SlatorPod

In this week’s SlatorPod, we’re joined by Kenneth Heafield, Reader in Machine Translation (MT) at the University of Edinburgh. We originally connected with Kenneth on Twitter in a discussion about Slator’s coverage of a research paper on Carbon Emissions in MT.Kenneth talks about his experience going back and forth between academia and industry, reflecting on the pros and cons of working for Big Tech. He discusses his recent research with efficient translation and language modelling as well as other MT topics that are undervalued by the industry.Kenneth shares his thoughts on the popular preprint platform arXiv and how news outlets should cover research that hasn’t been peer-reviewed. He gives tips for those interested in attending natural language processing (NLP) conferences, particularly on how to navigate the complex system.Kenneth concludes the podcast with an exciting demo of Translate Locally, an MT app that runs locally on a desktop or laptop CPU, allowing cloud-like translation speed without sacrificing privacy and browsing habits.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with Argos Multilingual acquiring rival Venga Global and roughly doubling its size to become one of the top 25 LSPs in the world. One LSP that missed the top spot by a hair is RWS, whose full-year revenue is exceeding expectations, with consensus placing the figure around USD 965m. Meanwhile, Slator’s very own Anna Wyndham joins the Pod to talk about our highly popular article, “10 Areas Where Translators Are (and Will Remain) Essential Experts in the Loop,” published last week. She highlights a selection of mission-critical scenarios in which translators are the true experts in the loop, despite the advancement of tech.

In this week’s episode, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with continued disruption to subtitling, caption and audio description on UK’s Channel 4, after water damage at Red Bee Media’s broadcast center ruined a large number of hard disks.In media localization news, Esther talks about Spain’s plans to invest EUR 1.6bn into the audiovisual sector from now through 2025, with the aim of expanding the industry by 30%. Meanwhile, Florian shares key findings from Memsource and Charles University’s latest research, which delved into the impact of machine translation quality on post-editing speed.Florian discusses TransPerfect’s financial results, as they close in on their billion-dollar target after Q3 revenues grew 31% to USD 279m from the previous year. He also touches on a ruling in the US, where a judge called Google Translate a useful tool, but inadequate for soliciting consent. To round off the episode, Esther highlights key takeaways from the new Slator Pro Guide: Becoming an Effective Localization Buyer. The report dives deep into the localization buyers’ mindset and features key milestones in localization operations.

Andrzej Nedoma, Co-founder and CEO of XTRF, joins SlatorPod to discuss the journey of the translation management system (TMS).Andrzej begins with XTRF’s early days as a spin-off of family-owned LSP Lidolang and building the company with Co-founder, Dominik Radziszowski. He talks about the rationale behind pivoting from licenses to SaaS in 2014 and the funding decisions with Experior Venture Fund.The XTRF CEO unpacks the process behind investment firm K1 acquiring a majority stake in the company and their relationship with sister company XTM going forward. He talks about the similarities and differences between LSP and enterprise clients.Andrej shares the key shifts in the TMS landscape over the past decade and XTRF’s most important innovations in the last five years, including building their Business Barometer. He rounds off with XTRF’s roadmap over the midterm.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with two UK-based life sciences companies teaming up, as LSP Conversis acquires local rival Zebra Translations. Esther reviews Slator’s latest Language Industry Job Index, which climbed by 3.8 points in October. Florian touches on Slator’s Language Industry Buyer Tracker, which includes a new Localization Producer for Games at Netflix.Netflix also got called out for botched Korean into English subtitle translations for the TV drama Squid Game, which is on track to become the streaming giant’s most-watched show of all time — indicating the rising demand for English-dubbed content.

