OpenIDEO

The Challenge

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How might we increase social impact with OpenIDEO over the next year?

Inspiration 117 inspirations

Concepting 92 concepts

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OpenTRANSLATE

An open volunteer-based project to translate OpenIDEO and take it beyond the English speaking world. (UPDATED!)

This project might represent a lot of work, but we've seen many successes over the Web as volunteers help sites go global.

For example, the TED Open Translation Project brought TEDTalks beyond the English-speaking world by offering subtitles, time-coded transcripts and the ability for any talk to be translated by volunteers worldwide. The project launched with 300 translations in 40 languages, and 200 volunteer translators. Now it reached more than 6000 translators, with over 21k translations in 81 languages.

What if we did the same with OpenIDEO?

With all the tools now available on the Web (Google Translate, dotSUB, Worldwide Lexicon -a site that supports collaborative translation, etc.), OpenIDEO can tap into its powerfully multilingual community to take its content (and thus the social impact) beyond the English-speaking world.

We could build a "sub-community" of volunteer OI Translators, that could help translating the main component of the website. To start small, we could target 1 or 2 of the most spoken languages worldwide (French, Spanish?), preferably with no special characters (to make it technically easier). In the long run, if the experiment works, we could unfold this to more languages.

The project would require a person from OpenIDEO identifying the elements to translate (especially the recurring ones). There should be some sort of a participatory system for people to translate.

Translators can be rewarded with OpenIDEO Badges.

For example, I have contributed to translating the mobile Ushahidi platform into French. All what the Ushahidi people did was creating a Google Docs with the terms / phrases in English they needed to be translated. They sent the link with a shout-out on Twitter. And people were able to add their translations in the Google Docs. I believe it was pretty successful (and fast).

Let's see how it works

I am conducting a little experiment to (1) identify recurrent terms and phrases on the OI website (things like "Add your concept" "Add your inspiration", instead of a full challenge brief), then (2) put them on a Google Doc table and (3) share it on OI for people to enter their translations. I was thinking five languages, and about a 100+ items to translate. You can check the progress here: http://bit.ly/pblXum

The objectives of this prototype are to:

Validate the main underlying hypothesis in this concept: that OI can count on the volunteer efforts of the community to translate the platform.
Test what languages that we can reasonably target via the community.

(Many many thanks to the very first OpenTRANSLATE volunteers Arjan, Anne-Laure, Carlos, Avi, Ana C., Ana S., Anne, Adriana and Tomoya (who isn't on OpenIDEO... yet).

What kind of social impact does this concept achieve?

Expanding the reach of OpenIDEO beyond the English-speaking world.

What skills are required to take this concept forward?

Many volunteers translators, a passionate coordinator that has to be the interface with the translator community and the OI developers.

How do you envision this concept being supported financially?

Some cost would have to be underwritten by IDEO (esp. additional staff member if needed), but would mostly be free (volunteer-based project + ideally an opensource web-based translation tool).

Virtual Team:

Arjan Tupan, Anne-Laure Fayard, Carlos Perez, Avi Solomon, Ana Correia de Barros, Ana Cecilia Santos, Anne Kjaer Riechert, Adriana Olmos, Tomoya Yamamoto (offline friend)

30 Evaluations so far

Does this concept increase social impact?

Absolutely! This idea will drive social change
It’s a good start – some impact is likely to be achieved
No – increasing impact is not the main focus of this idea

Does this idea inspire you to take action?

Sure does – I’m itching to get started turning this idea into impact
Possibly – I’d need to know more to make a decision about how to get involved
No thanks – it’s an interesting idea, but it would be best taken forward by someone else

Does this concept help the OpenIDEO community connect and collaborate together?

Yes – it does a brilliant job of enhancing our community connections and might even reach out to external partners
Maybe – it may drive increased collaboration but the concept would need to be further developed first
No – it doesn’t help our community connect or collaborate better

How easy would it be to try prototyping or experimenting with this idea?

Easy – I could have an early prototype running in a few hours
There’s potential but it would take some planning and coordination to make it work
Not really easy – this idea would take considerable resources and planning to get it off the ground

Does this concept clearly outline how it will be funded?

