You can read more about Doug’s efforts for our industry and those of other companies, as well as specific calls for translation support from Haiti relief organizations in the summaries below.

Providing Aid

Note: This section describes those companies in the language services, translation and localization industry that are providing support or offers to NGOs working on the ground in Haiti. Government-level mobilization of translators is not included.

Lingotek is offering free unlimited usage of their online, collaborative translation software environment for Haiti work. Twitter @RobVandenberg

Language Line Services is offering free Haitian interpretation, document translation, tools and training over this  month to its customers directly involved in the Haiti relief effort. In addition, relief agencies aiding the Haitian people, though not current Language Line Services customers, can also use its Haitian Creole interpreters at no charge for the next month.  Restrictions apply; see http://www.languageline.com/page/news/178/ or email disasterrelief@languageline.com for further details.

One Hour Translation will translate up to 250 words (around 1 page) for free to all organizations aiding in Haiti and all victims of the disaster; projects above 250 words will only be charged at cost price. +1-(646) 845-9597; Haiti-aid@onehourtranslation.com

Pacific Interpreters is offering free Haitian/English interpreting services to aid organizations involved in the Haiti relief efforts. Contact Sheila Turcotte, Director of Operations, with the contact information for the organization in need.  +1 (800) 311-1232;  Sheila.Turcotte@pacificinterpreters.com

Eriksen Translations in NY is currently translating critical triage and treatment phrases to populate the Machine Translation base of Creole terms developed by Jeff Allen and now hosted by the Language Technologies Institute of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science. More than 1,600 terms have already been delivered. Contact President & CEO Vigdis Erikse at vigdis.eriksen@eriksen.com

Ccaps is offering pro-bono translations for those volunteers, soldiers and police officers who will be joining the already established Brazilian-led UN peacekeeping force in Haiti and who need translations from English to Portuguese and vice versa. Contact: Fabiano Cid, +55 (21) 2507-5989, fcid@ccaps.net

Organizing Online

Doug Green’s Interpreters and Translators for Haiti (IT4) group is a collaborative initiative to centralize resources for translators, interpreters, and language companies that are willing to donate their time, services and expertise in Haiti relief efforts. On Facebook at Facebook/IT4H

Also on Facebook: Nicholas Ferreira launched “Together we can find 100,000 translators and interpreters” which has already rallied hundreds of translators and interpreters.  Add yourself at Facebook/Together 100K. Nicolas will also manage social media/communication efforts for IT4.

NGO Need

The American Red Cross wants to recruit a Haitian Creole and French interpreter and translator to work at its National Headquarters Office in Washington for periods of between one to three weeks. The volunteer will support the International Services Department (ISD) in response to the earthquake in Haiti by sharing information with Haitian Creole speakers in the United States, translating documents from various ISD offices and/or American Red Cross chapters around the country, may be called upon to record messages in Haitian Creole or respond to inquiries from Haitian Creole speakers by telephone or in writing.

The International Medical Interpreters Association (IMIA)  is seeking qualified interpreters who are willing to travel to Haiti.  IMIA continues to take the lead for on-site interpreting in Haiti. You must be a current IMIA member or a participant in one of its member organizations for this call.  Contact Izabel Arocha at info@imiaweb.org; visit http://www.imiaweb.org/basic/HaitiRelief.asp

Related, the director of the Japan Red Cross is looking for one Haitian Creole > English interpreter who is already in Haiti or has lodging in Haiti and wants to assist on a voluntary basis under their supervision. Email IMIAJapan@imiaweb.org.

The National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators and the American Red Cross are seeking Haitian Creole and French interpreters and translators to assist in this time of great need. Interpreters are needed for two types of assignments – either at the American Red Cross Headquarters in Washington DC (immediate need) or on the hospital ship USNS Comfort off the coast of Haiti (anticipated future need). Volunteers will remain on the ship throughout the duration of the assignment and will not deploy to the mainland of Haiti. Both assignments are on a volunteer basis and the American Red Cross will cover all travel expenses. Send all responses to christina@najit.org or phone +1 (202) 293-0342 for further information.

Translators Without Borders has an urgent and immediate need for French translators for Haiti relief efforts, primarily for Doctors Without Borders. If you are willing please contact Yuliana Hernandez-Anfray at TSF@lexcelera.com for details. ***UPDATE: After an overwhelming response, much of the need has been filled. SDL and other LSPs are contributing to urgent projects on demand.

***UPDATE: The Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) has launched a wiki to gather news on additional industry support efforts and on-the-ground needs.

Photo credit: DVIDSHUB

We have also witnessed an amazing public rally for support, including reports of initiatives from leading technology companies to mobilize their customers and employees in the efforts.