In this week’s SlatorPod, we’re joined by Anja Peschel, Managing Director of Peschel Communications, a Germany-based boutique languages service provider (LSP) that offers translation and interpreting.From the perspective of a practicing interpreter, Anja discusses her initial experience of providing consecutive interpreting via Zoom when the pandemic first prevented in-person meetings and conferences from taking place. She also talks about the learning curve with remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI), its pros and cons, and shares her views on automated tools for interpreters.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, carbon emitting machine translation, how DeepL integrates with startups, Keywords' new CEO goes on record, and TransPerfect's new M&A point man, and Google Meet adding live translated captions.

Simon Constable, Global Language Services SVP of Visual Data Media Services (VDMS), joins SlatorPod to talk about dubbing, subtitling, and the pandemic-induced transformation of media localization.Simon starts with his route into the media & entertainment and languages space, where his international experience spans 25 years. He delves into VDMS’ localization services and the dynamics between owning a studio versus working with the best fit for a specific project.The SVP discusses the combination of language technologies and automation workflows used for subtitling and dubbing. He reflects back on VDMS’s learnings in the last year and how the pandemic affected demand and production for content owners.Simon explores the different types of content, from recording voice-overs for cartoons to dealing with unscripted reality TV shows. He briefly touches on the challenges of remote dubbing and the level of demand for English as a target language. The Pod rounds off with VDMS’ growth plans over the next couple of years, after securing investment from Endeavour Capital in 2020, and Simon’s industry outlook.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with translation management system provider XTRF receiving an investment from K1, only nine months after K1 acquired a majority stake in XTM.Still in the investment space, Florian talks about LSP Seprotec, which sold a majority stake to Nazca Capital, a Spanish private equity firm. Meanwhile, Esther shares some highlights from ZOO Digital’s AGM and trading update.In media localization, Keywords Studios has appointed Bertrand Bodson, has a 23-year career in international business, as its new CEO. Florian also briefly touches on the 2021 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, which will be held in the Dominican Republic.

Olga Beregovaya, AI Innovation VP of Welocalize, joins SlatorPod to talk about all things AI, natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), and machine translation (MT) related.Olga begins with her journey into the language services and technology industry, where she currently leads AI innovation for Welocalize. She unpacks some of the broader applications of AI, ML, and NLP outside the language industry.The AI Innovation VP recounts the early days of implementing NLP algorithms and the evolution of the computer-assisted translation environment. She shares the role of humans in MT workflows and injecting AI into the global content transformation ecosystem.Olga shares her thoughts on text-generative models, such as GPT-3 and BERT, and the importance of synthetic data. She identifies the under-utilized NLP applications in the language industry.She outlines key AI language trends in light of increasing translator productivity, advancing neural machine translation, and integrating dynamically trained MT.First up, Florian and Esther take a deep dive into DeepL, as they discuss the leading MT company’s approach to neural networks, quality performance, enterprise solutions, new features, users, and growth.Esther shares highlights from AI Media’s ASX Small and Mid-Cap Conference Presentation about multilingual access services. Esther then covers Keywords Studios’ H1 results, which saw their Audio, Localization, and Localization Testing units contribute 27% to total group revenues.Florian talks about Zoom’s plans for live, multi-language transcription and translation features, which comes as no surprise after they acquired German simultaneous speech translation provider Kites this year.

First up, Florian and Esther share key takeaways from SlatorCon Remote, which hosted 13 guest speakers and drew in over 300 attendees.Esther talks about the Video Localization panel, where Chris Reynolds, Tom Livne, and Fardad Zabetian explored the similarities and differences between speech and text outputs. Next, Florian follows up on the Content in the Age of AI panel, where Konstantin Savenkov, Jochen Hummel, and Michel Lopez covered the landscape of AI-generated content.Speaking about this week in language industry news, Florian recounts his experience with LinkedIn spam; the likes of weekly fake profile requests from Chinese LSP CCJK. Florian then discusses Apostroph Group’s new CEO Philipp Meier, who previously held the position of CEO of Apostrophe Switzerland.The duo also talk about Cohere, an AI startup co-founded by University of Toronto alumni and which raised USD 40m to develop natural language software.In UK news, Esther shares how a woman was made to complete a rehabilitation course by UK Police after she presented a fake document in an attempt to be registered as an interpreter. Meanwhile, Southampton-based LSP Parallel Translations will be closing its doors at the end of September after nearly 25 years of trading.

