Can Digital Language Translation Technology Help Bridge the Digital Divide?
Summary:
How are content makers and developers working together to use digital technologies to help make media content accessible to wider groups of people through digital language translation technology services? This Blue Skies session will explore the challenges, innovations and progress being made, along with potential partnerships and next steps which can be leveraged for greater impact. There are many languages that are now widely spoken but have inconsistent language technology support and low levels of existing digital content. Despite numbers of speakers and their critical communication needs, these languages are underrepresented online as well as in the language industry. Speakers often belong to less prosperous and powerful geographical regions or ethnic groups. In turn, this makes them more vulnerable in their daily lives. While Language technology has made huge strides in recent years and encompasses a wide breadth of tools and processes, this is only really in the languages of international politics and business. Can advancements such a machine language learning help cross the digital divide? This technology is basically non-existent for marginalized or low-resource languages. How can content makers access these tools and are there other solutions such as local language chatbots? This session will explore the innovative efforts going on in the field - including views from technologists, creatives and NGOs, who are joining forces to develop scalable language technology for marginalized languages, to build two-way communication that uses technology & AI, to help bridge the digital divide.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
This session will have wide implications for the field, and could be of interest to nonprofit organizations, business, government, tech developers, donors, or anyone interested in closing the digital language divide. It will offer the opportunity to explore innovative language technology, and a chance to forge new partnerships and relationships for further future collaborations and take forward the debate around giving access to content in marginalized languages.
Abstract submitted by:
Catherine McCarthy - Medical Aid Films
Mia Marzotto - Translators Without Borders
How are content makers and developers working together to use digital technologies to help make media content accessible to wider groups of people through digital language translation technology services? This Blue Skies session will explore the challenges, innovations and progress being made, along with potential partnerships and next steps which can be leveraged for greater impact. There are many languages that are now widely spoken but have inconsistent language technology support and low levels of existing digital content. Despite numbers of speakers and their critical communication needs, these languages are underrepresented online as well as in the language industry. Speakers often belong to less prosperous and powerful geographical regions or ethnic groups. In turn, this makes them more vulnerable in their daily lives. While Language technology has made huge strides in recent years and encompasses a wide breadth of tools and processes, this is only really in the languages of international politics and business. Can advancements such a machine language learning help cross the digital divide? This technology is basically non-existent for marginalized or low-resource languages. How can content makers access these tools and are there other solutions such as local language chatbots? This session will explore the innovative efforts going on in the field - including views from technologists, creatives and NGOs, who are joining forces to develop scalable language technology for marginalized languages, to build two-way communication that uses technology & AI, to help bridge the digital divide.
Discussion/Implications for the Field:
This session will have wide implications for the field, and could be of interest to nonprofit organizations, business, government, tech developers, donors, or anyone interested in closing the digital language divide. It will offer the opportunity to explore innovative language technology, and a chance to forge new partnerships and relationships for further future collaborations and take forward the debate around giving access to content in marginalized languages.
Abstract submitted by:
Catherine McCarthy - Medical Aid Films
Mia Marzotto - Translators Without Borders
Source
Approved abstract for the postponed 2020 SBCC Summit in Marrakech, Morocco. Provided by the International Steering Committee for the Summit. Image credit: Medical Aid Films