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♪ (playful music) ♪
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(laughter)
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Hi, I'm Jana.
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I manage the Accounting and HR functions.
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My name is Margarita.
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I work as a Software Tester with Amara.
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How do you spend your weekends?
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Most likely table tennis or cycling[br]to one of our local beautiful beaches.
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I like cooking.
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And also, I do some volunteer work.
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Reading.
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Reading.
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Reading an interesting book.
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Do you have any pets or plants?
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(chuckles) I have six dogs.
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They're all rescued,
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so I play a lot with my dogs.
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I have a peace lily[br]that I've had for years.
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This is Lily Tomlin, no relation.
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What do you love about[br]working at Amara?
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Just connecting with our audience.
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Just to make somebody's life [br]a little bit easier just for that moment
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that they're reading[br]my support article or whatever it is.
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At the end of the project,[br]when I'm actually delivering,
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let's say, a completed video[br]with some captions and subtitles,
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that actually makes me feel[br]like, really, really fulfilled,
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like, "Oh, now we have[br]more videos out there
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that have captions and subtitles,[br]more people will be able to access it."
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Absolutely the people.
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Everyone's interest in [br]making the world better truly
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is just unbelievable.
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Everybody has this thing[br]that somehow is motivated
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by the overall mission of Amara,
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which is actually to provide accessibility
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and also use their skills[br]to share information with others.
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It's a special culture,
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there's not much of a top-down hierarchy.
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It's really a cooperative effort.
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We're all very spread[br]geographically and in time
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but we always find time for each other.
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What languages do you speak?
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(chuckles) I'm only fluent in English
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but I'm learning[br]American Sign Language, Russian.
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My spouse's family is[br]from the former Soviet Union,
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so I'd like to be able to speak to[br]the other generations in that family.
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English, Spanish, as my native language.
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My native language is Russian[br]and I use English for work.
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Cantonese, a little bit of Mandarin.
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I have also learned some Spanish,[br]German and Chinese.
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French and a little bit of Arabic.
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I speak English and about
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this much Spanish. [br](laughter)
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Pop Quiz: When was the first version[br]of Amara released?
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Either 2010 or 2013?
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2006?
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2001?
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Yeah, no, I don't know.[br](chuckles)
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2010.
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That's when the first prototype[br]was created.
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I witnessed it,
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I was volunteering with Amara back then.
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What does accessibility mean to you?
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That everyone has the same opportunity
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being able to understand [br]the world through video
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and through the captioning [br]and translation that we do,
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and that other people do,
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no limits.
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It means a lot.
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I have a cochlear implant,[br]and they are hearing aid.
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Without them, I cannot hear[br]practically anything at all
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and with them, it is okay[br]in one-to-one personal conversations
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but not so nice[br]when you use something technical,
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when you're watching videos,[br]or talk over the phone,
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so subtitles mean a great deal.
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Accessibility to me starts with empathy.
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A lot of my friends, actually,[br]don't speak English,
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so being able to help[br]to make a lot of the information
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that I have helped[br]to subtitle into Spanish,
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if I can share it with some[br]of my friends back in Venezuela,
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or my family, or my mom,
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it feels really good.
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What effect do you hope[br]Amara will have on the world?
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Acceptance and...
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I mean, the world[br]is in such a difficult place.
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Communicating, you know,[br]just communicating.
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When we work every day[br]with so many people
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from so many other countries,
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you just realize people are different[br]but the same, from all over.
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I think there's a lot[br]of untapped potential
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for this tool to be used[br]by other types of users.
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Transcription is a great opportunity
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for people who have vision problems[br]to find employment.
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I really hope to see this happen.
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Using AI to generate [br]subtitles and captions,
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you know, that has been [br]on the rise for the last few years
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and there has been a lot of humor[br]and a lot of mistakes,
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and that definitely highlights[br]how important people are
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to the process of language in any form.
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I'm hoping that the way[br]that we treat people,
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and the way how we put[br]their experience first,
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and their abilities first,
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will be noticed [br]and that that would inspire
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other people to say [br]that it's not impossible to do that.
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[language] subtitles by[br][your name]