I believe that many people here know the TED slogan,
that is “ideas worth spreading,”
but an important factor is:
we have to consider that these ideas need to be understood
by the people to whom they are spread.
Nowadays, worldwide, there are more than seven billion people.
Among these seven billion people only 13 percent speak English.
As most of TED talks are given in English …
and, for each person speaking English in the world,
there are other seven who don’t speak English,
that’s to say those seven people aren’t able to understand these ideas,
to be inspired by these ideas,
because they don’t understand the talk’s language.
And when we think about Portuguese,
as all these talks that were given today,
the situation is even worse.
For every person speaking Portuguese,
other 28 people don’t speak Portuguese, worldwide.
Therefore, to reduce this problem a little,
the Project TED Translators was founded.
TED Translators is a group of people worldwide,
a group of volunteers,
dedicating a little of their own time
to translate these deeply inspiring talks
in their local languages.
The project started 2009,
thanks to the initiative of these people
who wanted to bring the most famous and known TED talks
to their local communities.
It started with only 300 translators, in 40 different languages.
In 2012, after some years since the project had started,
it came to include TEDx and TED-Ed talks, too.
At this point, the project served in a double way.
Instead of just bringing ideas in English to the rest of the world,
it came also to bring all those TEDx ideas
presented in languages other than English
to the English speaking world, too.
Nowadays, in 2016,
the project translates talks into more than 100 different languages,
relies on the collaboration of 25,000 volunteers,
in 155 countries in the world,
and last month we had already published more than 100,000 translations.
Speaking more specifically about Brazil,
in Brazil we have more than 900 volunteers
helping to translate the talks
and we already have more than 45,000 published translations,
and thus we are the second main language community
in this project.
And recently, a group of translators in the translation project
has been working together with some TEDx events
to try and build a closer relation between translators and TEDx events
and also to try to promote an interaction among translators.
There were some meetings during events here in São Paulo.
The role of the translator is very important for TEDx
in order to help spreading TEDx talks.
Also because TED itself opens a place in its official page
to spread talks given in other languages.
But the talks must be first transcribed and then translated into English.
That’s where the translator has a role, too.
It’s also important to say that all these volunteers …
they do not always have a background as translators or transcribers.
Not everyone has a previous experience.
Therefore there’s no need to know anything about translating or transcribing
to belong to this group.
Everyone wanting to participate
can access the TED webpage and click there on “Participate.”
Furthermore, many people don’t speak English …
But this doesn’t exclude them from helping as well, because as I already said,
every talk must be first transcribed and then translated.
The volunteer must type down
what the speaker is saying in the original language.
And for that it’s enough to speak Portuguese,
if the talk is given in Portuguese.
I’ve participated in this project for more than four years now,
I’ve been a language coordinator for more than three years
and I can tell you that it’s an amazing experience.
It’s really worth it indeed, because besides helping a good cause,
you’re in contact with all these inspiring ideas
and you also get to know amazing people,
that is, the volunteer translators.
Thanks.
(Applause)
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