Shows
SlatorPod#253 SlatorPod Tom Elias Hanna on Why On-Site Interpreting Is Here to Stay and the Trump EO ImpactTom Elias Hanna, COO of Hanna Interpreting Services (Hanna), joins SlatorPod to talk about how a family-run interpreting initiative grew into a national language solutions integrator (LSI).Tom explained that the company was born out of necessity during an influx of Arabic-speaking refugees in San Diego, with his mother providing interpretation and him leveraging his legal background to establish a compliant, scalable business that now serves healthcare, government, education, and social service sectors across California.Tom described how their inclusion-focused work led to partnerships like one with San Diego FC, where they provide ASL at...
2025-06-1330 min
SlatorPod#161 Microsoft’s Christian Federmann on the Translation Quality of Large Language ModelsIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Christian Federmann, Principal Research Manager at Microsoft, where he works on machine translation (MT) evaluation and language expansion.Christian recounts his journey from working at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence under the guidance of AI pioneer Hans Uszkoreit to joining Microsoft and building out Microsoft Translator.He shares how Microsoft Translator evolved from using statistical MT to neural MT and why they opted for the Marian framework.Christian expands on Microsoft’s push into large language models (LLMs) and how his team is n...
2023-04-121h 07
SlatorPod#160 Inside the Large Language Model Revolution with Nikola NikolovIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Nikola Nikolov, an experienced researcher, engineer, YouTuber, and consultant in natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning.Nikola talks about the evolution of large language models (LLMs), where the core technology remains the same, but the number of parameters has grown exponentially and the capacity to fine-tune models on human data via reinforcement learning from human feedback has turbocharged the models’ capabilities.Nikola unpacks the rapid increase in front-end use cases with companies like Google and Microsoft already integrating LLMs into their products. At the same time...
2023-04-041h 01
SlatorPod#158 How Game Localization is Trailblazing Speech Synthesis with Voiseed CEOVoiseed CEO and Co-founder Andrea Ballista joins SlatorPod to discuss the machine dubbing startup’s approach to operating and developing their AI-based virtual voice engine, Revoiceit. Andrea talks about how his passion for music as a child led him to founding audio localization studio Binari Sonori, which he sold to Keywords Studios in 2014, and why he is now launching Voiseed.He shares his impressions from this year’s Game Developers Conference where there was a lot of interest in new technologies, voice cloning solutions, and the development of emotional synthetic voices.Andrea unpacks Revo...
2023-03-2939 min
SlatorPod#157 Behind the Scenes of Netflix’ 1899 with Cinescript’s Liane KirschLiane Kirsch, CEO of Cinescript, joins SlatorPod to talk about specializing in the audiovisual industry and working with global TV and film productions.Liane discusses her route into the language industry, from studying philology and translating contracts to working as an on-set interpreter and dialogue coach for international productions. Throughout this journey she founded Cinescript and for five years she built her client base parallel to her other work.Liane shares her experience as a polyglot fluent in six languages and how she uses the melodies of languages in her learning process. She talks about...
2023-03-2228 min
SlatorPod#156 VSI CEO Mark Howorth on AI in Media Localization, Adding More Dubbing CapacityMark Howorth, CEO of VSI, joins SlatorPod to talk about his plans for leading and scaling the media localization provider.Mark discusses his route into the media and entertainment (M&E) and language space as well as his path to joining VSI. Mark took up his role at the leading media localization provider in January 2023 after spending five years as the CEO of SDI Media including overseeing the company’s sale to Iyuno in 2021. He outlines how the media localization industry has evolved with the streaming boom impacting turnaround times. Mark also shares some of th...
2023-03-1428 min
SlatorPod#155 Why Everyone Is Using Subtitles Now with David Orrego-CarmonaIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by David Orrego-Carmona, Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick to discuss his research on language technologies, audiovisual translation, and users of translation.David shares his background studying translation in Colombia and how it led to the formation of a research group focusing on audiovisual translation and subtitling. He outlines how he is developing Translation Studies at Warwick, not only to teach students about translation and culture, but so they can have a direct link to the industry. David reveals the key findings from his PhD on th...
2023-03-0841 min
SlatorPod#153 How Acolad Is Building Its Growth Team with Chief Revenue Officer Gráinne MaycockIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Gráinne Maycock, to discuss her role as Chief Revenue Officer at Super Agency Acolad.Gráinne begins with her journey studying translation and interpreting to working in various sales and account management roles, before the LSP she worked for was acquired by Acolad. She then talks about how her role as Chief Revenue Officer goes beyond sales, specifically collaborating with marketing, solutions, support, and operations to improve customer experience and growth.Gráinne highlights the importance of creating a sense of team through a common visio...
2023-03-0135 min
SlatorPod#152 Language Technology Dominates in Research, RFPs, and FundingFlorian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, kicking off with highlights from Slator’s latest Game Localization Report. The 100-page report outlines the role that localization plays in bringing games to life and onto the market.In funding news, former Keywords Studios’ Exec, Andrea Ballista, raised EUR 1m in a seed round for his new machine dubbing venture, Voiseed. The funds will go towards Voiseed’s voice platform, Revoiceit, by improving its patented AI core technology and proprietary emotional multilingual dataset.Former SlatorPod guest and ADAPT Centre’s MT researcher Yasmin Moslem c...
2023-02-1724 min
SlatorPod#151 How Supertranslate is Profitable at $100 Monthly Recurring RevenueRamsri Goutham Golla joins SlatorPod to talk about his creator journey in AI SaaS (software-as-a-service), AI consulting, and AI courses.Ramsri discusses his shift from software engineer in Silicon Valley to entrepreneur in India with AI SaaS apps Questgen.ai, Supermeme.ai, and Supertranslate.ai. He shares how a “build in public” strategy can help inspire people to follow your journey.Ramsri talks about his blended approach to building products, marketing, and driving his social media channels. He touches on his most recent project, Supertranslate, which is powered by OpenAI's Whisper for its one-click subtitle gene...
2023-02-1458 min
SlatorPod#148 Mastering the Art of Transcreation With Craft’s Tanya BoginTanya Bogin, Managing Director of Craft London, joins SlatorPod to talk about the company’s end-to-end creative production services across all media channels and languages. Tanya discusses her route into the language industry; from working as a radio station manager to entering the transcreation industry with Craft. She talks about how the company brings creative ideas to life through cultural adaptation, translation, and transcreation.Tanya outlines the rigorous testing process behind recruiting transcreation specialists and how their bespoke workflow yields successful results with clients. She touches on the role of language technology at Craft with a...
2023-02-0127 min
SlatorPod#147 LXT’s Phil Hall on the 2023 AI Boom, Covering 750 Languages, and ChatGPTIn this week’s SlatorPod, LXT Chief Growth Officer Phil Hall joins us to talk about the company’s journey, from providing high-quality Arabic data for a Big Tech company to expanding into 750 languages.Phil shares his background teaching linguistics and leading business development for Appen before joining LXT. He discusses the key findings from The Path to AI Majority report, from the maturity levels among 200 executives surveyed to which industries are trailblazers in AI adoption.Phil touches on search relevance ranking as a method to retrain machine learning and give more relevant results. He give...