Rebecca Petras, Spokesperson for non-profit Red T, joins SlatorPod to bring awareness to their advocacy for the protection of translators and interpreters in high-risk settings.Rebecca shares details of her professional background in journalism and discusses how she began her journey in the language industry through the humanitarian sector. She talks about the current situation of interpreters in Afghanistan and explains how the rising danger for linguists over the past few months led to her becoming involved with Red T and its Founder Maya Hess.Rebecca explores the role of linguists in conflict zones and explains who they typically work with. She discusses the lack of official status for interpreters (unlike, say, journalists) and highlights Red T’s efforts to ensure protection for these linguists by speaking at the UN, working to change policy, and issuing a conflict-zone field guide for linguists.The Pod rounds off with Rebecca outlining Red T’s current initiatives and what the language industry can do to support this cause. In particular, she draws attention to Red T’s Open Letter Project, which involves sending letters of appeal to governments or intergovernmental agencies to implement change for these embattled linguists.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, starting off with the sudden growth of ‘scanlation,’ where fans post their own translations of webcomics without the consent of the copyright holder.Florian then shares the news of TransPerfect’s debt refinancing with a new lower-interest term loan and revolving credit line amounting to USD 500m.Meanwhile, Esther goes extraterrestrial as she talks about NASA awarding a translation contract worth up to USD 59m to TechTrans International. She also reviews Slator’s latest Language Industry Job Index, which continued to climb for the seventh month in a row.

Slator’s very own Senior Research Analyst Anna Wyndham joins the Pod to give a sneak peek into the latest Slator Pro Guide: Language Operations. The 40-page guide is packed with data from public and proprietary sources, including 11 interviews with language service providers (LSPs) at different stages of growth across Europe, Asia, and North America.Anna unpacks the five key areas of the report that cover how LSPs structure operations, linguist supply chain models, an analysis of the global footprint of LSPs, program management, and payment risks. She concludes with a one-page operational milestone roadmap that lays out the key milestones LSPs hit as they grow from Boutique to Super Agency.First up, Esther and Florian catch up on three weeks’ worth of the language industry news, beginning with TransPerfect’s largest M&A deal to date as they bought Semantix, Sweden’s largest LSP.Esther shares news of clinical research specialist WCG’s acquisition of e-clinical software and translation provider VeraSci for USD 330m back in July. thebigword Group announced that investment firm Susquehanna Private Capital had acquired a majority stake in the UK-based LSP.Florian talks about CataCap selling its majority stake in LanguageWire to Bridgepoint Development Capital. Meanwhile, interpreting SaaS startup Boostlingo secured investment from growth equity firm Mainsail Partners after experiencing over 130% growth in 2020.

In a guest-centered episode, Ivan Smolnikov, CEO and Founder of Smartcat, joins SlatorPod to talk about the company’s journey as a tech-powered SaaS platform.Ivan discusses his not-so-typical professional background and how he got into the language services and tech industry. Since 2016, he has been focused on building Smartcat into an accessible SaaS platform with a marketplace of suppliers.The CEO talks about the complex ecosystem that comes with servicing three different client segments — enterprises, LSPs and freelancers — and how Smartcat aligns its interests with them.Ivan also discusses how they use multi-layered technology to find qualified suppliers and match them with buyers by analyzing terminology and collecting customer feedback. Although buyers increasingly directly edit MT output in Smartcat, he still sees a bright future for specialist and tech-enabled LSPs.The Pod rounds off with Ivan’s views on raising funds in the language industry, especially throughout the pandemic, as they closed a Series B round worth USD 14.6m.