A TAUS Round Table
Introduction
The TAUS Round Table on Healthcare Collaboration is a series of meetings for decision makers in healthcare, medical or pharmaceutical translation, aimed at an open exchange about language business innovation and industry collaboration. These invitation-only brainstorming sessions will be hosted at conferences or at one of the participants’ facilities. Attendance is limited to around 12 to 15. The first two Round Tables are scheduled for:
Focus on North American healthcare translation
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2010
Governor Hotel, Portland (OR), USA
Focus on healthcare industry
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2011
Basel, Switzerland
Language Business Innovation
Language and translation business is undergoing dramatic changes, characterized by a growing number of languages, a shift to more dynamic content and user-centric publishing. In this rapidly changing environment the existing and most common business model of outsourced translation projects may not always be ideal. In the TAUS Round Table meetings we invite companies operating in the medical and pharmaceutical industries to help define a platform for effective collaboration in healthcare translation.
Healthcare Collaboration
Effective industry collaboration is required for healthcare companies to be ready for expansion in languages, growth in user-generated content, rapid turn-around translation and effective global customer support. Language embedded in everything we do as opposed to the current project-oriented approach to translation. How do we make this transition?
Healthcare Data
In July 2008 the non-profit TAUS Data Association (TDA) was established with the objective of collaborating and sharing translation memories on an industry-wide scale. Two years on TDA has built a very effective platform for a free public language search and pooling of language data. The shared repository already contains more than 1.5 billion words of pharmaceutical and medical translations in more than 100 language pairs. In these Round Table meetings we invite participants to discuss the challenges and explore the opportunities of the transition to a more collaborative and sharing translation environment, specifically for the healthcare industry.
Questions
The questions addressed in the TAUS Round Table range from very practical operational to strategic and technological viewpoints:
- How do we collaborate and innovate. Why share? What to share and what not to share.
- What are the legal implications of collaboration in translation, i.e. intellectual property rights, patents, regulations, liabilities?
- Is translation memory management on a project and product basis being replaced by a cloud and corpus-based approach to managing translation data? What is the impact of this on our technology infrastructure?
- What are the opportunities and challenges of sharing language data in cloud-based translation memories?
- Should we move away from word-based pricing, as it seems to shift the focus away from quality and efficiency?
- How quickly will machine translation become a relevant and useful tool in our enterprise language strategy?
- How do we develop a language community with passion and dedication to our company’s goals and products?
Format
The format of the TAUS Round Table meetings is open and informal. The goal is to learn from peers in the industry. Participants may present their experience and perspective on a particular question and request others in the meeting to share their reflections. The meeting will be facilitated by Jaap van der Meer, director of TAUS, a member based organization for enabling better automated translation.
Program 2010 - 2011
The Healthcare Collaboration program will run throughout 2010 and 2011 with a series of Round Table meetings in Europe and North America. The goal is to develop a common understanding of the challenges of industry collaboration and to gather support from the participating corporations for sharing of language data and pursuing the opportunities of translation automation and language business innovation.
Deliverables
Following the Round Table meetings participants will receive reports with conclusions and findings from the brainstorming session. These reports will be updated as more companies are engaged and more Round Table meetings have taken place.
Invitees
Participation in the Round Table is by invitation only. If you are a translation buyer and interested in participating at the Round Table please complete the expression of interest form.