We believe in the power of language to bring together a vibrant community of volunteers
Advisors
Jeannette Stewart
Jeannette Stewart is a strategic globalization leader and has worked with mainstream brands helping them achieve global growth, business revitalization, and transformation, having extensively worked on both the client and vendor side. She founded Translation Commons, a nonprofit community of language professionals working on Digital Inclusion and partnering with UNESCO’s International Decade of Indigenous Languages to champion the preservation and use of indigenous languages globally by creating Keyboards, events, and resources for communities whose scripts are not digitized.
Jeannette has been invited and appointed to a UNESCO (12 member) Expert Committee to oversee the creation and update of the World Atlas of Languages, an online UNESCO platform that reflects the dynamism and depths of the global linguistic diversity. It provides accurate, reliable, up-to-date and robust data on the world’s languages.
She is the former CEO of CommuniCare, a life-science translation company with offices in London, Paris, Athens, Budapest and Los Angeles. Jeannette has been involved in high-profile projects such as the Genome Project and prototyping the online Unified Submission Process for the European Medicine Agency. Jeannette has founded, served on the board of directors, moderated and volunteered in various educational and health charities.
Alan Stewart
Alan Stewart is a co-founder of Translation Commons. He was educated at the University of Glasgow and the University of the South Bank in London. He holds an MA Hons in English and an MSc in Artificial Intelligence.
He worked in publishing and as a lexicographer on the Historical Thesaurus of English. He also worked as a programmer and as a software developer for the BT Advanced Technology Group.
He was CTO of CommuniCare, a leading translation company specializing in Life Sciences with offices in London, Paris, Athens, Budapest and Los Angeles. He helped pioneer the use of desktop computing for the early translation and localization industry.
As an independent AI researcher he works at the intersection of language and advanced technology and is a writer for the Postsapiens Project.
Craig Cornelius
Craig Cornelius has worked in Internationalization (I18N) at Google since 2007. He is a member of the I18N libraries team and contributes to open source for Unicode and the Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR). As part of his work at Google, he has been privileged to work with a number of language communities beginning to use their languages and writing systems on the internet with modern computing and mobile platforms. These include Cherokee, Osage, and other Native American languages, the writing systems of Myanmar, and Pular/Fulani in the Adlam script. (No, he does not speak all of these!)Craig serves on the Governing Council of the Endangered Languages Project (ELP) and is a former member of the Advisory Board of the Australian Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL.) He is an occasional presenter at IMUG, the International Multilingual User Group.
In September 2021 he was awarded the Samuel Worchester Award by the Cherokee Nation , their highest award given to non-Cherokee people. You can watch the award ceremony here.
Julie Anderson
Julie Anderson is a linguist, formerly of the PanLex project of The Long Now Foundation, a nonprofit in San Francisco, California, USA. She was part of the leadership team that has built the world’s largest lexical translation database, a tool aimed at supporting linguistic diversity world-wide and helping prevent language extinction. Of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, the PanLex Database contains data on 5,700 of them. In other nonprofit experience, she administered a youth soccer league for 15 years. A fulfilling part of both these roles has been leading the internship, volunteer, and youth employment programs, involving as many as 400 people at a time.
At Translation Commons, Julie helped develop the COVID-19 Multilingual Poster-Maker, advises the Talent Group, and is helping develop the Language Digitization Initiative. Julie earned her masters in linguistics from the University of Hawaii. When she is not working, she is practicing her favorite language, Indonesian, and hiking on the California coast.
Prof. Emerita Sue Ellen Wright, Ph.D.
Sue Ellen Wright is an Emerita Professor of German and was a member of the Kent State University Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies, where she taught computer applications for translators and German to English technical translation. She is a past chair of the American Translators Association (ATA) Terminology Committee and is ATA certified for German to English translation. She is active as a terminology trainer and consultant for companies and institutions implementing terminology management in localization environments.
