Author: Asavari Tamhane

Binod Ringania

CEO & Founder Transoplanet

Vice President | CITLoB East Zone

[More about him here]

Turning Multiplicity into the strength

Q: What are the linguistic peculiarities of your region?

A: The linguistic scenario of Eastern region of our country is very diverse. If we go on counting all the languages and dialects spoken in this region the number will cross the mark of 220. The main languages spoken in West Bengal, Odisha, and Assam are Bengali, Odia, Assamese, and Bodo. Other languages spoken in this region are Kokborok, Mizo, Manipuri or Meitei, Khasi, Garo, Karbi. Although less heard of in the rest of India these languages are quite developed in the sense that almost all of them have some sort of State patronage and newspapers are published in these languages in their respective areas. Some of our friends from other parts of India often ask for service in Arunachali, Meghalayee or Naga language. They don’t realize that there is no such language as Arunachali or Mehgalayee or Naga. Not less than two dozens of dialects are spoken in the state of Arunachal Pradesh and similar is the scene in Nagaland. Different Arunachali ethnic groups love to communicate between themselves in Hindi (only in oral communication) while those in Nagaland communicate in English and Nagamese (a pidgin language). The scene is really fascinating for one who is passionate about languages and dialects. The other day one scholar pointed out that had NE India been a separate country it would have been most linguistically diverse country in the world after India.

Q: Tell us about  translation profession and business of languages in eastern part of India.

A: We do not have numbers which can give us an actual idea of the size of language industry in the East India. Though East India comprises the metropolis of Kolkata it doesn’t look like the language industry has evolved in this region. A proper survey perhaps can give us an idea of the state of the language business in this area. As far as northeastern India is concerned, people are not even aware that such a business really exists. Many of our friends are involved in language business as freelance linguists. The main challenge in this region is the lack of awareness and training. The freelancers need to know the needs of the industry and the areas where the demand supply ratio is skewed.

Q:What do you think the language business in the region requires the most?

A: One thing that comes to my mind is that the agencies in this region need peer advice on the issues of taxation and legal compliances. Clients from other countries often ask for the sworn translations, or certified translations, which the people in this region are less aware of. Similarly, the compliance obligations in the GST regime are also the areas where education and peer advice is needed.

Q: As the CITLoB VP, what would be your focal point for the next 2 years?

A: If we could form a core group of some language businesses operating in this region then we’ll be able to discuss things among ourselves and will be able to chalk out the course of action more realistically. So, my priority would be to form such a group.

Please tell us about yourself and your entry in the business…

A:I have background of writing and journalism. I edited two Hindi dailies from this region. But the scope in print journalism is dwindling day by day. I wrote articles in national newspapers and worked for BBC Hindi too. Once I came across the profile of one of my Indian journalist friend in the UK. He had his profile on some translation platform. Seeing that, the idea struck me that I can fulfil the language related requirements for the businesses in foreign countries. I thought that to attract clients my language pair should be unique, so offered service in German to Hindi. I had one colleague in my newspaper office who knew good German. And, the first project came really quick . I was offered a project for German to Hindi which I accomplished with the help of my colleague who first translated from German to English and then I translated English to Hindi. The platforms where I had posted my profile really helped me in this field. Slowly, I evolved into an agency offering service in all Indian languages.

…and about your team, service, technology.

A: I treaded on the path of this industry very slowly and cautiously. I have a competent team which is as passionate about the letters as I am. Today, I offer translation, transcription and subtitling service in almost all Indian languages. Apart from this, Sinhala, Nepali, Pakistani Urdu, Burmese, Arabic, Pushto and Farsi are also on the menu.

Rare languages of the northeastern India is my USP. I offer translation service in Mizo, Bodo, Karbi, Khasi, Kokborok, and Manipuri (Meitei) languages. Also, I have onboarded linguists for Maithili, Bhojpuri and Konkani, demand for which has started increasing.

Q:What is your Mantra of success?

Though I am still learning things in the industry, my advice to those who have patience to listen is that treat your language experts with the respect they deserve. In translation industry, we are only as strong as our translators are. Do not burden the translators with too much paper work because they have to invest their time in more paying things.

What’s in it for me? How will I benefit from becoming a member of CITLoB? As a member, these questions must have crossed your mind, and we thought it was about time we addressed the elephant in the room. However, since the benefits are almost always intangible and indirect, I thought it would be better to talk about how you can make the most of your memberships instead of merely stating the benefits.Here are 7 ways to make the most of your CITLoB Membership.

1. Use the CITLoB logo

Being part of an industry body increases the credibility of your business in the eyes of your customers. Apart from showing your commitment to your business and to your industry, customers feel secure knowing that there is a body they can approach should something go wrong. CITLoB Members shouldtherefore use the association’s logo on their website, in their email signature and in all sales and marketing material. It also allows you to differentiate yourself from non-member companies when customers are evaluating multiple vendors.

