Hi Helena, Ben and Jim,
Thanks for your email, Helena, and for IBM's communication about translation and universities. I'm including Dr. Jim Spohrer in this email as Director of IBM Global University, and with whom I've come into conversation in my ISSIP (IBM) presentation on an Universal Translator - (blog post: http://scott-macleod.blogspot.
In terms of IBM as for-profit organization and specifics about languages as markets, Creative Commons' licensed World University and School is planning profit-oriented revenue streams in the context of our CC Universal Translator - but anticipating also that commerce and for-profit companies will want to use and define/develop this Universal Translator too.
In terms of multiple languages' translation and developing machine learning, WUaS's
a) Academic Press -
http://worlduniversity.wikia.
b) online Bookstore -
is also planned for all 7,941 languages, and all in the context of developing
c) a CC Universal Translator -
One case study example/way to think further about this would be how to set up the information technologies in terms of the human factor to translate an academic text into many languages with machine translator e.g. my actual/virtual Harbin ethnographic book - http://www.scottmacleod.com/
So, translating textbooks in Automotive, Energy, Healthcare, Financial and in All industries for learning purposes would be part of this - and for sale - and potentially an important revenue-generating focus for a for-profit company's machine learning translation such as IBM's. And World University is planning Bachelor and Ph.D. business degrees in all countries' main languages accrediting upon for example CC MIT OpenCourseWare Sloan School of Management OCW - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/
If Creative Commons' licensed WUaS can start building a new prototype in CC Wikidata/Wikipedia in 288 languages this autumn for students applying, and for matriculating students in 2016, we'll probably first develop in Spanish and Chinese in addition to English, of the UN / MIT OCW languages, and of which there are especially many CC MIT OCW translated courses - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/
The human factor that World University seeks to add to this machine translation process is in the matriculating students in all countries' main languages, and in the 1000 largest languages, who might all also become developers of machine translation and of related text books for academia.
So in terms of the specifics and planning, WUaS seeks to add the human factor in all languages to great machine learning translation, and into a WUaS plan for improving existing machine learning translators, anticipating further developing machine learning and AI. And the Creative Commons's / non CC articulation would be an important part of this plan.
Looking forward to your thoughts about this further in email and perhaps we chat as well in real time.
In what ways might CC World University and School best contribute to possibly helping to planning with IBM for non-CC translation of academic textbooks into large languages and for sale?
Thank you.
Best regards,
Scott
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