Accelerating Translation through Technology
Translation is an important, sometimes unappreciated endeavor for those of us who speak English. After all, English has become the de facto language of business, commerce, and, to a certain extent, the Internet.
To those who don’t speak English, however, translation is a lifeline to education. Education breeds knowledge. And knowledge breeds power.
So how do we take some of the most important texts created and accelerate their translation so that literacy is one step closer to people living in the rural, developing world?
The Problem: Tech Savvy & Rural Connectivity
When we dove into this initiative, we soon realized that many of the tools we take for granted in our well-connected, smart-phone friendly world are unknown to the people for whom we needed to develop a crowdsourced solution for the developing world.
- The target audience had never heard about Wikipedia. Their language is almost absent on the Internet. How are we going to help them translate from a trade language to their language when they don’t know about basic technology?
- Connectivity in the area is poor. Most users don’t have email addresses, but they do have cell phones. How are we going to empower them as project members?
Usability testing in Bihar, India
The Solution: Technical Education and Crowdsourcing for Community-based Literacy
Now in its second phase of development after a successful beta testing phase, the crowdsourcing approach to translation work will empower thousands of people in rural India to translate their heart language for the first time ever into digital form by collaborating on teams and robust achievements.