Yes, this idea clearly explains funding sources
Sort of – we’d probably still need to think more about how this idea would get funded
No, this idea doesn’t really explain where funding for implementation would come from

Does this concept increase social impact?

Absolutely! This idea will drive social change It’s a good start – some impact is likely to be achieved No – increasing impact is not the main focus of this idea

Does this idea inspire you to take action?

Sure does – I’m itching to get started turning this idea into impact Possibly – I’d need to know more to make a decision about how to get involved No thanks – it’s an interesting idea, but it would be best taken forward by someone else

Does this concept help the OpenIDEO community connect and collaborate together?

Yes – it does a brilliant job of enhancing our community connections and might even reach out to external partners Maybe – it may drive increased collaboration but the concept would need to be further developed first No – it doesn’t help our community connect or collaborate better

How easy would it be to try prototyping or experimenting with this idea?

Easy – I could have an early prototype running in a few hours There’s potential but it would take some planning and coordination to make it work Not really easy – this idea would take considerable resources and planning to get it off the ground

Does this concept clearly outline how it will be funded?

Yes, this idea clearly explains funding sources Sort of – we’d probably still need to think more about how this idea would get funded No, this idea doesn’t really explain where funding for implementation would come from

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Comments

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Carlos Perez

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August 29, 2011, 11:57PM

Mother tongue is spanish, I can help there

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 30, 2011, 12:52PM

Muchas gracias, Carlos :)

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Anne-Laure Fayard's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Anne-Laure Fayard

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August 30, 2011, 02:43PM

mother tongue is French. would be happy to help although I know you can do it too but you might need some help...

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 30, 2011, 02:47PM

Hey Anne-Laure! Great, any help would be greatly appreciate, merci beaucoup :)
This is what I'm talking about in this concept, I'm so confident an open invitation to translate OI would get a very good (if not overwhelming) community response.

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 30, 2011, 07:32PM

Carlos, Anne-Laure: I've put together a list of recurrent terms and phrases on the OI website as a first experiment of how the volunteer translation of the site could work. I would highly appreciate you guys helping me with French and Spanish if you have some time available: http://bit.ly/pbIXum (Thanks to Arjan for the first stap in Dutch!).

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Anne-Laure Fayard's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Anne-Laure Fayard

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August 31, 2011, 12:09AM

Hi Sarah, I've started and will try to finish soon. Harder to do than I thought... :-)

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 31, 2011, 12:44AM

Hi Anne-Laure! What you've done is terrific, thanks so much for helping out!

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Arjan Tupan's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Arjan Tupan

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August 31, 2011, 05:31AM

Anne-Laure, it is sometimes quite complex, no? Some of these terms are very standard web-terms, but I decided a long time ago to keep all my apps in English mainly. Also the likes of FB etcetera. If I'd had used the Dutch version of these, some of them would have been easier to translate.

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Anne-Laure Fayard's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Anne-Laure Fayard

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August 31, 2011, 06:06AM

It is indeed... and exactly for the reason you mentioned, such as sign in, or sign out... Then in France, some people would translate "email" but this is only a few people, or some administration... Also some of the French translations for "challenges" would have a competitive connotation that I thought was not great. Hence I chose to keep "challenge" which can be used in French, or use "projet" (project).
In a nutshell: an interesting experience that reminded me of the complexities of translation.

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Carlos Perez's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Carlos Perez

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August 31, 2011, 01:50PM

Just began, will finish latter, but will finish ; )

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 31, 2011, 03:14PM

Thanks a heap Carlos!

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 01, 2011, 12:44AM

Arjan, I personally have a consistent problem trying to translate the word "Featured" in English. Can't find anything literal in any other language :/
Oh, and also OI-specific terms, like Design Quotient, etc.

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Arjan Tupan's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Arjan Tupan

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September 01, 2011, 05:34AM

Yes! Featured is a horrible one. It should be banned :) As for translating into Dutch, there's always a choice of keeping the English. Something like Design Quotient is one of these things. And there is the question of names. Design Quotient could be seen as a name. Question then is, do you translate that.
Funny sidenote: in Latvian names are transcribed phonetically. Like Džūlija Robertsa...

