26 February 2010

Meet MaYoMo, TED volunteer translation group

Tell us about yourselves.

We are the MaYoMo team — a group of individuals with different backgrounds in various spheres. Among us we have a journalist, linguists, developers, a designer, a historian, a musician, artists and an entrepreneur. Our total weight is 626 kg, which makes us heavy enough to be the biggest translator at TED. :)

Currently we are translating into Bulgarian, Russian, Japanese, German and Indonesian languages. What brings us together is MaYoMo.com — а free social news network that empowers people to explore, ask questions and create news.

What drew you to TED?

None of us really remembers when we first got to know about TED. In the past few years we have accepted TED as a source of innovative and creative ideas that improve the world we live in. The various themes of the talks have been tickling our passion for a deeper understanding of the world, which has very much in common with the MaYoMo mission — to show different viewpoints on both local and global issues and to provoke a debate where the truth will eventually pop up.

Similarly to TED, MaYoMo is independent from governments, political organizations, mainstream media or corporations.

The possibility to meet and collaborate with the amazing TED community while sharing knowledge and ideas is what brought us here.

Why do you translate?

Our team volunteered to translate TEDTalks because we wanted to make it possible for more people to reach valuable information, skills, experience and inspiration that TED shares.

We are very happy of the chance that TED Open Translation project gave us to contribute to the changing world together with TED’s community. Being part of the project makes us proud, while translating the talks is an exciting experience that brings us further inspiration.

What are your favorite talks?

As a team of few, there are many talks that we consider favorite. However, the talk “Hans Rosling shows the best stats you’ve ever seen” is among the top five TEDTalks for each one of us.

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