Študente MA 1 in MA2 vabimo, da se pridružijo izzivu

THE DGT EMT CHALLENGE 2021: Design your Future Working Environment

Why participate?
If you are a student at a member programme of the EMT network, you will soon be working as a translator. For the vast majority this will mean using IT tools on a daily basis, managing data and taking informed decisions on what tools to use or purchase and how to define your workflows.

In this challenge, you can demonstrate in a creative way that you are up to that task: EMT students are to imagine the perfect computer-assisted translation environment in which they would love to work once they leave university. Students can participate either individually or in teams (of up to 5 members).

Participants are welcome to gather data, conduct surveys and consult with students at other levels, academic staff and practitioners within their networks, but are required to state clearly what assistance they have received and to cite all sources used for their project.

The winners or representatives of the winning team will be invited to the annual Translating Europe Forum to present their project. They will have the opportunity to showcase their talents to potential employers.

How to participate?
Register here by 30 April 2021

Submit your entry by 15 July 2021 – The submission of the final project will happen via email to DGT-EMT@ec.europa.eu with DGT-EMT-Challenge 2021 – project submission in the subject line. Files larger than 25 MB should be submitted via a file sharing platform.

Submissions to the competitions can take several forms:
- Participants can submit a description of the perfect computer assisted translation environment.
- They may also choose to focus on one aspect of the CAT environment, e.g. based on the topics listed below, and develop their ideas in some detail.
- It is up to the imagination and creativity of the participants to choose the way in which they share their ideas: it could be in the form of an essay, a “user manual” of the ideal tool, a design study that uses drawings of screen mock-ups to demonstrate their ideas etc.

The following topics and questions could serve as an inspiration. You are of course free to approach other aspects:
- Machine translation (MT) has become an integral part of the translators’ toolkit. However, CAT tool developers are still struggling to propose user interfaces that facilitate the use of MT output in the translation process. What features would a CAT environment require to allow translators to make the best, most efficient use of MT? What would an ideal user interface look like?
- Data is becoming more and more important. Translators have been aware of this for a long time: they have always collected previous translations, translation memories, corpora, other reference material and terminology. Digitalisation has made it easier than ever to amass data. Do we need new tools and strategies to make sure that our data is kept up-to-date, clean and usable? What strategies do we need to ensure that the linguistic data we collect and use is of the right quality? What would the ideal CAT tool provide as features to clean and maintain legacy data?
- Terminology remains a key factor for consistency and quality of translations. However, between translation memories and MT where is the role for terminology? How would the perfect CAT tool integrate terminology? What will a useful terminology entry look like in the future?
- It seems that translation is turning more and more from an individual activity (one translator working on one project in splendid isolation) to a collaborative effort: teams of translators working on large jobs in parallel be it on the same or on different target languages. How should a CAT tool support this new working reality? What opportunities do you see? What about the authors of the originals? Could they be part of the team?

Submission requirements
Language: You can submit your entry in any official language of the EU, together with an abstract in English.
Abstract: maximum 500 words

How will my entry be judged?
A jury composed of DGT staff, EMT professors and industry representatives will review the contributions and, based on their insight and experience, select the best 3 submissions. The decision of the jury is final. The jury will be looking for projects that show a deep understanding of the CATE, including MT, and how artificial intelligence could be used to best serve the translator’s needs. Elements taken into account in the evaluation are clarity of explanation, innovation and a clear engagement with the state of the art of translation technology. Projects may focus on the big picture or on small (but important) details, but the jury will be looking for realistic solutions that bring fresh thinking and original ideas to the topic.

Timeline:
- Launch of the challenge: 24 March 2021
- Registration deadline: 30 April 2021
- Submission deadline 15 July 2021
- Announcement of winners: 30 September 2021
- Award ceremony/presentation of winning projects: 4-5 November 2021 at the Translating Europe Forum in Brussels or online