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Anne-Laure Fayard's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Anne-Laure Fayard

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September 01, 2011, 09:32PM

will also finish in the next few days... I agree "featured" is a difficult one. Design quotient is hard too. maybe we could leave it as it is. I sometime find that some translations sound weird like "mel" for email in French... an option could be to have "design quotient" and then in parenthesis a literal translation.

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 22, 2011, 08:37AM

Hi Carlos! Do you want to have your voice featured in the OpenIDEO presentation video? Join in the SoundCloud group and record yourself saying a single line... or all the lines... http://soundcloud.com/groups/opentranslate/discussion

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Luz Alba Gallo

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September 16, 2011, 04:24PM

What a nice concept!! If OpenIdeo start to work with all the languages more people would have the opportunity to publish theyr ideas with out the language obstacle :D

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 22, 2011, 08:34AM

Hi Luz, do you want to have your voice featured in the OpenIDEO presentation video? Join in the SoundCloud group and record yourself saying a single line... or all the lines... http://soundcloud.com/groups/opentranslate/discussion

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Adriana Olmos

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September 02, 2011, 10:00PM

This is an amazing proposal and initiative! I love it!
I noticed that Spanish was only up to 47% complete, so I have started to fill in the form. I will finish it this weekend! - Count on it. And if this goes ahead, I am happy to keep contributing with the translations as I can see that some items could evolve given the context of the interface... I really like it Sarah! ;-)

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 22, 2011, 08:34AM

Hi Adriana, do you want to have your voice features in the OpenIDEO presentation video? Join in the SoundCloud group and record yourself saying a single line... or all the lines... http://soundcloud.com/groups/opentranslate/discussion

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Vithaloka Dewi

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September 12, 2011, 09:32AM

Nice Idea. How could I help?.. I speak Bahasa (Indonesian). Just send me the script. :)

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 12, 2011, 09:34AM

Yay, awesome! Here are the items to translate: http://bit.ly/pblXum I've done a first stap for Bahasa, but I'm far from being a fluent to speaker, so it could use some help :) Thanks!

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Vithaloka Dewi's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Vithaloka Dewi

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September 12, 2011, 09:41AM

Sarah, I couldn't open the page. is there any other link?

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 12, 2011, 09:44AM

Oops. Here's the long link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ar6XirNnCg26dHowNV9DRGJ2U3YyOWhweHRKeGVqM1E&hl=en_US

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Vithaloka Dewi's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Vithaloka Dewi

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September 12, 2011, 05:30PM

The Indonesian section done and saved.. :)

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 12, 2011, 05:59PM

Terima kasih Vithaloka :)

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Meena Kadri

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September 08, 2011, 11:55PM

Congrats Sarah – and cheers for making our hearts beat faster with your collaborative prototype!

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Haiyan Zhang

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August 31, 2011, 12:34AM

Hi Sarah, nice concept and great image!

I would love to see the common terms on OpenIDEO translated into how you would describe them in English!

By the way, we would also love to re-dub our OpenIDEO intro video into different languages. If anyone is interested in helping us translate and perhaps even try out some voice overs would be fab!

Haiyan

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 31, 2011, 12:44AM

Hey, I can do French! And Arabic too :)

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Patricio M. Hidalgo's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Patricio M. Hidalgo

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August 31, 2011, 12:13PM

that was flashy fast to consider, Great! - voice over for videos: Spanish and Portuguese, and capture Italian too. Let me know

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Avi Solomon's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Avi Solomon

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August 31, 2011, 04:34PM

Sign me up to do Hebrew, Hindi and Marathi! Just send me the script:)

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Meena Kadri's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Meena Kadri

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August 31, 2011, 08:50PM

Super excited to note the early prototype of this concept, started by Sarah, with the help of OpenIDEATORS at: http://bit.ly/qdpIto Looking forward to seeing others join in and seeing where this might go. It's really great to see folks getting more engaged on this challenge – moving from ideas to action, together!