2. Participate in meetings and events

Meetings and events are great platforms to voice your opinions, share your concerns, seek solutions, get refreshingly different perspectives and generally learn from the experience and expertise of others. This can even be a platform for future collaborations with like-minded partners. Remember that you do not have to fight a lone battle, no matter what the issue you are facing might be. There have been enough precedents of members being supported by the association or its members in resolving issues they were facing. Members should therefore make it a point to attend our quarterly members meets and our monthly webinars. Do not forget to benefit from attractive discounts offered on events organised by our partner associations. Do also feel free to suggest topics for discussion. It is always our effort to accommodate topics that members suggest.

3. Contribute with content

If you are willing to put in a little more effort, contributing with content is a great way to demonstrate your subject matter expertise. Writing articles for IndoVox or presenting on a topic of your choice in one of our monthly webinars, even once every quarter, will give you great visibility within our growing national and international network. You can also use your contributions to create some social media buzz around your personal and professional brand.

4. Volunteer for a leadership role

Members in leadership roles are the face of any association and enjoy the most visibility.There is a lot happening behind the scenes and any association will always need additional pairs of hands to take charge of the various programs that are running in parallel. Leadership positions also look great on your professional profile and increase your personal and professional credibility. Those with a few hours to spare every week can reach out to me or your regional Vice Presidents to find out more about how you can get involved.

5. Tap into a trusted pool of resources

If you need additional resources for projects you cannot manage with your existing ones, you can choose to work with CITLoB member companies. It is a much safer option than trying your luck with unknown service providers. Very soon, CITLoB will be starting a Freelancer Chapter. It will allow us to create and nurture a more efficient pool of resources while offering you access to a wider and more trusted talent pool.

6. Ask for help or for recommendations

Whether your need is as simple as getting recommendations to find a reliable professional or as complex as understanding how to go about finding investors, there is hardly anything that one of our members would not have gone through. The association’s private WhatsApp group is your platform to seek help. We have helped members find reliable website designers, Chartered Accountants, ISO consultants and have even come together to fight a Service Tax case.No matter what you need, all you need to do is ask.

7. Contribute financially

If you have been around in the business for a while and think it is time for you to give back, you must consider sponsoring one of our events or having a much more profound partnership by supporting the association financially. Apart from a lot of visibility, companies that do that have experienced unparalleled goodwill in our industry and beyond. It will position you as a company that cares about the industry that it is a part of.

Dear friends,

For me personally, the highlight of the month that went by was the completion of our first electoral process. As mundane and routine as it might sound, an election is the foundation on which any democratically run organisation stands, and in that sense, it was heartening to see how everyone participated in this process. We had over 90% of our members casting their votes and also a fair number of candidates who chose to run.

I am also glad that this election has given us the opportunity to add depth to the team. We are now well represented across the country, thanks to our four Zonal Vice Presidents. This will not only allow us to increase our member base but also ensure that regional opinions and concerns are better represented. I am looking forward to working with this new team to drive our agenda and to work towards the several goals that we have set for ourselves.

On a completely different note, it has been amazing to see how coming together has allowed us to celebrate the achievements of our people. Legendary cricketer, Sunil Gavaskar, when asked which of his hundreds mattered to him the most, had reportedly picked a more mundane one that he had scored in Mumbai in front of his home crowd saying that no matter how much the world appreciates you, it doesn’t really matter until you are appreciated and applauded by your own people.

Ours has been a largely unorganised and fragmented sector with each one waging a lonely battle. Professional achievements often go unnoticed. So, I was particularly happy to see the association’s private platform being increasingly used to acknowledge the achievements of our members. It is nice to know that while members go out there and achieve, there is an entire community of people that is going to be proud of them. What a wonderful feeling to have, as opposed to the professional insecurity we see playing put in other sectors. Here’s to many more successes in the days to come.

The future is indeed exciting, but the pandemic is still not behind us. So, do continue to take care and stay safe. Happy reading and happy CITLoBing.

Sandeep Nulkar

President

CITLoB

We are in the last quarter of 2020 already! Two quarters were of reinventing oneself, but two were of action and josh. We have witnessed – and experienced –amazing success stories of team work, innovation, technology adoption and resilience within the Indian language industry. 

The month of October was flooded with good news, recognitions, accolades, which were the fruition of silent efforts. CITLoB President, Vice Presidents and members shone on global platforms. Heartiest congratulations to all the great achievers! You make India proud!

