Closing the Communication Gap: Developing Effective Machine Translation for African Languages

Track: Multilingual AI | B1 |   Everyone |
Tuesday, March 8, 2022, 1:45am – 2:30am
Held in: Jujama
Presenters:
Filip Němec - Memsource 
Alp Öktem - CLEAR Global / Translators without Borders

In times of crisis, when speedy information dissemination in local languages is critical, machine translation (MT) is an essential tool. But what happens when you’re working with a low-resource African language with poor output from existing MT engines? Well, you build a better one. In this presentation, our speakers will explore what it took for CLEAR Global (Translators without Borders) to address this absence of effective MT for African languages. We’ll discuss the challenges of data collection and corpora building, training for the communities, and why partnering with the right technology provider was crucial for success.

Takeaways: Attendees will learn how MT developed for African languages can accelerate the translation process and how to develop such an engine, how communities work with a new MT, and how everyone can gain access to CLEAR Global’s MT for African languages.