Background

This initiative grew out of a discussion Jost Zetzsche had with Henry Liu, the president of FIT at an American Translators Association conference about what could be done to help translators have a clearer voice when it comes to how their technology is going to develop.

This built on webinars Jost hosted in 2014 and 2015 to determine what's missing in translation technology. He wrote about the feedback he garnered in a number of publications, but although Jost felt these sessions were informative, he still felt that more could still be done to express what the translation community wants and to urge developers to consider and possibly implement our visions.

There are many online discussion groups and fora focused on a certain brand of technology where users express their ideas and wishes — and where developers also respond. But Jost and Henry felt there was a need for a way to articulate and develop requests and then send those to all current (and future!) developers. Jost hit upon the idea that the best way to achieve this is by creating an open space like a Wiki or something similar that would allow for exactly that.

What Jost envisioned was a project that will not be focused on the pros and cons of existing technology but instead to provide a well-organized structure that would allow participants to come up with fresh ideas about where technology in general should go (and then leave it up to the tool vendors to implement it).

Jost asked for volunteers to organize and manage this effort and the current group of moderators came together. They are:

Alexander Drechsel
Barry Slaughter Olsen
Iulianna van der Lek-Ciudin
Martin Kappus
Tom Alwood
Marie-Sophie Petit

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