We welcome the new leadership team of CITLoB for 2 years starting from October 2020. The four regional vice presidents will not only attract more membership, but also will offer very relevant assistance and guidance. Congratulations President Sandeep Nulkar, Vice President (North) Sudheen M, Vice President (South) Senthil Nathan, Vice President (East) Binod Ringania and Vice President (West) Sunil Kulkarni! IndoVox, in its coming issues, brings to you the vision, mission and action plan of the new team.

The month of October started on a high note of the first webinar of CITLoB on October 1.  We are sure the members got good insight and inspiration about scaling up, networking, choosing the right team and collaborations.

In this issue of IndoVox, you will also read the 7 step action plan of getting the most out of CITLoB membership. Interestingly, all the steps are related to ‘giving’ which will help you ‘gain’ the best benefits of membership.

The coming month of November brings festivity, hope, light and togetherness. Wish you all a very happy Diwali!  Wish you accelerated business in the last 2 months of the year. We Indians are known to score maximum sixes in the last overs, aren’t we?

Happy Diwali!

Vidula Tokekar

Editor, IndoVox

Senthil Nathan

CEO | Langscape

CITLoB | Vice President South Zone

[More about him here]

Growth in the South is my mantra

About me and Langscape

I am a language industry person, obviously!  For most of the people in Tamil Nadu, however, I am a noted journalist, known TV commentator (on current affairs), writer, and publisher. But I would like to choose, though, this as my real identity: First generation entrepreneur. 

Language is my passion since college days. It drove me to the language industry eventually. When ‘what to do with my love for language’ was the question, entrepreneurship was the answer.  There was no language company in Chennai to offer me a job then. So I was forced to create one for me.

The Langscape story

I head Langscape, a LSP with almost two decades of existence now (though changed its name by 2005). Since its beginning in 1999, it offers services to global LSPs for their Indian language needs. However, in the first few years, our specialization was something very unique, as we offered services for ethnic minority languages from around the world. I personally specialized in it. I spend nights and days together to find a translator for, say, the Eskimo language or a language spoken in some pacific islands, deep in Africa, spoken in Central Asian mountains, and so on.  So fifty percent of our projects were for Indian languages and the rest for the ethnic minority languages from around the world. A strange combo for an entrepreneur working out of his small residence in Chennai!  Today’s new normal called WFH thing was an old norm for me (same with most of the language industry people) since the turn of the century.  

I was working as a sub-editor in India Today’s Tamil edition after graduating in Mass Communication and Journalism at the University of Madras in 1994. The job in India Today taught me the skills in translation, editing, DTP, and management. Then I started to work closely with the then-emerging Tamil internet initiatives in India, Singapore, and Malaysia. I was one of the first entrants in Tamil computing and a founding member of organizations like the International Forum for Information Technology in Tamil (INFITT). Adding my journalistic skills with my exposure in the language computing area as a budding entrepreneur, I started my own company in 1999 with a small project from a Ukraine-based client. I won the contract through a marketplace similar to Proz. Then I also launched a monthly magazine in Tamil for computers and the internet.  For a few years in the business, I was working for Indian and global clients like Bowne Global Solutions (then merged with Lionbridge), Lionbridge, TransPerfect etc. However, I was not able to do the business properly as I lacked the most important thing that every startup needed: Money. The market itself was small. Until even after the first decade, I was at the mercy of Proz and similar marketplaces to win the orders. The growth was very slow and we were running a cottage industry unit.  It was after  2015 we are able to change the route and slowly emerging into an SME size company, with considerable investment into marketing and R&D,

I felt at that time that India itself was an unlikely place to do a language business, as the translation was never been seen in the list of needs of Indian corporate. It was actually not existing at all. Banks said a translation agency was not on their list of business entities to work with. More often, when I introduced myself to the business community that I run a translation agency, the business people wanted to confirm that I am indeed in the business of (medical) transcription!  The pain is untranslatable:-)

The translator was esteemed with lesser value both in content and marriage markets. All door-knockings I did with the local companies brought me no good results and the global projects were not regular. The quality of the translators was questionable and the rat race has also begun by then. We literally have no distinction between an agency and a freelancer. Meanwhile, I joined the local office of a well-known global LSP as a project manager for a year. It helped me a lot as I learned the professional way of doing business. Also, the industry started to mature in India. The emergence of mobile computing and eCommerce on the side and the emergence of non-metro markets on the other side led to a local ecosystem to evolve. 