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Haiyan Zhang's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Haiyan Zhang

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September 01, 2011, 01:54PM

Sarah, Avi, Patricio - great! I'll get a copy of the video script on google docs in the next day or 2. Would love to put your avatars at the end of the videos too if you will help to get it into different languages!

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Haiyan Zhang's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Haiyan Zhang

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September 01, 2011, 10:44PM

Hi all, I've added the script for the OpenIDEO video to Sarah's googledoc. I'm excited about the idea of having different people's voices, one for each line, to narrate our video. Would you be interested in helping to translate and record yourselves saying those lines? Take part and I'll volunteer to edit the video!

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 05, 2011, 03:34PM

Haiyan, where/to whom should we send the recorded parts?

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Haiyan Zhang's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Haiyan Zhang

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September 05, 2011, 04:11PM

Hi Sarah, I've just added extra columns to your spreadsheet for people to link to their recorded audio.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ar6XirNnCg26dHowNV9DRGJ2U3YyOWhweHRKeGVqM1E&hl=en_US

If you would like to contribute to creating translated versions of our intro video, please record yourself saying a line from the video script below... then add a link to your audio file.

Please ensure your audio file is clean (no static or noise) and loud enough for us to dub over the video. Check out the original video for reference.

http://vimeo.com/13707896

Also include your OpenIDEO profile, so you can be credited!

(I'll put the videos together when we have enough audio snippets for each translation).

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 05, 2011, 08:56PM

Thanks Haiyan! I've changed the position of the link line so that people don't think they need to record themselves saying all the terms but only the ones in the bottom. Just to avoid any confusion.
Will be uploading French and Arabic soon.

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Anne-Laure Fayard's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Anne-Laure Fayard

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September 06, 2011, 02:12AM

Hi, I made a few changes in the translations of the French script when there sentences that really sounded weird. I will also try to upload it in French.

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Anne-Laure Fayard's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Anne-Laure Fayard

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September 06, 2011, 02:18AM

Haiyan, just an afterthought: do you think it's better to dub, or would not having the subtitles enough?
moreover when you say "saying a line from the script", is your idea to have multiple voices for each language? thanks,

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Patricio M. Hidalgo's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Patricio M. Hidalgo

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September 06, 2011, 07:12AM

I support Anne-Laure's "saying a line from the script" via multiple voices. Naturally, it's a flavored enriched presentation voiced by the diction of everyone that collaborated. It's some editing work for Haiyan but fun

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Anne-Laure Fayard's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Anne-Laure Fayard

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September 06, 2011, 12:08PM

Some editing work and we also need to have enough voices for each language... I'll try to record the whole script but with pauses to make the editing easier. You can see what you prefer Haiyan.

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Haiyan Zhang's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Haiyan Zhang

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September 06, 2011, 05:17PM

Thanks Anne & everyone! Consider using Soundcloud to record and share your voiceovers: http://soundcloud.com/ - it's an easy way to share audio.

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Anne-Laure Fayard's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Anne-Laure Fayard

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September 08, 2011, 07:14PM

Thanks for the soundcloud option.

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Patricio M. Hidalgo

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September 05, 2011, 08:45PM

Italian video script: 11 out 14 done and I am engaging people locally to join up, so that they contribute in this linguistic task and experience openIDEO, overall, evaluating the final concepts :-)

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 05, 2011, 09:04PM

Thanks Patricio! Would be great if you could help translating the OI platform recurring items as well!

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Patricio M. Hidalgo's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Patricio M. Hidalgo

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September 06, 2011, 07:16AM

will do

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Ankita Dewan

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September 05, 2011, 08:43PM

Sarah, its really a nice concept in order to spread awareness and make it a multilingual platform.
But as Open Ideo is an online Platform where people around the world are connected, they are sharing inspirations, concepts, Ideas on larger basis to each other, through one Standard Language "English"
If OI gets translated into various languages, no doubt it will reach to all communities, but wont all these communities will start getting along within themselves, which will instigate them to form a separate group altogether. They will get separated from rest of the group online.

I think to work Globally together their has to be one common Language to bind everyone together, as this Open Ideo website site itself is.