2023-01-2539 min
SlatorPod#146 Google Translation Hub — Mallika Iyer on Launch, Features, and RoadmapGoogle’s Head of Product, Translation AI, Mallika Iyer, joins SlatorPod to talk all about the company’s new Translation Hub. Mallika begins with her journey from software engineer to leading all of the translation products for Google Cloud, most recently Translation Hub. She shares the motivation behind launching the hub, where they saw that overall demand for translation had increased, but budgets necessarily hadn’t.Mallika discusses the basic and advanced tiers the hub offers, with the latter including domain-specific translation, translation memory, and translation quality prediction. She explains how the hub has gained tractio...
2023-01-1830 min
SlatorPod#144 How André Bastié Is Scaling Happy Scribe After Finding Instant Product-Market FitIn this week’s SlatorPod, Happy Scribe CEO André Bastié joins us to talk about building a unified platform for transcription and subtitling.André discusses the journey to co-founding Happy Scribe during his studies where he accidentally came across the challenge of transcription and built a first prototype with his flatmate and now CTO, Marc Assens Reina.The CEO shares how their product development has evolved, from initially deploying the Google Speech API to connecting to various off-the-shelf systems to, now, building their own custom models. He talks about how being a bootstrapped company forces them...
2023-01-1140 min
SlatorPod#143 Translated CEO Marco Trombetti on Time-to-Edit as Proxy for AI SingularityIn the final SlatorPod episode of 2022, we are joined by Marco Trombetti, cofounder and CEO of Italy-based LSP Translated. Marco joins us two years on from our episode with Translated’s other cofounder, Isabelle Andrieu.Marco breaks down the LSP’s Singularity in AI research project and defines what singularity means in translation. He walks us through the process and the vast data collection effort behind the research, with “time to edit” emerging as the key performance indicator for machine translation quality.He talks about whether Translated has reached a plateau of productivity in postediting and the...
2022-12-1438 min
SlatorPod#142 The Future of Trados With Mark LawyerIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Mark Lawyer, General Manager of Trados, the key technology product line of UK-based Super Agency RWS.Trados is a translation technology adopted by hundreds of thousands of freelance translators, LSPs, and enterprise customers — the three main market segments of the localization supply chain.Mark begins with his journey to joining the localization industry straight out of university, with roles spanning business development, solution architecture, and global customer experience management. He shares some of Trados’ milestones starting with its creation in 1984.Mark talks about the flexib...
2022-12-0733 min
SlatorPod#140 How the Brain Processes Language, With MIT Neuroscientist Ev FedorenkoJoining SlatorPod this week is Ev Fedorenko, Associate Professor of Neuroscience at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT. Ev also runs EvLab, an MIT language lab that discovers how the human brain creates language.Ev talks about the different hypotheses concerning the origin of language and how it has likely been a gradual evolution. She shares a number of intriguing research findings on the relationship between language and abstract representations of structure (i.e., complex thought).Ev discusses how language processing takes place and how we can use brain imaging to compare language...
2022-11-2942 min
SlatorPod#137 Intento CEO Konstantin Savenkov on Best-Fit MT, Google Translation Hub, Generative AIKonstantin Savenkov, CEO and co-founder of Intento, joins SlatorPod to discuss how they enable enterprise clients to choose best-fit machine translation (MT) services and technology.Konstantin outlines Intento’s services and product offerings, which include an MT Hub for localization and office productivity, an MT studio, as well as MT evaluation and maintenance. He talks about why there is a lack of consolidation when it comes to MT providers, translation management systems (TMS), and translation productivity technology (aka CAT).The CEO discusses the highlights from Intento’s State of Machine Translation 2022 report, which evaluates 31 MT engi...
2022-11-1149 min
SlatorPod#136 Deepgram: From Dark Matter to Deep Learning Speech API With Scott StephensonScott Stephenson, CEO of Deepgram, joins SlatorPod to talk about his unique journey to co-founding the deep tech, automatic speech recognition (ASR) company and raising over USD 50m in funding.Scott recalls how his experience working with dark matter detectors as a particle physicist in China led to him becoming a deep-learning entrepreneur. He discusses some challenges in solving ASR; from labeling data for machine learning to formulating and executing an effective go-to-market strategy.The CEO gives his thoughts on Whisper, OpenAI’s open-source ASR model, and how it may actually grow the total addressable ma...
2022-11-0453 min
SlatorPod#135 DigitalTolk CEO Virpal Singh on Booking an Interpreter in SecondsIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Virpal Singh, CEO and co-founder of DigitalTolk, an interpreting services provider that uses technology and automation to help match interpreters to clients.Virpal begins with his journey to setting up DigitalTolk; from studying computer engineering and electronics to entering the language industry with co-founder Leyla Sarac. The duo saw a gap in the Swedish market to meet the increasing language demand during the refugee crisis of 2015.The CEO talks about the fragmentation of the interpreting market in Europe compared to the US because of the different la...
2022-10-2833 min
SlatorPod#134 Cohere Co-founder Nick Frosst on Building the NLP Platform of the FutureThe co-founder of Cohere, Nick Frosst, joins SlatorPod to talk about rapidly scaling one of the most exciting natural language processing (NLP) startups. Nick shares his journey to establishing Cohere alongside Aidan Gomez and Ivan Zhang with Aidan’s seminal paper, Attention Is All You Need, serving as an inspiration to the startup.He reflects back on his experience at the Google Brain team in Toronto, where he worked on neural network research with Geoffrey Hinton, and breaks down the evolution of neural networks to the current state-of-the-art large language models.Nick touches on the le...
2022-10-0723 min
SlatorPod#131 Automating Subtitling, Dubbing, Live Captioning With XL8 CEO Tim JungTim Jung, CEO of XL8, joins SlatorPod to talk about the startup’s journey — from co-founding the media-focused machine translation company with former Apple Software Engineer, Jay Park, to raising a USD 3m bridge round in August 2022.Tim discusses his experience working for Samsung and Google and how they have adopted an engineering-driven culture at XL8.The CEO walks through their product MediaCAT, which allows users to streamline media localization workflows in three steps: sync, translate, and dub. XL8 also recently launched EventCAT, where users can interpret or add live subtitles for events through the powe...
2022-09-0952 min
SlatorPod#130 Yasmin Moslem on Using Large Language Models to Custom Train Machine TranslationMachine Translation (MT) Researcher, Yasmin Moslem, joins SlatorPod to talk about her research on Domain-Specific Text Generation for Machine Translation — a project she conducted with Rejwanul Haque, John D. Kelleher, and Andy Way at the Adapt Center in Dublin.Yasmin shares her experience working as a translator, discovering translation productivity (CAT) tools, and experimenting with translation memory to improve MT. She breaks down the paper’s approach to domain-specific MT training using back-translation for data augmentation.She discusses how some LSPs are already implementing this approach in real-life, customizing it for different use cases. She expl...
2022-09-0256 min
SlatorPod#128 Translation Pricing With Joseph Lambert and Callum WalkerJoseph Lambert (Lecturer in Translation Studies at Cardiff University) and Callum Walker (Lecturer in Translation Technology at the University of Leeds) join SlatorPod to talk about their paper Because We’re Worth It: Disentangling freelance translation, status, and rate-setting in the United Kingdom.Joseph discusses the top three challenges for translators when it comes to pricing their services, including knowing how to calculate rates, client or LSP resistance to rate suggestions, and being willing to talk about rates in general. Callum shares the motivation behind writing the paper and how they aim to bridge the gap between ac...