She is engaged in the national and international standards community (ASTM International and the International Organization for Standardization) and chairs the U.S. mirror committee (Technical Advisory Group) for ISO Technical Committee 37, Terminology and language and content resources. Together with Professor Gerhard Budin of the University of Vienna she compiled the Handbook for Terminology Management and is the author of many articles on applied terminology management in industry. She has served as Chair of TC 37/SC3 and as Convenor for SC3/WG1 for Data Categories. She was a past recipient of the Eugen Wüster Prize.
Debbie Anderson
Deborah (Debbie) Anderson runs the Script Encoding Initiative project in the Department of Linguistics at UC Berkeley, which she established in 2002. The project helps communities get eligible characters and scripts proposed to the Unicode Standard. The result of the project is to lay the groundwork for the characters – and the languages using them — to eventually be accessible on computers and devices.
She works closely with other members of Translation Commons in helping make the characters and the languages accessible on keyboards and in fonts. Debbie is also the UC Berkeley representative to the Unicode Consortium and a liaison to the ISO working group that reviews proposals. In addition, she is a Unicode Technical Director. She holds a Ph.D. in Indo-European Studies from UCLA (specialization: linguistics). During her studies at UCLA she became better acquainted with the various writing systems of the world – Anatolian hieroglyphs, Linear B, Devanagari, etc., — which led to an interest in making the texts written in them available.
Tex Textin
Tex Texin is an industry thought leader specializing in software globalization services. His consulting company, XenCraft, provides global product strategy, Unicode and internationalization architecture, implementation, testing and training. Tex has created numerous global products, led internationalization development teams, and guided companies in taking business to new regional markets.
Tex is a contributor to several internationalization standards and open source software and Tex is an advisor in several globalization non-profits. Tex is a popular speaker at conferences around the world and provides on-site training on internationalization and localization worldwide. Tex is the owner/author of the popular, instructional www.I18nGuy.com site.
Tex is one of the Technology Strategy Advisors to Translation Commons. He is also a senior advisor and globalization architect for Translation Commons programs such as the Language Digitization Initiative.
Kutz Arrieta
Kutz holds a Masters degree in Sciences du Langage, a DEA in Basque Studies and a Phd in Linguistics. As a student, her main areas of interest were syntax and morphology, both from a theoretical point of view and as they relate to minority and endangered languages. She was trained in Anthropological Linguistics, Ethnolinguistics and Fieldwork by Cathy Callaghan and Amy Zaharlick. She obtained funding for a fieldwork project in Mexico. She collected data from the Amuzgo and the Triki and published the results. The foreign language for her Ph.D exams was Plains Cree.
She has been a lead researcher in a research center in the Basque Country (Vicomtech) where she led technological projects geared towards the Basque language. She was also a consultant to the Basque Government for Internet Technologies for Basque.
Her professional experience is in the field of computational linguistics. She has worked in Machine Translation, Knowledge systems and different technological applications of linguistics. She has worked at Microsoft, Oracle and another two smaller companies. Presently she is a linguist at Google. She has also taught in the university, both in the US and in the Basque Country. In the Galileo Master competition in 2008 she won first prize in her region and second prize in the European Union. While at Oracle, she developed morphologies for Cherokee and Hawaiian. Essentially, she makes her living with Computational Linguistics, but she tries to be involved with minority and endangered languages as much as she can, either through her work or as a volunteer Advisor with Translation Commons
Craig Cummings
“Craig Cummings has been working in the field of software globalization for over 30 years. He has worked at Amazon, VMware, Yahoo!, Oracle, and a few other companies – working across many technologies including software virtualization, big data, games, and consumer and enterprise products.
Craig has been serving as Chair of the ANSI/INCITS Character Sets and Internationalization Committee — and in a dual role as Unicode Technical Committee Vice Chair — for nearly 12 years. Since 2018, Craig has been working with indigenous language communities to improve support for these languages on computers and mobile devices.”
Janice Campbell
Janice Campbell is the Communities Manager for the Keyboard Creation Project at Translation Commons. She received an M.A. in Intercultural Communication and Certificate in Translation from Middlebury Institute of international Studies at Monterey, after undergraduate studies in Spanish, German and French.
