Ideas worth translating - TED Open Translation Project | Tharique Azeez | TEDxColombo

Tharique Azeez is a designer who specializes in typography, story-telling, and creative direction. He designs geometrically awesome and aesthetically pleasant typefaces, and develops fonts for print and screen in Latin & Indic scripts. As a developer, he is trying to connect the dots between beauty and functionality by unraveling the Internet’s mysteries. He also serves as the Language Coordinator for Tamil for the TED Open Translation Project. Listen to Tharique tell us about the three ways you can join the TED Open Translation Project in his short presentation.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

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 [e-mail] - @enathu]

Thank you, you've been awesome.
Enjoy the rest of the talks. Thank you.

(Applause)