Then the second innings proved successful. Today, we won new contracts from companies like Microsoft and MLSPs like RWS and Venga Global. And surprisingly we got business from the SaaS companies from the home town – Chennai, which I considered the most unlikely place an LSP to survive! I never thought I would be serving the global product companies operating on the next street!  But today Freshworks, Zoho, Kissflow and many other Saas companies are our clients. Meanwhile, we also set up an organization in Singapore as wanted to slowly expand globally.  And we entered into the most happening thing in the industry today: Machine Translation

The entry into MT

I was always fascinated with machine translation since 90s. Believe me, I wasn’t a programmer or linguist by profession but attracted by MT as a ‘language lover’, even before I started the company.  Later, we worked for a few big companies in their corpus cleaning activities. In 2016 we invested our hard-earned money – No VC fund! – in MT to develop a rule-based MT for English to Tamil.  By the time we had started to tame the MT, one year later,  a news, good and bad, came. Google has launched an NMT engine and the results were comparatively great. I tested it by myself and that was all. I read the NMT related tech articles and they declared the rule-based MT was dead, and a new neural revolution started. What was dying, I asked myself. Good old MT or my dreams? I have been shattered. Hard-earned money gone waste again. After a week of sleepless nights and self-cursing, I took a very bold decision. If you can’t beat them, join them. I decided to transform our efforts to develop workflow solutions for implementing MT engines for users! Cool.

Ailaysa is born. Ailaysa is the MTPE service now and will be a MTPE platform tomorrow where you will complete your translation tasks. For Ailaysa, the market is global, no longer Indic. Ailaysa’s mission to bring the AI-powered language tech to the end-users.  The word Ailaysa is an interesting one. It has no meaning at all! It is a rhyming word occurring in the last position of every utterance (line) of the work songs of South Indian fishermen. It helps to reduce the burden of hard work and sync the tasks of the fishermen together.

South Indian space

Except some what in Bengalore, the southern cities have no clusters of LSPs, unlike New Delhi or Pune. However, as the Indian languages market is expanding, the opportunities are more.  First, after Hindi, some of the most sought after languages for Indian market expansion for any client would be Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. All the four South Indian languages have thus markets of their own. The adoption of South Indian languages on the internet is far greater in many aspects according to the Google KPMG report 2017.  Hindi’s sway is less in the South and so the companies need to localize into the four major southern languages if they truly need to go national. And, the South as a whole is a developed region, for both B2B and B2C segments. Going national means going regional, and it is more pronounced in the South.  

As the VP of Citlob for the South, my focus will be making the South count. ‘Growth in the South‘ will be the mantra.  Helping the Southern agencies to grow fast and healthy, and get maturity in professional aspects.  The agencies in the South, I feel, should first develop strong capabilities in their local languages. India is one but it is a multi-centered economy. 

We lack professional training, we lack local patronage from the governments.  We have low access to happening in the industry. Our translators have less professional prestige compare to their IT or bank peers. How to change these? That’s the question and we need to work through. I think the solutions come from the top. More corporate buyers (particularly global ones) can change the dynamics but not on their own. 

We need to build the industry still: A corporate-style agency offering jobs to freelancers with a good rate and hiring employees with a good salary.  This requires a multi-dimensional engagement from the companies, government, and corporate buyers. 

South or elsewhere in India, this is the situation. We need to graduate out of our own garages and set up world-class language companies. Keeping things low is not an option anymore. Millennials and after, we can’t afford to be an old style agency if you need to hire good employees. If you are not attracting a final year student to your company as intern, you are not in the business. A journalist-turned-translator-turned-entrepreneur story is an unusual story and cliche. Now we need serious startups in this field, with lot of money and energy built-in. It is already an AI industry belongs to the Industrial Revolution 4. 

Every aspect of the business needs to be transformed.  The rise of Citlob is timely in this sense. I appreciate Sandip and others for the ground and ground-breaking work for a much-needed industry body.

In the next two years, as a VP of CITLoB in the South, this is my wish-list:  For agencies, bringing global good practices. For freelancers, good professional training and earning, For buyers, enlightening them on why translation or localization is a part and parcel of their business. Through business events and partnerships, courses, and webinars, we can bring this to the needy. Let me repeat the mantra: Growth in the South. 

Meanwhile, I am also an active founding member and secretary of a civil society organization called Campaign for Language Equality and Rights (CLEAR). The mandate for CLEAR is to get constitutional and government support for Indian languages to flourish. We urge governments to make policies to support all languages in India.  I need to find a synergy to work with two different bodies, but will eventually do.

Finally

I believe India can be a leading destination in the global language industry. We used to say that the global language market value is 40 or 50 billion dollars. But it is not. Nobody knows how to factor-in the impact of business of the latest entrants in this segment: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, etc!  Through their MT and NLP technologies, they have mainstreamed the translation business now. So, when calculating the market size, you may be adding a zero to the number! Whatever be the change, the change is phenomenal. Like in infotech, I believe India can be the solution provider for the global language industry. India itself a big market, too.  We have a China sort of thing here.

And it is a challenge that all the LSPs need to transform, and all the freelancers need to transform. We must realize that the exciting days are ahead.