These reports started a conversation between Milengo CEO Renato Beninatto and Lexcelera CEO Lori Thicke about just what translators and localization service providers could provide to the effort.

We don’t have to look too far for ideas.

Pledge the efforts of your company
The folks at One Hour Translation put out a press release earlier today offering a simple, free translation of up to 250 words per each organization and individual affected by the earthquake. One document may not seem like much, but in an industry of over 40,000 companies, the potential impact on medical aid documentation and charity websites is enormous.

Offer your services as an individual translator
The French-based Translators Without Borders (founded by Lori) take it a step farther by offering translators the chance to answer the call of the humanitarian groups that need their time and effort. Their largest partner, Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders is already on the ground in Haiti, with over 1,000 patients already in their care and an inflatable hospital on its way. Whether the need is for training materials for volunteers or media announcements in multiple languages, your talents are welcome.

Spread the word one SMS and Tweet at a time
Messages on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have made a considerable impact on Haitian relief efforts. @RenatoBeninatto sent out a message on Twitter regarding the efforts of Haitian-born singer Wyclef Jean to get donations for the work of his nonprofit, Yele.org, from U.S. residents. And CNet News reported that a similar SMS donation campaign driven by Verizon and the Red Cross raised $4 million USD within days, with each SMS a donation of just $10. The effort to both make a donation and spread the news virally is too simple to ignore.

We hope to hear more on Twitter and on this blog more about what you, our colleagues in the translation industry, are doing to help. Add your comments, ideas, feedback and more below.

Photo credit: United Nations Development Programme

In this presentation at Localization and Translation Thailand 2009, Milengo CEO Renato Beninatto challenges the “quality, quality, quality” dogmas that are based on standards developed in the 1950s.  He argues, “age and bad habits really affect the translation industry.”

With Machine Translation close on the horizon, says Renato, our industry needs a new paradigm.

Yes, but we need your help.

Milengo is seeking five business partners to participate in a test of Machine Translation. The test will be in source English and into 7 target languages from a larger base of more than 500 available language pairs. Those are Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Swedish.

Does your company fit our profile?

• Are you looking to evaluate the feasibility and profitability of Machine Translation?
• Are you looking to test in one of our target languages?
• Does your project have a minimum of 10,000 already translated, bilingual segments?
• Do you own a translation memory of no less than 3,000 segments that best represents your target outcome?

If you would like your company to participate in the test, please reply to Renato Beninatto at renato.beninatto@milengo.com or Adam Blau at adam.blau@milengo.com.

“By 2015, the companies that get it — and I am talking about companies like Google and Sajan here — they will see the rewards of letting go of old staffing models, old tools and old processes,” said Beninatto. “Translation memory tools will be free or irrelevant and players like SDL — reliant on licensing — are our industry’s dinosaurs. The meteor has hit and their focus on proprietary, small and cautious will not save them.”

A copy of the presentation, “Signals of Shift in the Language Industry: Are You In or Are You Out?” is available for download via http://bit.ly/INorOUT on Beninatto’s blog.

For media inquiries, call Tammi L. Coles, Geeky Marketing Diva, at +1 (888) 424-2325 x1004.

Beninatto is perhaps best known for co-founding Common Sense Advisory, the localization industry’s first independent think tank. Since 2001, it has become the go-to leader for key metrics on language service providers, industry spending, buyer profiles and market forecasts. Says Milengo Board Chair Fabiano Cid, “Milengo has scored a major victory in recruiting Renato Beninatto to this post. Besides an unrivaled knowledge of the localization industry as a whole, he brings sales and marketing perspectives that are invaluable to our planned growth for the company. ”

Beninatto, 47, has built a solid track record of leadership in the industry on nearly three decades of experience. By the age of 21, he had founded his first localization firm in his native Brazil. By age 34, he had grown it to 65 employees, expanded into neighboring Argentina, and sold it to competitor Language Management International (LMI).

When LMI was acquired by Berlitz in mid-1999, Beninatto stayed on as its vice president of sales. It was his success there that sparked the interest of ALPNET, which recruited him away in 2000.

Beninatto’s signature, straight-talking approach has made him a highly sought-after speaker on localization industry trends. He has trained thousands of industry insiders and Fortune 500 business leaders on topics that have included market analysis, strategic positioning, and international sales.

Nevertheless, Beninatto sees his move to Milengo as the next logical step in his career. “Frankly, the Milengo model surprised me. What others like it tried to do and failed, Milengo achieved…and for companies like AMD, Cisco and the Walt Disney Company, among others. Having spent the last seven years advising well over 250 buyers and sellers of localization services on how to succeed, I see the perfect partner in Milengo.”

Working for Milengo from its U.S. office in Boston, Beninatto will continue to serve on the advisory board of Localization World and conduct presentations for industry groups such as the Translation Company Division of the American Translators Association (ATA), the European Language Industry Association, the Association of Language Companies (ALC), and GALA (Globalization and Localization Association).