2022-08-1943 min
SlatorPod#126 Dubverse’s Anuja Dhawan on AI Dubbing for YouTubers, TikTokers and Content CreatorsDubverse co-founder, Anuja Dhawan, joins SlatorPod to talk about launching the machine dubbing startup and powering video content dubbing using the latest AI language models and tech.Anuja starts with her journey to co-founding Dubverse with Varshul Gupta as a result of the rise of English speaking video-generated content during the pandemic. She goes through the company’s core team structure where the focus is on scaling through AI and technology.She discusses how they tailor their product to language demand in India as roughly only 10% of the population understands or speaks English fluently. She ta...
2022-07-2231 min
SlatorPod#124 How to Become a Successful Freelance Interpreter With Jan RauschIn this week’s SlatorPod, we’re joined by Jan Rausch to discuss his experience in the interpreting industry as a freelance conference and business interpreter.Jan talks about his background in teaching modern languages and how he transitioned to freelance interpreting, where he eased himself into a highly competitive market. He shares the range of scenarios he has worked in; from European Works Councils and clinical trials to sales meetings and political and diplomatic interpreting for German delegations.Jan discusses the need to multitask and formulate good language that is easy to understand for the...
2022-07-0842 min
SlatorPod#123 Reverso CEO Theo Hoffenberg on Building Language Technology Used by MillionsTheo Hoffenberg, Founder and CEO of Reverso, joins SlatorPod to talk about specializing in AI-based language tools and translation aids used by millions online.Theo begins with his background in the software industry, where he helped launch tech companies in Europe and how he got into the language technology industry with Reverso. He discusses the evolution of the company, from a downloadable software to an online translation platform with millions of users including language professionals and enterprises.The CEO talks us through the release of some of their AI-based language tools like Reverso Context, a...
2022-06-2429 min
SlatorPod#122 Addressing Vicarious Trauma Among Linguists With MasterWord CEO Mila GolovineMila Golovine, CEO and President of MasterWord, joins SlatorPod to talk about the important topic of stress and trauma that linguists may experience on the job.Mila walks us through her journey in the language industry: immigrating from Russia, founding the Texas-based LSP straight out of university, and leading it to where it is today. She reflects on MasterWord’s diversification, expanding from oil and gas to healthcare, education, and government services.The CEO talks about the strategy behind recruiting from refugee communities and using MasterWord Institute to train talent wanting to enter the language in...
2022-06-1749 min
SlatorPod#121 Leading TransPerfect’s Technology Division with Matt HauserTransPerfect Senior Vice President in charge of technology, Matt Hauser, joins SlatorPod to share his experience in building the technology division at what is now the world’s largest language service provider.Hauser explains why they bet early on the cloud when building their translation management system, Global Link, and how the TMS is deployed across much of production at TransPerfect and across hundreds of enterprise clients.He discusses the importance of connectors and building and maintaining that content on-ramp to clients. Matt agrees with Florian that post-editing MT as a process is beginning to re...
2022-06-1031 min
SlatorPod#119 RWS Chief Language Officer Maria Schnell on the Value of Linguistic ExpertiseIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Maria Schnell to discuss her recent appointment as Chief Language Officer at RWS — pointing to the Super Agency’s investment in linguistic expertise.Maria begins with her journey as a trained translator and how she worked her way through commercial and operational roles at SDL, before the company was acquired by RWS. She then talks about what the new role of Chief Language Officer entails, specifically leading the Language eXperience Delivery (LXD) platform.She breaks down the role of the LXD platform, where a large, linguistic networ...
2022-05-2631 min
SlatorPod#118 Welocalize CEO Smith Yewell on Scaling a Language Industry Super AgencySmith Yewell, Co-founder and CEO of Welocalize, joins SlatorPod to talk about how the team built the company from the first order, translating a single word 25 years ago, into what is now a global Super Agency.Smith talks about co-founding Welocalize with wife Julia Yewell in 1997, and how they did not have a common language when they first met. He recalls how he navigated the many complex end-client industries and enterprise functions, especially with the maturation of technology.The CEO shares the impact private equity investors have had on Welocalize and on the language industry — wh...
2022-05-2053 min
SlatorPod#117 Jeenie CEO Kirsten Brecht Baker on Raising a Series A for Healthcare InterpretingIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Kirsten Brecht Baker, Co-founder and CEO of Jeenie, an on-demand healthcare interpreting platform that recently raised USD 9.3m in Series A funding.Kirsten begins with her journey as a daughter of linguists and how she transitioned from working in international education to co-founding Jeenie. She tells us about the pivot to servicing healthcare in the US and how they grew in one of the most competitive spaces in the industry.The CEO shares her experience partnering with Transformation Capital, a growth equity fund focused on innovative he...
2022-05-1346 min
SlatorPod#116 Leading the World’s Largest Interpreting Service With Genoveva Ruiz CalaveraIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Genoveva Ruiz Calavera, Head of the Directorate-General for Interpretation (SCIC) at the European Commission, the world’s largest employer of conference interpreters.Genoveva reflects back on her 30-year journey working for the European Commission in an array of different roles; and what led her to switch to leading SCIC. She shares SCIC’s mission to provide high-quality conference interpretation to institutions and organize corporate conferences.The Director-General relays the main challenges she overcame as she stepped into the role in the middle of the pandemic, with Covid...
2022-05-0628 min
SlatorPod#114 Amazon’s Professional Translators, Transifex, Seprotec, BIGIn this week’s episode, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with shares in Netflix taking a 35% dive after the streaming giant lost 200,000 subscribers. The company continues to push international content and is currently building capacity in gaming faster than when they entered film.Amazon announces the release of 51 language datasets, which will help Alexa add more low-resource languages to their current 8 languages. They created this 100-million-utterances-per-language dataset by tasking professional translators with translating the English dataset into 50 typologically diverse languages.On the M&A front, BIG has acquired Lawlinguists, a...
2022-04-2221 min
SlatorPod#112 Scaling Website Localization with Weglot CEO Augustin ProtAugustin Prot, Co-founder and CEO of Weglot, joins SlatorPod to talk about the startup’s journey as a no-code website localization technology provider. Augustin discusses his not-so-typical professional background in M&A and how he got into the language services and tech industry. He talks us through the transformation of their client segments, from self-service SMBs to large enterprises, and how Weglot aligns its product with these sectors.The CEO talks about raising EUR 45m with partner Partech Growth to scale product development and expand their 30-person team. He shares how no-code tech has evolved sin...
2022-04-0850 min
SlatorPod#111 Boostlingo CEO Bryan Forrester on Fundraising, M&A, Scaling Interpreting TechnologyIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Bryan Forrester, Co-founder and CEO of Boostlingo, a Texas-based interpreting software and technology provider.Bryan begins with his journey to co-founding Boostlingo; from selling his first tech startup, Anchor Software, to entering the interpreting space. The CEO shares his experience partnering with growth equity firm Mainsail Partners in order to scale the business through hiring and M&A. He addresses the VoiceBoxer and Interpreter Intelligence acquisitions as part of a strategy to expand into remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) and on-demand scheduling. He talks about some of the...
2022-04-0149 min
SlatorPod#110 A New Way to Post-Edit MT and News on RWS, Weglot, DeepL, Boostlingo, AcoladNico Herbig and Josef van Genabith join SlatorPod to talk all about their project, called MMPE, a multi-modal interface for post-editing machine translation.Nico shares the motivation behind starting MMPE and how they aim to improve the collaboration between human translators and language technology. Josef explains how they geared the project toward a human-in-the-loop model.The duo reflect on the early research behind the project, where they gathered input from professional translators to narrow down the design and handwriting interaction. They discuss the hardware technology and their approach when it comes to measuring cognitive load.