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Ankita Dewan's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Ankita Dewan

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September 05, 2011, 08:51PM

But yes i agree, that this website's Aim, purpose, Process o work tother, Design thinking etc should be translated in all the languages.to get connected to others. So that people from effected areas can put down their problem in their own languages, which could be solved online on a standard platform, n get back to them in realisation phase.
These are just my views. I believe in OPEN IDEO team, as they will really plan out your concept very well.
All the Best Sarah, it was nice of you to think for all the people :)

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 05, 2011, 09:07PM

Hi Ankita, thanks for your comment! I definitely understand where you're coming from, but I'd rather think of Human Centered Design and Social Impact as our common language, and consider our languages as other tools for outreach. Design goes beyond any language barrier, but sometimes it's necessary to translate its contents, contexts and processes to better spread social causes.

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Paul Reader's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Paul Reader

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September 06, 2011, 02:09AM

Ankita a similar thought occured to me with regard to contributions to the challenges, although I didn't think it would lead to formation of alternative platforms. Being basically an English only speaker with a smattering of French and Italian I wondered if the Inspirations, Concepts and Evaluations - along with all the comments - would somehow be translated (in both directions) for us all to interact. With so few language skills myself I felt somewhat impotent in the context.
I applaud taking the platform worldwide in native languages and I see "automated" translation processes appearing in other contexts (but have little knowledge of their accuracy).
Sarah - will this (automated translation) be the ultimate objective to provide interactivity regardless of language?

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anjelika deogirikar

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September 05, 2011, 04:28PM

Awesome concept Sarah! It'd be interesting to see if the translation 1) will increase the number of people contributing to the community, and 2) if there might be opportunities to collaborate with the communities for which the challenge might be for. Great job!

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 05, 2011, 08:29PM

Hey, thanks Anjelika!
Well, this might just be an unfounded hypothesis, but many of my French and Japanese friends were interested in the platform for a while, but thought their English wasn't good enough to participate...
As far as the communities are concerned, a relevant example would have been the people from Caldas for the Grameen challenge. Not sure what real opportunities could unfold in the future in this direction, so we'll wait and see... :)

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Paul Reader

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September 05, 2011, 05:52PM

Just a quick thought regarding languages currently outside the expertise of the OpenIDEO community. Apart from TED I suspect organisations like the BBC have such resources. I dont have the contacts but maybe somebody does.

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Sina Mossayeb

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September 05, 2011, 01:08AM

also a good piece of the site to translate FAQ http://www.openideo.com/faq

Can be used to understand the dynamic of Open IDEO

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 05, 2011, 03:34PM

Agreed! This could certainly be a good next step.

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Adriana Olmos

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September 03, 2011, 09:50PM

Spanish translation - All fields have been completed :-) although I am sure others might have other suggestions to improve it...

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 04, 2011, 12:53AM

Wow, thanks Adriana! This is great, thanks so much for your help!

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Adriana Olmos's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Adriana Olmos

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September 04, 2011, 03:38AM

Thank you! ;-)

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Meena Kadri's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Meena Kadri

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September 04, 2011, 09:52PM

I'm loving seeing globally dispersed folks on OpenIDEO join forces around this concept! Viva Collaboration-istas!

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Vincent Cheng

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September 02, 2011, 06:00PM

Just added rough first cut translations (revisions forthcoming) for written Chinese in 2 versions: traditional (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, most Overseas Chinese) & simplified (mainland China & Singapore). After all, Chinese is the most spoken language in the world & China is the country with the most Internet users.

Also, I'm an American Born Chinese, raised in a Cantonese (dialect of Chinese with

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Vincent Cheng's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Vincent Cheng

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September 02, 2011, 06:04PM

...continued (somehow comment was cutoff?)

Also, I'm an American Born Chinese, raised in a Cantonese (dialect of Chinese with

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Vincent Cheng's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Vincent Cheng

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September 02, 2011, 06:06PM

...continued (seems that using less than sign causes comment cutoff?)