Over the course of her more than 30 years working in the Globalization, Internationalization, Localization and Translation (GILT) industry in Europe, Latin America and Silicon Valley, she has served in various roles — as a university professor in Translation & Interpretation, Professional Translator, Conference Interpreter, Manager for a major Language Services Provider, Globalization Sr. Program Manager for Sun Microsystems and Machine Translation Lead for Adobe. She has collaborated in open-source community developer projects and been a moderator, panelist, presenter, and conference organizer for AMTA, GALA, LocWorld, TAUS, and SF Globalization.
Ms. Campbell currently serves on the Board of Directors for Global Lives Project and the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas (AMTA). Since 2013, she has served as Professional Mentor, Impact Coach and Alumnae Council Chair for the U.S. State Department TechWomen Program.
Dr. Tabea De Wille
Lecturer, University of Limerick (Ireland)
Dr. Tabea De Wille is a volunteer at the Keyboards initiative at Translation Commons. The team together works on developing keyboards in collaboration with language communities all over the world.
Keyboards are an important early step in the language digitization journey. However, many languages do not have a suitable keyboard that allows them to communicate with others, or store information digitally. The keyboards initiative at Translation Commons works on developing such keyboards, as well as keyboard development training.
Events Steering Committee
Dr. Rambhatla Siva Prasad
Former Honorary Professor, CDLTR, and Professor of Anthropology, University of Hyderabad (India)
Dr. R. Siva Prasad is a retired professor of Anthropology at the University of Hyderabad, and currently a Honorary Professor in the Center for Digital Learning, Training and Resources (CDLTR) there. He has both teaching and research experience of more than 40 years, during which he guided research students in diverse areas. He is actively associated with UNESCO-IFAP programmes. He is a member of the Information Ethics Working Group (IEWG) of UNESCO-Information for All Programme (IFAP). His current areas of interest are AI ethics, different aspects of marginal and indigenous communities, including indigenous knowledge systems, languages, education, and conflict management.
Dr. Jandhyala Prabhakar Rao
Professor of Linguistics, University of Hyderabad, India Member (India), UNESCO-IFAP Bureau Convener, Consortium on Global AI Ethics Network for Social Good (GAIEN4SG)
Dr. Rao was awarded Honorius Causa from Krasnodar State University, Russia and also Honorary Professor Medal from Kazan State University, Russia. His research areas of interest include Linguistics, Translation Studies, Foreign Language teaching, Digital Learning and Higher Education in India with special focus on Internationalization of Higher Education. He has more than 60 International and National Publications and edited ten books (eight International and two National). Dr. Rao is a member of many International and National Committees and Editorial Boards of academic journals.
Ms. Saumya Sharma
Freelance Visual Ethnographer (India)
Saumya has a career span of 18 years, out of which the last 13 years have been as a freelance qualitative researcher, in the field of social, market and ux research. Her primary expertise includes visual, digital and mobile ethnography. Her work involves focusing on a diverse set of communities, in order to understand their motivational, behavioral & socio-cultural nuances. She has worked with and for clients and agencies from India, USA, UK & Middle East. She is also an educator for ethnography and other qualitative research methods to both individuals and academic institutions, in India and abroad. In 2021 she was awarded, ‘Leading Innovator of Visual Ethnographic Research’ by APAC Business Awards. She has made independent ethnographic films on the Gonds of Bastar and Kalbeliyas of Jaisalmer.
