At the recent GALA conference, the creation of a non-profit initiative focused on the interpreting industry was announced: The Interpretation Technologies Alliance.

From their press release:

Globalization requires multilingual communication. Multinationals and cross-border investors are turning to a new generation of on-demand simultaneous interpreting solutions to connect with foreign partners, experts, employees, and customers. This trend, combined with the rise of cloud-based unified communications services and increased interest in AI-powered translation, inspired the alliance’s founding members to take action.

“As more of the world’s meetings take place in the cloud, it is important to make them effortlessly multilingual,” said Barry Slaughter Olsen, a professor of interpretation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) and co-founder of industry trade group InterpretAmerica. “The ITA brings together passionate entrepreneurs and technologists to solve this problem and accelerate market adoption,” he continued.

The founding members are Boostlingo, Cadence Translate, Headvox, KUDO, Voiceboxer, and ZipDX. In the coming weeks and months, the alliance will work to highlight use cases of interpreting technology through private sector trade shows and industry media, with a focus on fast-growth and non-traditional sources of demand, including the financial services, high-tech and transportation industries.

“There is a wealth of knowledge and insight lying just across the language barrier,” says Jonathan Rechtman, co-founder of Cadence Translate and interim director and secretary of the alliance. “ITA showcases the technology and talent that can deliver tremendous value to international investors and managers.”

“ITA is dedicated to expand the size of multilingual meetings,” adds Fardad Zabetian, CEO and founder of KUDO, “the number of decentralized meetings has been growing and we are passionate to add language capabilities to those meetings.”

The alliance is recruiting an executive director, and interested parties can learn more at the alliance’s website, which launches today at www.itaglobal.org.

Applications for new members will open later this year. A waitlist can be joined by emailing [email protected]. Clients interested in using cloud-based interpretation solutions are encouraged to contact Jonathan Rechtman at [email protected].

See full press release >>