Open Translation Tools 2009 (OTT09) :: June 22-24, 2009 :: Amsterdam, The Netherlands :: Call for Participants!

OTT09 will be followed by an Open Translation “Book Sprint” which will produce a first-of-its-kind volume on tools and best practices in the field of Open Translation. Both events are being co-organized in partnership with FLOSSManuals.net and Translate.org.za, and generously supported by the Open Society Institute.

Agenda partners for the event include Creative Commons, Global Voices Online, WorldWide Lexicon, Meedan, and DotSUB.

OTT09 will build upon the work and collaboration from Open Translation Tools 2007. The event will convene stakeholders in the field of open content translation to assess the state of software tools that support translation of content that is licensed under free or open content licenses such as Creative Commons or Free Document License. The event will serve to map out what’s available, what’s missing, who’s doing what, and to recommend strategic next steps to address those needs, with a particular focus on delivering value to open education, open knowledge, and human rights blogging communities.

Primary focus will be placed on supporting and enabling distributed human translation of content, but the role of machine translation will also be considered. “Open content” will encompass a range of resource types, from educational materials to books to manuals to documents to blog content to video and multimedia.

We invite all prospective participants to answer the Open Translation 2009 Call for Participants.

The agenda goals of the 2009 event will be several:

* Addressing the Translation Challenges Faced by the Open Education, Open Content, and human rights blogging communities, and mapping requirements to available open solutions.
* Building on the vision and exploring new use cases for the Global Voices Lingua Translation Exchange
* Documenting the state of the art in distributed human translation, and discussing how to further tap the tremendous translation potential of the net
* Making tools talk better: realizing a standards-driven approach to open translation
* Exploring and sketching out Open Translation API Designs, building on existing work and models
* Documenting workflow requirements for missing open translation tools
* Match-making between open source tools and open content projects
* Mapping of available tools to open translation use cases

See the Agenda Overview for elaboration and more details about what is being planned.

Most importantly, the agenda will center on the needs and knowledge of the participating projects, structuring sessions and collaborations to focus on designing appropriate processes and selecting appropriate tools to support open content projects and inform further development of open source translation tools.

In addition, OTT09 will continue the knowledge sharing for the open translation community, and continue discussion on other identified needs from OTT07. The agenda for this event will be greatly informed by open education, open content and human rights blogging projects with specific translation needs, and a number of sessions will be structured to both characterize requirements and propose solutions to respective projects’ translation requirements.

OTT07 mapped out a hefty list Open Translation Tools. Participants at OTT09 will survey what has changed over the past 18 months, and assess the most pressing remaining gaps.

If OTT09 sounds like your kind of event, we invite you to answer the Open Translation 2009 Call for Participants!