2022-03-251h 02
SlatorPod#109 Meta VP Iris Orriss Announces Shift from Community Translation to Single-Language VendorsIn a guest solo, Meta’s VP of Internationalization, Product Quality, and Product Experience, Iris Orriss, joins SlatorPod to talk about the company’s mission to give people the power to build communities, bringing the world closer together.Iris recounts her journey to joining the language industry, from training as a geologist to working in big tech, from Microsoft to Meta. She also reveals her motivations for working in the field of internationalization.The VP shares Meta’s strategy to remove language and cultural barriers through technology and the localization of major languages not well-represented on the...
2022-03-1838 min
SlatorPod#108 Low Resource, High Potential — NeuralSpace CEO Felix Laumann on Democratizing NLPFelix Laumann, CEO of NeuralSpace, joins SlatorPod to talk all about the no-code, low-code natural language processing (NLP) platform for low-resource languages.Felix recalls his journey to startup CEO in the NLP milieu after coming from a computer and mechanical engineering background; plus the origin story of NeuralSpace. He discusses the difficulty behind building models for low-resource languages when faced with less than 1% of data available.The CEO recounts his experience connecting with investors to raise a USD 1.7m seed round. He explains how machine translation fits into their framework, with the main use-case being...
2022-03-1149 min
SlatorPod#107 Automating Language Evaluation With Emmersion CEO Brigham TomcoBrigham Tomco, CEO of Emmersion, joins SlatorPod to talk all about automating language evaluation and the underlying tech behind it.Brigham begins with his journey into the language education and tech industry, where he started two venture-backed companies. He recounts the early days of Emmersion, where they offered language tutoring and how they evolved into building language assessment tech.The CEO shares the importance of language learning in the age of AI with language tech like machine translation and speech-to-speech. He identifies the different key client segments, from call centers and BPOs to academia and...
2022-03-0443 min
SlatorPod#105 Healthcare Interpreting in the US and Beyond With Marco AssisIn this week’s SlatorPod, we’re joined by Marco Assis, CEO of Propio Language Services (Propio), a US-based interpreting and language technology company.Marco begins with his unusual route into the language industry where he spent most of his career in finance and M&A before taking over Propio from its long-term owners in 2017. He talks about Propio’s highly specialized healthcare domain and outlines the similarities and differences between servicing public vs. private sector clients.The CEO shares his experience teaming up with private equity and what Triple Tree Capital Partners brings to the ta...
2022-02-1853 min
SlatorPod#104 Audio Localization in Video Games With Alessandra VincenziAlessandra Vincenzi, Head of Audio Localization at Keywords Studios, joins SlatorPod to talk about the ins and outs of audio localization in the video game industry.Alessandra starts with her route into the audio localization space with Binari Sonori and her transition to Keywords Studios. She shares the differences between localizing for mobile versus Triple-A games.She also talks about casting, onboarding, and categorizing voice-acting talent and how actors are matched to different clients. She goes into possible use cases for artificial voices in video games and the migration to remote recording solutions....
2022-02-1140 min
SlatorPod#103 The Machine Translation Literacy Project with Lynne BowkerIn this week’s SlatorPod, we are joined by Lynne Bowker, Professor at the University of Ottawa to discuss the Machine Translation Literacy Project, whose eye-catching infographics have proven very popular on Twitter.Lynne shares her background working in higher education and how this led to her running the MT Literacy Project. She talks about the evolution of machine translation (MT) systems and how this inspired her to teach users in the wider population about the dos and don'ts of using MT output....
2022-02-0457 min
SlatorPod#102 Björn Lifvergren on Subtitling, Dubbing, and Launching LinQ MediaBjörn Lifvergren, Executive Chairman of LinQ Media Group, joins SlatorPod to talk about dubbing, subtitling, and the media localization industry.Björn starts with his route into the media & entertainment and language space; where, after two decades of leading (and eventually selling) BTI Studios, he founded LinQ Media. He gives his take on delivering localized content at scale and reacts to Netflix revealing its subtitling and dubbing stats for the first time.Björn talks us...
2022-01-2848 min
SlatorPod#101 The World of Japanese Game and Media Localization With Katrina LeonoudakisKatrina Leonoudakis joins SlatorPod to discuss her experience as a Japanese-to-English Localization Specialist in the world of anime, manga, and video games.Katrina recounts her early years as a freelance translator and her experience breaking into the entertainment and media space. She shares the main cultural and linguistic challenges when localizing a Japanese game to adapt to a Western English-speaking culture.Katrina talks about how she deals with balancing the needs and preferences of the original scriptwriter, target audience, and client. She also reflects...
2022-01-211h 09
SlatorPod#100 The Social Impact of Language Technology With Andrew BredenkampIn SlatorPod’s 100th episode, Andrew Bredenkamp, CEO of CLEAR Tech, joins the Pod to talk about the evolution of CLEAR Global, formerly known as Translators without Borders (TWB).Andrew recalls his path to joining CLEAR Global, with leadership roles at content governance platform Acrolinx and TWB, and why he stepped in to drive the tech piece of the puzzle with CLEAR Tech. He also defines how CLEAR Tech works with TWB and CLEAR Insights, the research and data branch of the or...
2022-01-141h 03
SlatorPod#99 Lokalise’s USD 50m Series B; 2021 Industry Highlights and 2022 OutlookIn SlatorPod’s final episode for 2021, Florian and Esther are joined by Slator’s very own Andrew Smart to share the top industry highlights over the past year.Florian looks back on 2021, which saw approximately 60 M&A transactions and 25 funding rounds announced this year, with big moves such as TransPerfect acquiring Semantix. For 2022, Florian predicts additional competition as the likes of DeepL engage in a direct battle for enterprise account ownership, with tech continuing to develop in the core localization and TMS area.Wi...
2021-12-1718 min
SlatorPod#98 Lionbridge CEO John Fennelly on the Language Industry’s Growth TrajectoryJohn Fennelly, CEO of Lionbridge, joins SlatorPod to talk about the Super Agency’s journey over the past 25 years since its founding by Rory Cowan.Fennelly recalls his path to joining Lionbridge in mid-2017 after leadership roles at Thomson Reuters and Hireright — and why he stressed the theme of simplification and relentless customer focus in his first years as Lionbridge CEO. He discusses how the 6,000-person company adapted quickly to a remote-first world...
2021-12-1051 min
SlatorPod#97 Smartling Mega-Round, Avantpage CEO on Serving LEP PopulationsLuis Miguel, CEO of Avantpage Translations, joins SlatorPod to talk about the LSP’s mission over the past 25 years of helping immigrants and other limited-English-proficient (LEP) populations.Luis walks us through his journey in the language industry, from immigrating from Mexico to founding and leading a California-based LSP. He introduces Avantpage’s leadership team and highlights the importance of developing talent within the company as it grows.The CEO discusses the key differences between servicing government clients versus the private sector. He reflects on the dynamics of L...
