides, I appreciate the opportunity to be guided by a “mentor” when I study languages on my own. Sometimes one of my biggest poblems with learning a new language is the lack of a structured approach which I don’t always seem to be able to provide myself with (for whatever reason - this may be just a personal problem, a characteristic of my own learning approach). There are times where I don’t see the forest for the trees and in such situations it would be nice to have somebody guiding me.
Of course, you can get a lot of help in the “virtual world” and you may even be lucky enough to surround yourself with people who are as passionate (or crazy about languages as you are. Still, having a brick-and-mortar institution where people can combine the good of the past with the enormous opportunities of the present working on the challenges of the future sounds quite attractive to me.
Basically, I hope the institute will become a place with a clearly practical approach of actually using multiple languages.
P.S. Above I said how much I like my job - I just finished interpreting a presentation by a Norwegian speaker who was talking to the audience via skype without video which makes things much harder for us. But to make things worse he spoke so fast that I could hardly follow him and I actually had to ask him to slow down twice (normally I can’t even do that, but they gave me a special microphone so I could interact with him from my booth) because he started reading typos 
Now, if the Professor had asked me in this situation if I wanted to join his team, I might have actually accepted his offer just to get away from people like this Norwegian scientist Don’t worry, I’m just kidding - I still very much love my job.
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