Also, I'm an American Born Chinese, raised in a Cantonese (dialect of Chinese with under 100 million speakers), Hong Kong immigrant household, so my limited spoken Chinese ability is far from standard. However, my wife is a native mainland born speaker of Mandarin (most Chinese speakers at ~1 billion & official language of mainland China) & Shanghainese, so perhaps I could rope her into helping out with a voiceover!

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 02, 2011, 08:02PM

Thanks Vincent! I agree that Chinese was definitely missing in the list. Unfortunately I was able to engage some Japanese/Malaysian friends of mine, but didn't know anybody to cover Mandarin :) Thanks again!

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Anne Kjaer Riechert

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September 02, 2011, 07:00PM

Nice Prototype Sarah! Best regards Not-So-Anonymous-Anymore-Danish-speaker.

Ps. Do you need me to fill out the entire thing, with the right spelling (my american keyboard doesn't have the keys near by)? I can also do Norwegian and probably kick-start parts in German for you, if you think it is worthwhile

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 02, 2011, 08:00PM

Hi Anne! Arjan suspected it was you :)
I think what I was looking for with this prototype was to validate the main underlying hypothesis in this concept: that OI can count on the volunteer efforts of the community to translate the platform.
I was really overwhelmed by how things moved so quickly and how people reacted very well, despite a relatively small exposure (even before the Currents or OI twitter account mentioned this concept). One other thing that I wanted to test was the languages that we can reasonably target. Adding bits of German and/or Norvegian would help capture those capabilities.
I guess, moving forward, it will depend on what OpenIDEO envisions for the future of this platform (translate or not, past content or not, which languages first, etc.). And this first Google Doc can help as a first start :)

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Ana Cecilia Santos

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September 01, 2011, 09:13PM

Hi Sarah!

Great concept, congrats, and very inspiring that you have started to make it happen too!

Like Ana Correia de Barros below me here, I have also added some more Portuguese contributions, about some 5 fields, there are still some left though that I am unsure about.

Good luck & best wishes !
Ana

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 01, 2011, 09:41PM

Thanks Ana! Really appreciate your help!

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Ana Correia de Barros's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Ana Correia de Barros

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September 02, 2011, 05:06PM

Hey Ana and Sarah!

The Portuguese translation is almost done. There is only one word left to translate: "Currents"! I'm not sure how to translate this. Maybe Ana Cecília Santos or other Portuguese natives have some thoughts on this?

Cheers!
Ana

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Ana Correia de Barros

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September 01, 2011, 07:28PM

Hey Sarah!

Loved your idea. I tried to do Portuguese, but I'm still stuck with some sentences--some of them are a bit tricky!

Cheers!
Ana

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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September 01, 2011, 08:49PM

Ana, this is amazing, thank you so much for your help! I wasn't sure I was able to find somebody who spoke Portuguese, so this is really helpful. Thank you!

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Sarah Fathallah

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September 01, 2011, 01:19AM

A little update 24h after the experiment was launched: 120+ items to translate, 7 (or more?) OpenTRANSLATE volunteers, 9 languages in the pipeline (including 5 that are near-complete).
Thanks guys, YOU ROCK!
http://bit.ly/pbIXum

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Meena Kadri

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August 30, 2011, 11:49PM

Sideline – thought you might be interested in the article on how rescuing endangered languages means saving ideas: http://bit.ly/lost_langs

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 31, 2011, 03:14PM

Great article, thanks Meena!

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Sarah Fathallah

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August 30, 2011, 07:32PM

What languages do you guys think are the most relevant for this concept? (ie. which ones would help us gain broader outreach and impact?)

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Patricio M. Hidalgo's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Patricio M. Hidalgo

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August 30, 2011, 09:59PM

1) Mandarin, Spanish, Hindu, Russian
2) Most Internet connected countries (is it relevant?)
3) UN languages
4) Subtitles embedded functionality (video related)

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Meena Kadri's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Meena Kadri

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August 30, 2011, 11:47PM

Portuguese as well to bring in Brazilians? And I wonder what language(s) would get the widest reach in Africa?

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 30, 2011, 11:49PM

If there's French, English and Portuguese, there's already a good potential for outreach in Africa. Maybe Swahili?