2021-12-0351 min
SlatorPod#96 The Creativity of Transcreation with Tag Collective Arts’ Rik GrantRik Grant, Transcreation Partner at London-based Tag Collective Arts, joins SlatorPod to talk about all things transcreation as well as multi-language content creation.Rik discusses his route into the language industry; from working as a Lead Account Manager to entering the creative industry. He outlines the careful process behind recruiting transcreation talent and their varied copywriting, agency, or client-side background.Rik shares the challenges involved in localizing for different markets, especially when technical, linguistic, and cultural barriers are prevalent in certain locales...
2021-11-261h 05
Troublesome Terps67: The Translation & Interpreting PodcastivalPodcasts are everywhere, so what to listen to?
To help you along here, the Troublesome Terps reached out to some of our favorite language related podcast-superstars and invited them to join our first ever live #podcastival.
The goal was to celebrate the language industry at large in all its beautiful diversity with all its shades and wrinkles and shine a spotlight on these fabulous contributions - if we missed your favorite language podcast, do let us know and enjoy our #podcastival!Special Guests: Ada Volkmer, Carrie Gillon, Cate Hamilton, Corinne McKay, Eve Lindemuth Bodeux, Florian...
2021-11-251h 51
SlatorPod#94 Diego Cresceri on Pricing MT Post-Editing and Becoming President of EliaDiego Cresceri, CEO of Creative Words, joins SlatorPod to talk about his journey in the language industry, from founding the language service provider (LSP) to becoming President of Elia.Diego recounts his beginnings as a Translator, Project Manager, and eventually branching off on his own to create Creative Words. He also shares the motivation behind the founding of Creative AI for multilingual data services and how it functions alongside Creative Words.The CEO discusses the evolution of post-editing machine translation (PEMT) and the LSP’s approach to pricing PEMT by the word. He also shares th...
2021-11-1254 min
SlatorPod#93 Véronique Özkaya on Why Argos Multilingual Acquired Venga GlobalVéronique Özkaya, CEO of Argos Multilingual, joins SlatorPod to talk about the recent acquisition and integration of language service provider (LSP) Venga Global.Véronique Özkaya walks us through her extensive career in the language industry and taking up her new role as CEO at Argos amid the pandemic. She also shares insights into the acquisition of Venga merely three months after announcing the acquisition of linguistic quality assurance provider Chillistore.
2021-11-0553 min
SlatorPod#92 Blazing-Fast Machine Translation With Kenneth HeafieldIn 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 un...
2021-10-291h 06
SlatorPod#90 On XTRF and Scaling a Translation Management System with Andrzej NedomaAndrzej 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...
2021-10-0854 min
SlatorPod#89 How the Pandemic Changed Interpreting Forever With Anja PeschelIn 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...
2021-10-011h 01
SlatorPod#88 Dubbing, Subtitling, and the Future of Media Localization with VDMS’ Simon ConstableSimon 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 du...
2021-09-241h 03
SlatorPod#87 Inside DeepL and Welocalize VP Olga Beregovaya on Language Tech EvolutionOlga 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.
2021-09-171h 08
SlatorPod#85 Advocating for Interpreters in Afghanistan with Red T Spokesperson Rebecca PetrasRebecca 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...
2021-09-0338 min
SlatorPod#83 Smartcat CEO Ivan Smolnikov on Translation SaaS and MarketplacesIn 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...
2021-08-2051 min
SlatorPod#82 LanguageLoop CEO, TikTok’s Dutch Translation Penalty, SME Website LocalizationElizabeth Compton, CEO of LanguageLoop, and Claire Mullins, National Translations Manager at the Australian language service provider (LSP), join SlatorPod to talk about the company’s digital and organizational transformation.Elizabeth recalls the LSP’s early days from 1978, and the decision to rebrand to LanguageLoop. She touches on the role of the Victorian State Government as shareholder.She shares the impact of the pandemic as they saw an immediate shift from on-site to remote interpreting, as well as accelerating the digital delivery of l...
2021-07-3057 min
SlatorPod#80 TAIA CEO Marko Hozjan on Scaling a Translation StartupMarko Hozjan, CEO and Co-founder of translation startup TAIA, joins SlatorPod to talk about his company’s journey from launch to their recent series A.Marko discusses what brought him into the world of translation from a background that spans everything from economics and leadership, to language teaching and…sailing. He talks about automation and machine translation and the need to remain focused and disciplined when developing translation products. First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week — which saw three M&A and Funding announcements. The two talk about Rome-based Translate...
2021-07-1651 min
SlatorPod#79 Women in Localization President Cecilia Maldonado on Translation in Latin AmericaCecilia Maldonado, Director of Strategic Accounts at Latamways, joins SlatorPod to talk about the language industry landscape in Latin America and her term as President of Women in Localization.Cecilia recounts her path to joining the language industry and the many hats she wore over the past 20 years. She touches on the two-year process of merging SpeakLatam and Two Ways Translation Services, and how they managed to double in size in a highly fragmented, competitive industry.She shares her perspective on how business is centered around Argentina and Brazil in the Latin American language industry...
2021-07-091h 05
SlatorPod#78 Zoom Adds Live Translation, Netflix Dubbing News, Toppan’s Christophe DjaouaniChristophe Djaouani, President of newly launched Toppan Digital Language, joins SlatorPod to discuss the Japanese corporate giant’s plans to become a leader in translation for regulated industries.Christophe shares his career journey; from his days as project manager at RR Donnelley to how he worked his way up to Executive Vice President at SDL. He introduces the members of the Toppan Digital Language executive team.In an exclusive, Christophe announces that Toppan Printing will be renamed Toppan Inc. to reflect the transformation of the company. He goes over the benefits of having existing pockets of...
2021-07-021h 01
SlatorPod#77 Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli on Personalized Video in 40+ LanguagesSynthesia CEO and Co-founder Victor Riparbelli joins SlatorPod to discuss the company’s approach to operating and developing the world’s first and largest platform for video AI generation.Victor talks about Synthesia’s journey and the rapid progression of media technology. He unpacks the role of academia in the company, where PhDs and professors make up nearly 50% of staff.The CEO goes over the evolution of text-to-speech in the last decade. He also discusses the difficulty of extending voice into multiple languages when there is no data to support the neural network.Victor...
2021-06-251h 22
SlatorPod#76 BLEND Enters Voice Services, Keywords CEO Retires, Propio Gets Growth EquityIn this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, with BLEND’s acquisition of GM Voices, a voice and audio localization provider known for producing the original Siri for Apple. Following RWS’ appointment of a new CEO, Keywords Studios announced the retirement of CEO Andrew Day, with Jon Hauck (CFO) and Sonia Sedler (COO) stepping up as interim CEOs while Keywords searches for its new leader. In healthcare interpreting news, Esther talks about Propio Language Services’ growth equity investment from Triple Tree Capital Partners (TTCP) — which sees TTCP expand its p...
2021-06-1819 min
SlatorPod#74 Remote Simultaneous Interpreting With Interactio Co-founder Simona AndrijauskaitėInteractio Co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer Simona Andrijauskaitė joins SlatorPod to discuss the Lithuanian startup’s journey.Simona talks about how the pandemic boosted demand and changed their primary market, with institutions needing technology for multilingual communication. She relates how it was all hands on deck at the remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) platform, as years of development were compressed into weeks.She also reflects back on their recent USD 30m round and how they managed to raise one of the biggest series As in the language industry. She closes with the company’s plans to im...