The TAUS Data Association is a not-for-profit organization founded by leading language service providers, content owners, and related technology developers to pool language data to both boost localization efforts and drive down localization costs. By sharing their translation memory data, contributors gain equal access to the fast-growing data repository – translation memory content that can increase fuzzy matches and improve machine translation results. Says Jaap van der Meer, director of the association, “TDA gives its members the immediate potential for double-digit savings on total translation budgets.”

If you are a manager responsible for translation and localization projects, and curious about the immediate benefits it could have on your translation projects, call Milengo now to compare your data against the TDA translation supercloud as Milengo’s guest.

For more information on the launch of the TAUS Data Association, visit their website at >> www.tausdata.org.

To schedule your own test comparison, please complete the form below or contact Adam Blau, VP of Sales and Marketing, at +49 30 22 48 76 81 and adam.blau@milengo.com. This offer is limited to June and July 2009.

In 1990, the seven major Portuguese-speaking nations reached an agreement on language reforms that would unify spelling and usage across the Portuguese-speaking world. Nearly 20 years later, Brazil has made the first move to implement the Acordo Ortográfico, requiring compliance in all published materials as of January 1, 2009. Portugal is expected to follow later this year. According to localization industry groups, the changes will dramatically affect translation memory (TM) matches, in-context translations, and the usage of previously translated texts.

Milengo’s New Brazilian TM Compliance Tool mitigates the time and labor impacts of these reforms among companies localizing for Portuguese-speaking markets. The tool, available for free download at the Milengo website, will process 100 TM file segments per hour. Milengo has already scheduled new releases of the tool to process other file formats, including HTML and XML. Says CEO Alessandro Giannetti, “Milengo continues to play a proactive role in introducing our clients to technology advancements that can save them time and money in localization.”

Click here to download the Brazilian TM Compliance Tool (443) or call Adam Blau, Vice President for Sales & Marketing, at +49 (0) 30 22 48 76 81.

Milengo Inc. announced today that it has increased capacity within its multimedia service spectrum throughout all of its global offices, recruiting more in-country voice professionals and adding specialized engineering support. Milengo’s multimedia engineering centers in the price-competitive markets of Brazil and China will focus on localization integration and audio processing to meet increased client demand.

The company reports significant growth in clients seeking Flash and Shockwave localization. “Global companies are moving beyond printed media to market their products and services to an increasingly sophisticated population of technology consumers,” notes Roman Kotzsch, Milengo CEO and founder.

“Competitive companies cannot afford to ignore these trends, and neither can their localization service providers.”

The Milengo spectrum has included multimedia services since the company’s founding in 2003. Milengo has seen more than 50 percent in steady sales growth and has added global clients that include CCP Games, General Electric, Information Builders and Irdeto in the last two quarters alone.

“With more companies employing workers from Asia to Latin America, multimedia eLearning has, specifically, become vital to meeting Human Resources and production goals,” says Adam Blau, Milengo Vice President for Sales and Marketing. “Despite this, most localization vendors are not offering these services on a worldwide scale. Milengo sees growth in our multimedia offerings as important to both meeting our client needs and maintaining our sales advantage in the localization industry.”

Milengo’s core multimedia localization services include:

• Voice-over talent recruitment of native speakers in project-appropriate dialects
• Project management of voice talent and script to ensure linguistic accuracy and correct vocal delivery
• Script development, translation and adaptation for key language locales
• Production with industry-standard multimedia tools, such as Adobe Flash and Shockwave
• Transcription, subtitling, dubbing and resynchronization of video projects
• Post-production editing, time calibration and file engineering to meet training or broadcast needs

• Project Status Tracking: to monitor completed project phases for larger projects.
• Web Upload: to upload project files using an easy browser module.
• Quotation & Sign-off: to view and sign-off on all outstanding quotes.
• Access Privileges: to assign or limit project access to specific personnel.
• Communication: to post and respond to project queries.
• Project Storage: to store and download completed project files.
• Financial Information: to review quotes, invoices and price lists.

The Client Portal is part of Milengo’s initiative to make the latest technology easier for day-to-day use in the localization industry. The portal features a user-friendly interface that eliminates unnecessary tutorials, time-consuming training or bulky user guides. According to Milengo CEO, Roman Kotzsch, this is an important advantage. “Over 70% of enterprise application projects fail in the implementation phase because of a design that is too complex and cumbersome for the user,” said Kotzsch.

The tool was designed by engineers in Milengo’s China office to provide round-the-clock access to critical localization projects and multinational teams working from Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo. With in-house design and maintenance, the portal can be customized to meet the individual needs of each customer’s unique localization workflow.