Dr. Udaya Narayana Singh
Professor, Amity University Haryana, Gurgaon (India)
Dr. Udaya Narayana Singh is a Chair-Professor in Linguistics, Culture Studies and Translation, and Dean (Faculty of Arts) in Amity University Haryana. He was the Director of CIIL, Mysore, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. Dr. Singh had set up the National Translation Mission and taught at the Universities of Hyderabad, Delhi, South Gujarat, and MSU-Baroda. With seven collections of poems in Maithili and Bangla, six books of essays, and twelve plays, he translated many books and published 250 research papers and created 545 documentaries on the language, literature, and culture of Bangla, Tamil, Kannada, and Marathi. A poet-invitee at the Frankfurt Book Fair (2006), London Book Fair (2009), and Leader of Cultural Delegation of Writers to China (2007), Dr. Singh visited and lectured in Australia, Andorra, Bangladesh, Belgium, Caribbean Islands, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, UK, and the USA, and received several grants. He received many honors, including the coveted Sahitya Akademi Award 2017 for poetry.
Mr. Tex Texin
Globalization Architect, Board of Advisors, Translation Commons (USA)
Mr. Tex Texin is an industry thought leader specializing in software globalization services. Mr. Texin has contributed to several internationalization standards and open source software and has been an advisor to several globalization non-profits. He is an advisor to Translation Commons where he has been architecting their Language Digitization Initiative, bringing the languages of indigenous communities to digital systems.Mr. Tex Texin, and his consulting company XenCraft, help numerous companies create global products and guide companies in taking business to new regional markets. Mr. Texin is a popular speaker at conferences around the world. He is the owner/author of the popular, instructional I18nGuy.com site.
Ms. Jeannette Stewart
Founder Translation Commons, (USA), Google Nest i18n Program Manager
Ms. Jeannette Stewart is a strategic leader and has worked with mainstream brands helping them achieve global growth, business revitalization and transformation. Currently she is leading international launches for Nest cameras at Google. She founded Translation Commons, an online volunteer-based public charity aiming to offer and share tools and resources and to facilitate community initiatives. The Language Digitization Initiative creates resources specifically for Indigenous communities to enable their languages online. She is the former CEO of CommuniCare, a life-science translation company with offices in London, Paris, Athens, Budapest and Los Angeles. Jeannette has been involved in high-profile projects such as the Genome Project and prototyping the online Unified Submission Process for the European Medicine Agency. Jeannette has founded, served on the board of directors, moderated, and volunteered in various educational and health charities.
Program and Project Managers
Suvarna Singh
Gina Gungaadorj
Rachel Hazleton
Liuyi Y.
Aparna Jorapur
Reshma Mohan
Leonidas Pappas
Jiaqian Wang
Di Wan
Fandi Hizbullah
Simone Klass
Nigar Hasanova
Kanupriya Mujawdiya
Xiaoli Jiang
Yiwei Wu
Contributors
Lee Collins, Andrew Owen, Tetyana Bruevich, Gerry Leonidas, Rick Dong, Rujira Saithong, Johanna Behm, Kirti Vashee, Konstantin Savenkov, Grigory Sapunov, Hanem El-Farahaty, Leonidas Pappas, George Asare-Frimpong, Omar Malhi, Gabor Bella, Melanie Yang, Eman Malik, Tabea DeWille, Peiyao Yu, Gabriela Perez Baez, Daniel Bogre Udell, Anne He, Alaina Brandt, Jeff Beatty, David Kamholz, Boai Li, Catharine Minois, Natalia Noland, Natalya Mytareva, Natalia Abarca, Esther Perez, Mette Attar, Gia Jaramillo, Silvia Pinheiro, Irina Maas, Cornelia Sittel, Krystian Aparta, Sabina Jasinska, Benjamin Yang, Tanbir Johal, Lawrence Wolf-Sonkin, Benzhen Hu, Tim Brookes, Cynthia Jones, Amy Liu, Coralie Morin, David Vidri, Meysam Hariri, Angel Ucan-Dzul, Anshu Pandey, Barbara Pozzi, Catalina Natalini, Gabriela Siebach, Olusegun van Ojo, F. Claudio Sampaio de Menezes, Siva Prasad Rambhatla, Janet Watson, Nicolas Froeliger, Sony Salma, Yutong Du, Meng Ren, Cherry Gonzales, Olga Ten, Aran Lemaur, Afeena Atahar Shaik, Han Liu, Sophie Liu, Shardul Aggarwal, Maya Duff.