2021-06-041h 00
SlatorPod#71 Unbabel CEO Vasco Pedro on Translation Productivity, Lisbon’s Startup Scene, Growth PlansVasco Pedro, CEO of Unbabel, joins SlatorPod to discuss the company’s growth journey — from identifying the initial use case to raising USD 60m in Series C funding in 2019, and beyond.Vasco outlines Unbabel’s translation pipeline and underlying technology. He describes the importance of the human-in-the-loop model and the ability humans have to impact the output of machine learning (ML) models.The CEO talks about the challenges of ‘going remote’ overnight in response to Covid. Vasco says culture plays an important role in attracting top talent globally in the highly-competitive AI / ML space.Vasco al...
2021-05-141h 17
SlatorPod#70 Appen Shares Plunge, TRSB Buys Anglocom, Evaluating MT, Huge RFP in SwedenOn SlatorPod this week, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week — and share the exciting agenda for SlatorCon Remote, which is just around the corner. Florian briefly discusses the breaking news of Appen shares taking a beating, causing trading to halt. Esther talks about Canadian LSP TRSB’s acquisition of local rival Anglocom. According to TRSB CEO Mary Kazamias, Anglocom’s in-house linguists were central to the acquisition. The two discuss Google’s latest research paper on machine translation. Conclusion: It is better to hire professional translators to train an advanced MT system...
2021-05-0736 min
SlatorPod#69 Massive Localization at Canva, RSI Learning Curve, and Regulating AIFlorian is starstruck this week as Rachel Carruthers (Head of Internationalization and Localization) and Michael Levot (Localization Program Lead) from his favorite SaaS tool, Canva, join SlatorPod.Rachel and Michael join the Pod from Down Under to talk about Canva’s hub-and-spoke model for Localization, which enables them to run a “[expletive] massive” localization operation across no less than 104 languages.They talk about deciding what to build and what to buy in the way of language technology, and discuss their language services vendor model, which currently involves a half a dozen LSPs.First up, Fl...
2021-04-301h 04
SlatorPod#68 Lilt CEO Spence Green on Predictive Translation and the AI Agency’s RoadmapSpence Green, CEO and co-founder of tech-enabled language service provider Lilt, joins SlatorPod to talk about the journey from research concept to enterprise-scale AI translation agency.Having raised USD 25m in Series A funding in early 2020, Spence recalls hiring researchers, developers, and enterprise sales professionals, and the benefit of the monthly standups Lilt holds.Spence touches on performance improvements in their interactive translation system and cites prediction scores as high as 78%.He identifies key items on their roadmap, outlining Lilt’s connector-first approach, as well as enhancing the customer review cycle with in-built to...
2021-04-231h 01
New Books in FinanceFlorian Faes: Entrepreneur and Managing DirectorIn this episode Florian Feas describes his route into setting up Slator: to solve problems he became aware of, as a result of working in the translation industry in senior positions. He outlines the importance of having a co-founder with complementary skills and how SaaS business tools enabled him to scale his business fast and cost effectively We draw out lessons that any entrepreneur can benefit from hearing.Florian Faes is the Managing Director of Slator, a business media and advisory firm for the global language industry he co-founded in 2015. Prior to Slator, Florian spent nearly a d...
2021-04-051h 11
SlatorPod#64 Language I/O Founders on USD 5m Series A, AI Writer, Translation Pricing ReportLanguage I/O Co-founders Heather Shoemaker (CEO) and Kaarina Kvaavik (CBO) join the pod this week to discuss their newly announced Series A round, channel partnerships with CRM systems, expanding beyond their core multilingual customer support offering, and the future of subscription-based pricing models.The two duo join SlatorPod fresh off their USD 5m funding round, which was announced on March 23, 2021. Kaarina and Heather discuss their journey from founding and bootstrapping Language I/O to bringing on angel and VC investors in early 2021, and their plans for deploying the latest investment.Heather talks about the...
2021-03-261h 10
SlatorPod#63 Alex Katsambas on Localizing Billions of Words in Luxury FashionIn this week’s SlatorPod, Farfetch's Head of Linguistic Services, Alex Katsambas talks about the online luxury fashion platform’s localization model.Alex talks about Farfetch’s internal teams, churning out billions of words annually, the importance of sustainability in content messaging, and why return-on-investment for localization cannot be measured immediately.He shares insights into Farfetch’s approach to content differentiation, and explains why treating various content verticals differently is essential, particularly when thinking about integrating machine translation (MT).Having already rolled out MT for two languages, Alex tackles expanding Farfetch’s use of MT in t...
2021-03-191h 09
SlatorPod#60 Semantix Exec Britta Aagaard on EUR 34m EU GROW Translation ContractIn this week’s SlatorPod, Semantix Chief Business Officer Britta Aagaard joins us to talk about their recent major deal win — a EUR 34m translation contract for the EU GROW project. Britta discusses what’s involved in bidding for, winning, and setting up to go live on a contract of this size, as well as the role of Semantix’s technology partner ESTeam.Britta also talks about her path to joining Semantix, which resulted from the 2017 acquisition of Textminded, the translation company that she headed as CEO before its sale to public sector interpreting specialist Semantix. Four ye...
2021-02-2655 min
SlatorPod#59 Limecraft CEO and Founder Maarten Verwaest on AI-enabled subtitlingIn SlatorPod #59, Limecraft CEO and Founder Maarten Verwaest joins us to talk about digital workflow management in the media sector and AI-enabled subtitling. Maarten shares his entrepreneurial journey, tells us why he doesn’t plan to bring on financial investors, and explains why AI should not be left unattended. First up, Florian and Esther discuss the week’s language industry news as they revisit the majority sale of UK-based translation management system (TMS) provider XTM. The two discuss an MT-related court case in Poland. Having taken their client to court over non-payment for a book transl...
2021-02-191h 00
SlatorPod#57 Kudo CEO Fardad Zabetian on Multilingual Meetings, Job Index JumpsIn SlatorPod #57, Fardad Zabetian, Co-Founder and CEO of multilingual conferencing platform KUDO joins us to discuss the world of conferences and interpreting, his vision for KUDO from the get-go, and his company’s explosive growth during the pandemic. Fardad, who launched another of his businesses, Conference Rental, in the early 2000s, shares anecdotes from the early days of KUDO, talks about his commitment to removing the friction points in sourcing interpreters for the private sector, and tells us about his experience of securing USD 6m in funding during Covid-19. First up, Florian and Esther discuss lang...
2021-02-0556 min
SlatorPod#56 Media Loc Mega-Deal, Mark Shriner on Sales and Asia, Call of Duty Loc StatsWe welcome special guest Mark Shriner to this week’s SlatorPod. (Spoiler alert: He used to be Florian’s boss!) The longtime (former) language industry exec shares insights from 20+ years leading Asian offices for some of the world’s largest LSPs and discusses his experience of selling language services across the vast, diverse continent. Mark also offers tips for motivating LSP sales teams and talks about localization through the lens of enterprise technology.First up, Esther and Florian delve into the language industry stories of the week, which saw news break of a major upcoming transaction in the me...
