FYI
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Google 'Health Speaks' for online medical info in Hindi
Press Trust of India
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Google-Health-Speaks-for-online-medical-info-in-Hindi/Article1-597041.aspx?sms_ss=email
Internet search giant Google is encouraging volunteers to translate
health-related articles in Hindi
under its initiative to boost the amount of online medical information
in local languages. Google.org
has introduced pilots for its initiative 'Health Speaks' that aims to
increase the online health information
in Hindi, Arabic and Swahili.
The search giant said it has chosen hundreds of health articles,
written in English, from Wikipedia
for their translation. Volunteers who are bilingual in English and
anyone of the vernaculars are being
encouraged to translate the literature with assistance from the Google
Translator Toolkit. Translators
are also supposed to review the articles and make it locally relevant
before publishing it on the
corresponding local language Wikipedia site.
Pilot programmes are supported with a donation incentive, awarding
local charities with funds based
on the number of words volunteers translate, Google said in a
statement. For the first 60 days, Google
will donate 3 US cents (about 45 paise) to the Public Health Foundation
of India, New Delhi, for each
English word translated in Hindi. The maximum donation would $ 50,000.
The Children's Cancer Hospital
Egypt 57357 and the African Medical and Research Foundation would get
the same amount for the pilots
in Arabic and Swahili, respectively.
"Language should not be the barrier that denies millions of people
worldwide the opportunity to improve
their health with valuable health information," Jennifer Haroon,
Manager of Health Initiatives at Google.org, said.
In most parts of the world, quality information that would help people
to improve their health is not available
online in local languages. In 2004, Lancet - a medical journal -
described the lack of access to health information
as a "major barrier to knowledge-based healthcare in developing
countries." The authors then noted "among
currently available technologies, only the Internet has the potential
to deliver universal access to up-to-date
healthcare information."
Currently, professional translation of high quality health content is
expensive and there are difficulties in finding
translators for some non-western languages.
--
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
--Roland
--
Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel: +1-415-839-6885 x. 634
Skype: barry.wikimedia
Twitter: @bazanews