Language Technology Division

From the Admin Desk: Denver anyone?

The other weekend I attended the ATA Board Meeting as they were in town. And one thing led to another. That is the question what we want to do this year at the LTD General Meeting, part of the annual ATA Conference? For those who attended last year in New York you will remember that we took a good part of the GM to listen to an excellent panel on the hot topics of 2009. And for this year I would want to entertain the idea to ask our membership. What would you like to talk about, listen to, know more about? Join us on our LTD mailing list or drop me a note and let me know what you think we should put on the Agenda of the General Meeting

From the Admin Desk: AMTA 2010 conference: Call for MT User Presentations

Call for MT User Presentations: Commercial Users and Translators

The AMTA is seeking case studies and user stories for the AMTA 2010 conference – October 31-November 5, Denver, Colorado, immediately following ATA conference.

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From the Admin Desk: LTD @ ATA Colorado 2010 Conference

The deadline for Conference Speaker Proposal Submissions is coming closer and we are still open for suggestions from our LTD membership. Here is what we are looking for:

• Distinguished Speaker(s)
  We need Experts, Heroes & Legends that have got really something great to say and contribute and that can be related to Language Technology. If you are someone of that caliber or you know of someone that matches this profile, please contact us within the next few days.
• ATA Conference Sessions Proposals
  Interested in presenting under the LTD umbrella? This year the conference is seeking more Intermediate & Advanced Sessions topics and speakers for the conference and we would argue that speaks to our Geek Heart(s). Now is the time for your great pet project to show off (Scripting your repetitious tasks on your computer, writing you own tools in C, the esotherical research into Word counts in various Translation Tools…) Not sure yet how to propose this? Let us know and we can coach (again with the disclaimer that all proposals are only approved the moment you will get the notification from the conference organizer).
• Machine Translation Conference Session Proposals
  This will be a collocated event in Colorado starting right after ATA conference. We would love to see some of us to present at the AMTA conference held right after our own conference. We want to ambassador our needs to the Machine Translation community. We need to share our expertise with them so that progress can made where possible and impossibilities are better understood. If you were interested to present, let us know.

And then the Wish List:
Let us know what topics you would love to hear about this year in Colorado.

• From the Machine Translation Community
• From Fellow Translation Colleagues Expertise and Experience
• Panels, Training, Tutorials & Workshops

Wonder how to get in touch with us? Check out our contacts page.

NCTA to run with the Crowd…

NCTA General Meeting Presentation: “New Trends in Crowdsourcing: The Kiva / Idem Case Study”. This free event by the Northern California Translators Association (NCTA) is open for everyone.

Date?
Sat, Dec 12, 2009

Location?
The Center, 1800 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94102

Agenda?
1:00 p.m: Orientation for New Members + Networking
1:30 p.m: Association Business and ATA Conference Report
2:00 p.m: New Trends in Crowdsourcing: The Kiva / Idem Case Study by Naomi Baer and Monica Moreno

The term “crowdsourcing” was created just three years ago and is already causing much discussion and experimentation in the translation industry. What does crowdsourcing mean in the context of translation, and what does this new wave of translation crowdsourcing projects look like? How do community translation projects that predate the invention of this term relate to the trends today?

As a rapidly growing international nonprofit organization, Kiva faces the challenge of how to efficiently handle translations and has developed a unique translation crowdsourcing methodology. Kiva’s approach integrates volunteer resources, a mentoring program, and a professional translation agency, Idem Translations.

Monica Moreno, of Idem Translations, and Naomi Baer, of Kiva, will discuss emerging translation crowdsourcing projects at both not-for-profit and for-profit organizations, provide insights into why organizations are interested in this approach, and what can be gained.

They will also discuss Kiva’s work in international microlending, the language barrier at Kiva, and the structure of Kiva’s translation program. The role and value of Idem’s partnership with Kiva as a professional translation agency, and the role of professional translators in crowdsourcing programs, will also be addressed.

3:15 p.m.: Networking

Crowd, Cloud and Machine Translation

Our Annual General Meeting was definitely a “not to be missed event” at the ATA Conference in NY thanks to the enlightening and insightful presentations and answers of our panel, Rosana Wolochwianski, Naomi Baer and Beatriz Bonnet moderated through key questions by Laurie Gerber. One can really say that myth, hype and distortion were lifted in this session and gave attendees some perspective where the trends are going. Another voice echoing our findings at the conference can be heard (and read) here.  Insightful perspective on Translation Crowdsourcing from Jost Zetsche. If the link does not work for you, you will find the article published in the next ATA Chronicle or in Jost’s biweekly newsletter.

New Division Administrators

The first part of the Annual General Meeting of the Language Technology Division, which took place at 4:00 pm on the conference Friday, was devoted to the election of new division administrators. Elected for 2-year terms were, by acclamation, the following candidates:

• Michael Metzger as Administrator
• Emily Tell as Assistant Administrator

The new leadership team was off to a great start with an exciting and timely panel discussion (see post of October 29) in front of a full house. Stay in touch with Michael and Emily through blog comments, on the LTD mailing list, or through direct e-mail contact (see Contact page).

Update on the AGM this Friday

The Annual General Meeting of the Language Technology Division will take place this Friday from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm in the Wilder session room on the 4th floor of the conference hotel.

The plan is to have devote 15 minutes to Division business, and to spend the remainder of the time on some of the subjects that have been generating a lot of discussions in recent weeks and months. We will have a panel of experts to speak to different areas, and Laurie Gerber has agreed to the overall moderation.

In particular, we hope that

• Beatriz Bonnet will be able to speak to the subject of TAUS and the cloud,
• Naomi Baer can offer some insights about Facebook and crowdsourcing, and
• Rosana Wolochwianski will speak to Google Translator Tool and MT.

Please mark this time slot on your schedule and come to this meeting. These are important subjects that will have implications for the translation profession – probably sooner rather than later.

ATA Tools Forum – 2008 Summary

Dear colleagues,

For the last few years, ATA has hosted a Tools Forum at the annual conference. Tool vendors are invited to answer a set of questions in writing, and their answers are provided to attendees. They are then invited to talk for a few minutes each on the stage about their product. For the first time, the LTD is providing an electronic copy of the handout, which contains vendors’ answers to the following questions:

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