2021-01-291h 10
SlatorPod#55 Memsource CEO on Buying Phrase, Straker’s Lingotek Deal, TransPerfect FY 2020In SlatorPod #55, aka “TMS week,” Memsource Founder and CEO David Canek joins us to talk about the acquisition of localization SaaS provider Phrase, announced just this week. David walks us through his company’s milestones, from Memsource’s launch in 2010 as a cloud-based TMS and their very first paying customer in 2012, to growing as a bootstrapped company until July 2020, when investment firm giant Carlyle took a majority stake in the company.He shares insights into the acquisition of Germany-based Phrase, discusses why their developer-targeted product is complementary to Memsource’s offering, and outlines the direction of the company
2021-01-2259 min
SlatorPod#50 New Rates in Germany, Financial Translation, LSP Channel PartnersIn this half-century, guestless episode of SlatorPod, Florian unpacks the contentious matter of pay rises for interpreters and translators in Germany’s courts. Linguists for Germany’s judicial system will see their hourly and per-word rates increase from January 2021, but not everyone’s satisfied.He and Esther discuss big bucks equity research after US-based investment firm Jefferies formed an alliance with Japanese firm SMBC Nikko Securities, which will see Nikko translate Jeffries’ equity research reports for distribution in Japan. Under the alliance, research for high-profile stocks will be the first to be translated, before Nikko — or an LSP they e...
2020-12-0425 min
SlatorPod#46 Smartcat Funding, 2M CEO Tea Dietterich, Loc Jobs Climb, Earnings WrapEpisode #46 of SlatorPod sees Florian and Esther welcome a very special guest and true linguist, 2M CEO Tea Dietterich joins the pod from Sunshine Coast in Australia.aStay tuned for our discussion with Tea on the language market in Australia: from the country’s biggest translation clients in the private sector, and Cultural and Linguistic Diversity (CALD) communities to the emergence of remote interpreting, and everything in between.First off, Florian discusses Smartcat’s Series B funding: the US-based language technology provider raised USD 14.6m earlier in the summer, led by Matrix Partners, continuing the...
2020-11-061h 07
SlatorPod#45 Medtech Loc, Venga Global CEO Kåre Lindahl, Language AI in Video, Amazon MT FailThis week, Florian and Esther welcome Kåre Lindahl, CEO of Venga Global for a wide ranging discussion about language data as a business for LSPs, lessons from M&A, selling consulting to loc buyers, and Amazon’s Swedish MT fail.First up, Florian talks about advances in automated transcription and AI video editing including the function to edit from transcripts. (Watch this space for full SlatorPod transcripts…) The two discuss the world of translation and localization for the complex and growing medical technology (medtech) industry, and share some of the key takeaways from the newly published Slato...
2020-10-301h 11
SlatorPod#43 RWS-SDL Greenlight, Pangeanic CEO Manuel Herranz Joins, thebigword's Big PromiseManuel Herranz, CEO of MT and language service provider Pangeanic joins SlatorPod. Manuel joins us for part two, after your regular hosts give a run down of the week’s language industry news.Florian talks about what’s going on with RWS’ buying SDL, as the deal inches closer to, well, closing. Just the small matters of a court hearing and SDL’s delisting from the London Stock Exchange to take care of next...The two talk about Japanese MT provider and LSP Rozetta, which released financial results for the first half of 2021. Remarkably, the English...
2020-10-1656 min
SlatorPod#42 TransPerfect Settles Wordfast, Sandeep Nulkar on India Loc Industry, Mozilla Kills ElmoFlorian and Esther are joined by Sandeep Nulkar, CEO and Founder of BITS Private Limited and co-Founder of Vernac Language Technologies to discuss India's language industry.Before Sandeep joins us, your regular SlatorPod hosts talk about the week’s language industry stories...Florian shares news from Mozilla, which just took the decision to retire Elmo — the backbone of its localization infrastructure — and to axe hundreds of jobs. Esther talks about the recovery in the language industry job index (LIJI), which climbed above the baseline in October for the first time since March 2020. The two pic...
2020-10-0955 min
SlatorPod#41 Tarjama CEO Nour Al Hassan; Translator Marketplaces, INC 5000 LSPsSlatorPod welcomes Nour Al Hassan, CEO of the Middle East’s leading language services provider, Tarjama. A lawyer by training, Nour talks about how she started in the language industry and grew Tarjama to 160 employees, the decision to build a proprietary translation management platform, and her take on language services demand in the MENA region.Before Nour’s segment, Slator’s Florian and Esther kick off the week’s language industry news with a discussion about translator marketplaces in light of Across Systems’ decision to retire their version of it, “Crossmarket.” (Spoiler alert: They plan to launch a new one in 2...
2020-10-0256 min
SlatorPod#39 Petr Antropov on Lokalise Series A, BIG M&A, Why THG Insourced TranslationIn SlatorPod’s third guest episode, Florian and Esther are joined by Lokalise co-Founder Petr Antopov, fresh from his company’s Series A funding round announced on Sept 7, 2020.Your regular hosts bring you the week’s language industry news; from Jeff Brink’s BIG Language Solutions acquiring US-based healthcare specialist ISI to two LSPs merging in Belgium, this week was awash with corporate transactions (not an NMT story in sight).Another two companies went public, as the owner of Language Connect, The Hut Group (THG), successfully completed a major IPO in London. Florian and Esther discuss...
2020-09-1850 min
SlatorPod#38 MT with Adam Bittlingmayer, Lokalise Series A, the “Outperforming Humans” ClaimIn SlatorPod’s second guest episode, Florian and Esther are joined by former Google Translate developer and ModelFront founder and CEO Adam Bittlingmayer to discuss machine translation, machine translation risk prediction, how LSPs should leverage MT, how big tech thinks about MT, and much more.Your two hosts first talk about localization SaaS startup Lokalise — which announced a USD 6m in Series A funding this week — and their decidedly corporate (read not LSP)-focused customer baseFlorian talks about Google’s foray into telehealth via a USD 100m partnership with Amwell, bringing together Amwell’s video plat...
2020-09-111h 00
SlatorPod#37 First guest episode with Kimon Fountoukidis! Plus RWS-SDL, China NLP Ban, AB5, Translation at WTOFlorian and Esther are joined by 🎤special guest 🎤Kimon Fountoukidis, Founder and Chairman of Argos Multilingual for a frank and animated discussion about the language industry.Florian also provides an update on the market reaction following the breaking news last week that RWS plans to acquire SDL later this yearEsther talks international trade — more specifically how translation and interpreting are run at the World Trade Organization (WTO) —, sharing insights from Josep Bonet, Division Director, Language and Documentation Services Division at WTO.Florian reviews the latest developments in the AB5 saga over in California...
2020-09-041h 06SlatorPod#36 RWS to Buy SDL: Unpacking the Language Industry’s Deal of the DecadeIn this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther share a hot take on❗the story of the week❗— if not of recent language industry history: RWS’s acquisition of rival SDL. The coming together of the two UK-based Super Agencies will see the creation of the first ever billion-dollar-revenue LSP, and TransPerfect stripped of its current title of world’s largest LSP by revenueThe two whizz through the YTD trading performance of RWS, SDL and the seven other listed LSPs that Slator tracks. After a predictable Covid-19-related dip between February and April 2020, which LSPs bounced back stronge...
2020-08-2830 min
SlatorPod#34 SDL Soars, What’s Sockeye, Who Owns Systran, Loc at Infobip, Aussie TroublesIn amongst arguing about salmon in this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther talk about SDL’s shares, which rallied on the release of their H1 2020 financial results. Esther discusses SYSTRAN’s new owner, South Korea-based STIC Investments, who took a controlling stake in the MT provider in July 2020 alongside a consortium of minority investors. The two share localization insights from Croatian cloud communications company Infobip, who recently hired an LSP and a translation management system (TMS) provider and implemented a continuous loc model.Florian gives an update on Sockeye (not the salmon). Amazon’s open sourc...
