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In mid-September 2009, the Executive Office of the President and the National Economic Council released a document titled Strategy for American Innovation.

This 22-page document contains many calls to action, but one in particular stands out: “automatic, highly accurate and real-time translation between the major languages of the world – greatly lowering the barriers to international commerce and collaboration.” This was the last point given of many but it clearly shows that major political forces are beginning to see the importance of translation as an essential tool in a smaller, globalized world.

Obama categorizes this point as a way to “Harness Science and Technology to Address the ‘Grand Challenges’ of the 21st Century” and is shown as an example of how the “President’s renewed commitment to science, technology and innovation will allow the nation to set and meet ambitious goals that will improve our quality of life and establish the foundation for the industries and jobs of the future.”

How will this affect the translation industry?

At this point, we can only speculate and assume (and hope) that this opens many doors for the translation industry to become more involved in government and politics.

As the world and business become more globalized, our role as translators will become more of an important necessity and will contribute to not just American Innovation, but World Innovation.

Dear Mr. President, are you looking for a great translation company? Let me seize this opportunity and introduce you to Ccaps. =)

In just over one year, contributions equivalent to 14 million days of medicine have been donated to people living with HIV in Africa through the Starbucks Love Project. On December 7 of last year, Starbucks and (RED) celebrated with a worldwide singing event of the Beatles classic “All you need is love” and for every voice added, Starbucks will donate 5 cents.

You too can help increase contributions by adding your voice to the Starbucks Website.

Can’t hold a tune? For the first 1 million Love Drawings created online, Starbucks will donate 5 cents each toward the cause.

And even more fun, you can watch the videos of others singing, view the gallery of Love drawings, view a world map of participant locations, listen to the LOVE CD, which features artists such as U2 and Dave Matthews Band and buy Starbucks (RED) products that also increase contributions.

Spread the Word, Spread the Love!

Celebrating 10 years, Ccaps partners up with IMTT to put together this exclusive event where some of the world’s most famous brands will reveal the secret to their success in the Latin American market.

Extreme Localization Makeover

In April 2010, the Rio de Janeiro beach town of Buzios will set the stage for a special gathering of some of the world’s leading brands in Brazil. Think Latin America will involve the participation of giants such as Coca-Cola, MGM Networks, VeriSign, VMware, Xerox, Nokia and the Brazilian Olympic Committee, which will reveal their strategies for conquering this market. The program of this boutique event will include only the chief minds and most influential professionals in their fields.

As the Gold Sponsor for the event, Ccaps is also helping IMTT, the event organizer, with the overall logistics and program. Ccaps will host the opening cocktail together with Ushuaia Solutions, the Argentinean company with which Ccaps partnered to provide a regional language solution.

According to Managing Director, Fabiano Cid, “this is a very important opportunity for Ccaps because Think Latin America is the first event of its kind in Brazil, and perhaps in the whole region. As a leading provider of localization services for Brazilian Portuguese and Latin American Spanish, we had to be at the forefront of this unique enterprise.”

Maria Cecilia Maldonado, Managing Director of IMTT, emphasized the importance of hosting the event in Brazil, a strong country in the region, where the localization industry leaders seem to be finding great potential and economic stability to expand their operations. “Fabiano and I came up with this idea in Cordoba during the IMTT 6th Language & Technology Conference and we just could not stop thinking about it,” said Maldonado. “We believe this gathering will break some new ground in the industry by proving the perfect scenario for clients to discuss their common issues in Latin America.”

The region continues to grow and attract investments as the population climbs the social ladder and increases its purchasing power. Event participants will hear from high-ranking marketing experts how to reach the 570 million consumers who live there, learn lessons from peers, partners and competitors and get advice on best practices when localizing for Latin America.

For further information on the event, please visit www.thinklatinamerica.com or contact Maria Cecilia at training@imtt.com.ar. Registrations are now open and the stellar Program is virtually unseen in conferences of this kind.

You know that phrase, “I am out of the office at the moment” that commences auto response messages in business emails? Well, guess where it ended up? On a traffic sign in Wales! And did it cause some confusion!

It all started when someone in the traffic department in the city of Swansea (or Abertawe in Welsh) decided to send an email to the city translation department requesting the translation for a traffic sign. The sentence read “Strictly residential area. No traffic of heavy vehicles.”

The translator was on vacation and the requestor immediately received an automatic response with the phrase “I am out of the office at the moment, etc.,” except that it was written in Welsh. “How efficient!” the requestor must have thought. And as he did not know a single word in Welsh, immediately sent it for print, assuming that this should be the Welsh translation for the English traffic sign.

Translator went on holidays??!!

Then it hailed protests… Mistakes like this are common in a country where all notices and official signs have to be translated into two official languages; in this case, English and Welsh.

To show support for the Welsh speakers, the Golwg Magazine (or View, in English) has been publishing pictures of signs containing absurd or incorrect translations. And the amount of confusion and misunderstanding these signs cause is immense. According to the magazine editor, Dylan Iorwerth, these signs are created by people who completely ignore the language and do not consult with subject matter experts. In his opinion, the ideal situation would be to use two separate texts rather than translations from English to Welsh.

If you are interested in the story, take a look at the BBC News website to learn more. By the way, it is also worth re-reading a recent post in the Ccaps Blog Save the… languages? There is a reference there to the UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, which classifies Welsh as a vulnerable language. The 2001 census identified 750,000 speakers, which corresponds to 20.5% of the population of the country. In England, Australia, the US and other parts of the world, you can also find speakers of this modern Celtic language spoken in the British Isles,