Meet Amara: Jana, Margarita, Allison, & Jenny

♪ (playful music) ♪

(laughter)

Hi, I'm Jana.

I manage the Accounting and HR functions.

My name is Margarita.

I work as a Software Tester with Amara.

How do you spend your weekends?

Most likely table tennis or cycling
to one of our local beautiful beaches.

I like cooking.

And also, I do some volunteer work.

Reading.

Reading.

Reading some interesting book.

Do you have any pets or plants?

(chuckles) I have six dogs.

They're all rescued,

so I play a lot with my dogs.

I have a peace lily
that I've had for years.

This is Lily Tomlin, no relation.

What do you love about
working at Amara?

Just connecting with our audience.

Just to make somebody's life
a little bit easier just for that moment

that they're reading
my support article or whatever it is.

At the end of the project,
when I'm actually delivering,

let's say, a completed video
with some captions and subtitles,

that actually makes me feel
like, really, really fulfilled,

like, "Oh, now we have
more videos out there

that have captions and subtitles,
more people will be able to access it."

Absolutely the people.

Everyone's interest in
making the world better truly

is just unbelievable.

Everybody has this thing
that somehow is motivated

by the overall mission of Amara,

which is actually to provide accessibility

and also use their skills
to share information with others.

It's a special culture,

there's not much of a top-down hierarchy.

It's really a cooperative effort.

We're all very spread
geographically and in time

but we always find time for each other.

What languages do you speak?

(chuckles) I'm only fluent in English

but I'm learning
American Sign Language, Russian.

My spouse's family is
from the former Soviet Union,

so I'd like to be able to speak to
the other generations in that family.

English, Spanish, as my native language.

My native language is Russian
and I use English for work.

Cantonese, a little bit of Mandarin.

I have also learned some Spanish,
German and Chinese.

French and a little bit of Arabic.

I speak English and about

this much Spanish.
(laughter)

Pop Quiz: When was the first version
of Amara released?

Either 2010 or 2013?

2006?

2001?

Yeah, no, I don't know.
(chuckles)

2010.

That's when the first prototype
was created.

I witnessed it,

I was volunteering with Amara back then.

What does accessibility mean to you?

That everyone has the same opportunity

being able to understand
the world through video

and through the captioning
and translation that we do,

and that other people do,

no limits.

It means a lot.

I have a cochlear implant,
and they are hearing aid.

Without them, I cannot hear
practically anything at all

and with them, it is okay
in one-to-one personal conversations

but not so nice
when you use something technical,

when you're watching videos,
or talk over the phone,

so subtitles mean a great deal.

Accessibility to me starts with empathy.

A lot of my friends, actually,
don't speak English,

so being able to help
to make a lot of the information

that I have helped
to subtitle into Spanish,

if I can share it with some
of my friends back in Venezuela,

or my family, or my mom,

it feels really good.

What effect do you hope
Amara will have on the world?

Acceptance and...

I mean, the world
is in such a difficult place.

Communicating, you know,
just communicating.

When we work every day
with so many people

from so many other countries,

you just realize people are different
but the same, from all over.

I think there's a lot
of untapped potential

for this tool to be used
by other types of users.

Transcription is a great opportunity

for people who have vision problems
to find employment.

I really hope to see this happen.

Using AI to generate
subtitles and captions,

you know, that has been
on the rise for the last few years

and there has been a lot of humor
and a lot of mistakes,

and that definitely highlights
how important people are

to the process of language in any form.

I'm hoping that the way
that we treat people,

and the way how we put
their experience first,

and their abilities first,

will be noticed
and that that would inspire

other people to say
that it's not impossible to do that.

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