Imagine,
a place where everyone is talking their own language,
and you have no idea what they're really talking about.
How do you feel about that?
Well, that's not cool.
I'm Tharique Azeez,
Language Coordinator for Tamil
for the TED Open [Translation Project].
So I'm here to tell you,
how you can be a part of this
vibrantly and amazingly talented translators,
who are making ideas worth spreading available to the world.
So let's get the ball rolling!
Before we get into the details,
let's find out
why it's important to have translation
for the TED talks in the first place.
[WHY?]
It turns out,
ideas are worth nothing unless executed.
So it's really important to understand the idea and to implement it.
If we can enable those ideas
accessed by the people who are living in remote rural areas,
and who do not speak English,
we can make them to feel
and initiate those ideas in their localities.
By doing that,
we can help them to contribute
to the development, creativity, innovation in their localities.
So there is a need for translation.
For that, TED initiated a project called "Open Translation Project."
It started with 40 languages,
and for the initial part, they had 300 translations done by 200 translators.
But if you look at right now,
the stats are staggeringly high.
So now, it has 78,000+ translations,
translated by 21,000 translators around the globe
supporting 108 languages.
So it's a massive project going on.
So let's look at our local languages we speak in Sri Lanka,
which are Sinhala and Tamil.
For Tamil talks, we have 47 translators
who helped in making 97 translations.
And for the Sinhala,
we have 7 translators contributed, making 7 translations.
And I would love to have lots of translators for both languages,
so that we can make all these translations available to the world.
By the end of this event,
I would have a couple of dozen people enroll in these things
and initiate it worldwide.
[3]
So there are three ways you can be
a part of this amazingly vibrant community.
The first one is translate.
Obviously, you need to know two different languages to translate,
[TRANSLATE]
but the translation project is done by a platform called Amara,
which enables you to have all the mechanisms
to do all these translations.
But the translation process works like this:
First, you translate something and it's held for their review.
There is an experienced translator
who will come and comment on your translation.
If they feel like it's a great translation,
they will compliment you and approve that.
Or, if they feel like there is a need for improvement,
they will tell you and collaborate with you,
and it's a fun way to collaborate and learn in the process.
After that, it's held for approval,
where a Language Coordinator or a TED staff will approve that.
Once they approved it, it will go live on TED.com.
So that's the real process.
But don't fret, there are resources for all these things.
We have Facebook groups, and a translation wiki,
and language-specific groups for all these things,
as well as a dedicated YouTube channel
with all the translation mechanisms explained,
and you can use that to make yourself aware about this,
how you can be a part of this community.
So if you want to get started, you can go to ted.com/translate.
The second one is you can contribute to the transcribe.
The transcription is the heart of translation.
If you don't have a transcription, you can't initiate the translation.
So, normally, all the TED talks come with a transcription,
but for the TEDx events, you need to have transcription.
Let me tell you an example.
Maybe next year, the TEDxColombo
will host a speaker with a native language, like Sinhala.
While those talks will be transcribed into Sinhala,
and can be translated into English,
from that, we can have all the languages, like 106 languages,
and the very idea comes from Sinhala language,
but made into hundreds of different languages.
From that, we can be a part of global conversation with our own idea,
and that's the beauty of this transcription effort.
So it's also helpful for people who may have difficulties in hearing,
and Google itself indexes all the transcriptions
so that people can search on Google and find you;
and as always, it's helpful for the OTP [community] as well.
To get started with that, you can go to ted.com/transcribe.
The third one is tell people.
Just because there are translations, TED talks,
doesn't mean all the people know about it.
So we have to tell.
But telling people, just not coming like nothing.
There's a built-in mechanism in TED.com itself
that you can track your influence.
If you go to TED.com and sign in your account,
so that you'll be given a unique URL,
which you can share with your families and friends.
While sharing those URLs with your families and friends,
you will have an access to how many people
you get [to come to those sites].
So it's a kind of a social influence tracking,
but it's still, you are helping
make ideas available to the world.
So it's a nice thing to have.
So, you find that you can translate,
you can transcribe,
and you can tell people.
But...
well, that's a big 'but,' right?
But,
(Laughter)
Okay.
(Laughs)
What's the point of making these translations in the first place?
So why contribute?
[Why Contribute?]
Well, it turns out, there are lots of benefits
from making translations in the first place.
When you translate something, you get to know all those ideas,
so you start to share with your community.
From that, you'll become a thought leader in your community.
And the next one is "TED Translator" tag,
which looks awesome on your CV.
So that will [help start the conversation for your] interview,
or anything like that.
So it's a kind of cool thing to have.
And you may get surprises in your Inbox,
like TED itself send you an invite to take part in a global conversation.
Maybe it can be in Canada or Brazil, wherever it is,
but you can be a part of it
when you keenly contribute to those projects.
And your name will be credited with your profile link,
so that people can visit your profile and get access to who you are,
and what are you really contributing to.
And,
some pleasant surprises like translation jobs
that people may come to you to have when you contribute to those things.
And you also collaborate with like-minded people.
Also, translating is a learning process,
like, say, I personally know people who actually read a book
from the speaker itself to get the translated talk available.
Because you don't really translate word-to-word,
you translate the context.
So it's really important that you get the idea of a speaker,
and translate [it into] that talk.
So there is always a learning thing happening.
When you translate, you don't just translate,
you start to learn things.
So it's a great opportunity to learn,
because we learn and grow, so that there is a need.
So I think you already got to know about OTP Project and all sort of things.
I believe after this event, there [will be] dozens of people
coming along and making these ideas worth spreading
available in Tamil and Sinhala
so that we can contribute to the betterment of our country,
and having those ideas in our local language,
as well as our ideas in the local language,
local ideas can go global and [become] part of the global conversation.
So I'll be around here and you can talk to me,
and you can send me an email as well.
[Thank you me@niram.org - @enathu]
Thank you, you've been awesome. Enjoy the rest of the talks. Thank you.
(Applause)