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Meena Kadri's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Meena Kadri

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August 30, 2011, 11:53PM

And just chiming in that the language is Hindi. Hindu relates to faith. My fluency is limited but happy to add this spot of translation ;^)

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Patricio M. Hidalgo's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Patricio M. Hidalgo

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August 31, 2011, 12:18PM

yes indeed, Hindi_language reference. thanks for polishing me :-)

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August 24, 2011, 11:11PM

Congrats! Your post has been featured in this week's Currents: http://bit.ly/currents_33 Nice one!

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Arjan Tupan

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August 24, 2011, 07:19AM

Thanks for posting this, Sarah. Great idea, and something we could make a flying start with here.

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 24, 2011, 03:19PM

Thanks Arjan. Looking forward to any suggestions or comments to keep this evolving :)

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Sina Mossayeb

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August 24, 2011, 06:12AM

sarah, did you actually translate the phrase into these languages based on your know how?! i wouldn't be surprise. i like the idea of even having the past content translated at first, perhaps even as narrow as the winning concepts. Why? Because people use Open IDEO as a learning resource as much as a interactive one. That is, some dude in Brazil or Pakistan (who don't know English) could read an idea that resonates or relates to an on-going problem, which might be a spark. I think ideally it would all be translated into other languages, but I'm just thinking in terms of immediate steps of actuation. Well innovated.

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Meena Kadri's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Meena Kadri

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August 24, 2011, 07:37AM

Good point, Sina. I agree that it's important, as we grow, to see OpenIDEO as an evolving resource as well as an interaction platform focused on the time-bound challenge process.

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 24, 2011, 03:19PM

Sina, I only did 5 of them, and had to ask Google Translate for the last one :)
Agreed on your point about past content as well. Not sure whether it should come first or not, but it's definitely important to think about it (and it might be actually easier since past content is more... 'static' and thus less likely to change overnight).

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Patricio M. Hidalgo

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August 24, 2011, 01:11PM

Hi Sarah,

This concept does impact exponentially, and the lingo Global is touchable. Thanks for taking us from the English comfort zone, virtually, at first.
Some commercial samples using real-time translation are St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan and American Express via phone and web, respectively. Your concept, I'd like to suggest, is a "go" with IT and Financing realizing this concept.

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Meena Kadri

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August 23, 2011, 11:49PM

One of the great things that strikes me about this Concept is that it's not only about extending the reach to potential new users. It's also about making the goodness generated by those users more accessible. As we move forward with OpenIDEO – the most resonant ideas generated will form a resource for many people – at best, those who are in positions to take them forward.

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 24, 2011, 01:54AM

Absolutely. I've noticed that as I was in school last year, many of my friends who were very interested in OpenIDEO didn't participate because they thought their English was too weak to express themselves. I could see so clearly how they could have been able to prototype ideas given the resources that we had in the school itself if we had a French version of OI...

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Srinivasan Sankaranarayanan

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August 23, 2011, 11:13PM

You have touched upon a very important point here Sarah!

I think the key is to include ideas across the board without any boundaries. Language barriers are tricky but shouldn't act as a hindrance.

considering that , the the non-english speaking population is widely scattered to all places including the developing world, the idea of reaching across language boundaries actually leads to the question of 'how can we provide access to such a platform to everyone?'

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Sarah Fathallah's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Sarah Fathallah

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August 24, 2011, 01:50AM

Great comments! I think a few contributions in this challenge have talked about getting OpenIDEO off the virtual world, either via mobile (Smartphone app, or maybe SMS-based?), or onsite local chapters, etc.
I do am still amazed at how many people in the non-English speaking world are connected to the world wide web via one way or another, and I am sure we can still benefit from those great minds all over the world.

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Anne Kjaer Riechert

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August 23, 2011, 10:40PM

Love this idea. I have heard a lot of good things about Translators Without Borders. They apparently do a really good, free and efficient job translating. This is based on comments from my Britsh friend who runs and NGO in Japan.

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Meena Kadri's reply to Carlos Perez's comment

Meena Kadri

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August 23, 2011, 11:46PM

http://translatorswithoutborders.com/ if folks want to check it out

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