2020-08-1431 min
SlatorPod#33 How LSPs Sell, RWS Pays Back, Machine Mistranslations, Signs of Life for Loc JobsIn episode 33 of SlatorPod, Florian and Esther talk about fresh signs of recovery in the language industry, from the Slator Language Industry Job Index (LIJI) — which rose (slightly) in August 2020 for the first time since the pandemic hit — to encouraging survey data from the ATC UK’s Coronavirus Pulse Survey in July.The two also share news that the world’s most valuable listed LSP, UK-based RWS, decided to voluntarily hand back money to the UK government that they received under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. It’s probably not a huge sum of cash that RWS is giving...
2020-08-0728 min
SlatorPod#32 Crypto Linguists, TransPerfect Q2, LanguageLine, Salesforce MT Dataset, UK ContractIn this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther discuss the quirky use of social media ads by the Royal Australian Navy in their quest to recruit 40 crypto linguists (which also happens to sound like a pretty cool job). We also talk about Salesforce’s new open-source XML-tagged dataset for NMT training, based on thousands of XML files per language pair to help improve translation of online help documentation.From Silicon Valley tech to the UK public sector, Esther shares her takeaways from a presentation given by the UK’s central government procurement arm, CCS, to nearly 80 would-be suppli...
2020-07-3131 min
SlatorPod#30 The Most Interesting Loc Deal of 2020, India’s New LSP Org, Media Loc’s Solid SummerIn this week’s episode, Florian and Esther delve into the numbers and rationale behind the Memsource transaction, as the translation technology (TMS) provider sold a majority stake to private equity giant Carlyle in a landmark deal for the language industry.The two talk about highlights from the game localization panel at SlatorCon Remote, moderated by Daniel Finck with machine translation and localization experts from Frontier Developments and Electronic Arts, Tamara Tirják and Cristina Anselmi.From gaming to media entertainment, Esther talks about media localizer ZOO Digital’s financial results for the 12 months to March...
2020-07-1729 min
SlatorPod#13 Airbnb Loc, Continuity Despite COVID-19, CIOL Survey, Multilingual PodcastsIn this week’s SlatorPod, Florian and Esther discuss the collective responses of more than 40 LSPs to the Coronavirus pandemic, from remote working to cloud-based services and business continuity plans. Esther talks about the results of a recent survey published by the CIOL — Chartered Institute of Linguists — which revealed a significant degree of dissatisfaction around translator and interpreter pay, but a healthy overall fondness of the profession. The two discuss localization at Airbnb, where the team has doubled the number of languages available to more than 60. Airbnb human-translated more than 100 million words in 2019, and used third-party machine translation for huge volume...
2020-03-2025 min
SlatorPod#8 What's Trans-Adaptation? Kiwi M&A, Honyaku's Miss, India Data, Loc MeetupSlatorPod #8! Esther shares details about localization at US-based coaching app BetterUp, which works with enterprise customers across 62 countries and 30 languages. BetterUp’s Localization Program Manager, Ella Pętlicka spoke to Slator about localization operations at BetterUp including the Trans-Adaptation workflow — Florian and Esther discuss this and other workflows (e.g., transcreation and linguistic validation) that aim to deliver hyper locale-aware content. Florian runs through the latest financial results for Japan’s largest translation company, Honyaku Center, and unpacks Straker Translations’ recent acquisition of New Zealand’s oldest company, NZTC International. Esther talks about new subtitling standards in Finland that seek to promote...
2020-02-1427 min
SlatorPod#6 The TMS Question, 475M Stratus Deal, UK Manifesto, Slator LSP Index Heads-upSlatorPod #6! Florian Faes and Esther Bond unpack ASICS’ localization strategy and weigh up the benefits of centralized and local procurement strategies. The two also discuss when to use a vendor-agnostic (pureplay) translation management system (TMS), or one offered by an LSP. Florian analyzes the acquisition of US-based video interpreting provider Stratus Video by healthcare service giant AMN Healthcare for a whopping USD 475m, while Esther shares highlights from the UK Association of Translation Companies (UK ATC)’s newly published manifesto on public sector translation and interpreting. Links to the stories discussed in this episode:How ASICS Runs Localization: Insights on Vend...
2020-01-3129 min
SlatorPod#5 Interpreter Strike, Amazon Machine Dubbing, Super Agencies 2019 FinancialsSlatorPod #5! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss the 1,500-strong interpreter strike in the Netherlands. Florian talks about Amazon’s foray into automatic machine dubbing, which combines machine translation, text-to-speech, and audio rendering models. Esther unpacks the 2019 financial results for two Super Agencies — SDL and TransPerfect. TransPerfect’s acquisition of no less than seven media localizers in 2019 made it the most acquisitive LSP in 2019, just one of a number of highlights Esther shared from the recently released Slator 2019 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report.Links to the stories discussed in this episode:We’re On Strike: Dutch Linguists Oppose the Use of ‘...
2020-01-2428 min
SlatorPod#4 Lionbridge Lawsuit, HOOQ Media Localization, Translator Scams, CES and Translation GadgetSlatorPod #4! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss South-East Asia streaming joint-venture HOOQ and their localization efforts across a handful of Asian languages. The two also talk about Lionbridge being sued over earn-out payments by the founders of Geotext, a legal translation company they acquired in 2015. Translation scams continue to be a problem with fake translators impersonating real ones. Esther talks about how those scams work and what can be done about it. Finally, the two discuss the ubiquitous “translation earpieces” which apparently were a hot topic at the Consumer Electronic Shows (CES) in Las Vegas.Links to the stories discussed in t...
2020-01-1718 min
SlatorPod#3 Loc Meetup, EU 60M Awards, LSP Scorecard, 2020 Predictions, Q1 SpeakingSlatorPod #3! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss London localization meet-ups, the European Parliament’s giant Translation Directorate’s EUR 60m translation award, Amazon hiring new media localizers, and the scorecard of the handful of publicly listed language service providers. Esther talks about the January reading of the Slator Language Industry Job Index and Florian plucks Amazon’s new batch translation and two other stories featured in this week’s SlatorSweep. Then the two do some crystal ball gazing and make predictions for 2020 language industry M&A and startup funding as well as trends in MT, and talk about their Q1 conferen...
2020-01-1032 min
SlatorPod#1 Denmark, EU, RWS, Buyer PanelSlatorPod #1, the very first edition! Florian Faes and Esther Bond discuss the week’s language industry news. Featured this week: a giant interpreting contract gone wrong in Denmark; the EU’s translation test fail; RWS continues its growth streak posting yet another year of revenue and profit growth, and takeaways from SlatorCon Amsterdam’s enterprise localization panel.Links to the stories discussed in this first episode of SlatorPod:How Localization Is Run at Nike, Bose, and KAYAK: SlatorCon Panel Insightshttps://slator.com/slatorcon/how-localization-is-run-at-nike-bose-and-kayak-slatorcon-panel-insights/Serious Data Protection Violations: Denmark Terminates Giant EasyTranslate Contracthttps://slator.com/industry-news/serious-data-protection-violations-denmark-terminates-giant-easytranslate-contract/‘Unacceptable’ — Tempers Flare Over Europea...
2019-12-1314 min