Automating translation of a bestseller to spark children's interest in coding
K.1.105 (La Fontaine) | Day 2 | 14:00 - 14:50 | Speakers: Nico Rikken, Matthias Kirschner
Abstract
The story “Ada & Zangemann – A Tale of Software, Skateboards and Raspberry Ice Cream” inspires the software freedom community because it covers more than the simple value of learning to program. It also covers the importance of control over technology and its impact on society. In this way the story is inspiring many kids, teens, parents and many others to learn programming and shape technology.
I too was captivated by the story. Working on a Dutch translation sent me down the path of improving the automation to help others like me to translate the story and publish it in different formats. The free culture license of the book enables and compels the community to adapt it, and they have. The community keeps surprising us with new formats to convey the story. Since its release it has been translated into 30 languages, published as a book in 7 and as movie in 5. And it is available in a growing number of other formats: epub, online book, bilingual book and kamishibai.
Translation and localization is the primary purpose of the automation. More interesting and ambition is to support the increasing number of formats: from printed book, to online book, voiceover text and subtitles. This wide variety of formats presents a unique challenge for which no ready-made solution exists. By leveraging open standards (XML, Docbook, ITS) and Free Software (Scribus, itstool, gettext, xsltproc, pandoc, Weblate) we created automation that enables translators to add new languages while also enabling new formats to be added. This includes a novel method for inserting text and images into Scribus. This multi-media setup can be used as inspiration for other free culture multi-media projects.
In this presentation we will tell the story how the automation developed over time. We'll share the inspiring stories from the community that leveraged the automation and influenced its development. The technical challenge of the automation is fun, but the community stories give it meaning and motivate me to keep at it.
With this presentation we hope to inspire others to contribute to the Ada & Zangemann community by translating, adding a new format or contributing to the automation and to share own materials benefiting our community as Open Educational Resources.
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Speakers
I'm an engineer interested in innovation and good design. I care a lot about control over technology. As such I use and contribute to free software and open content. Public speaking, event photography and writing articles are some of the ways I contribute to their communities. I do this both in my work at grid operator Alliander and in my various volunteer roles of which many are with the FSFE.
Matthias Kirschner is President of FSFE. In 1999 he started using GNU/Linux and realised that software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives. Matthias is convinced that this technology has to empower society not restrict it. While studying Political and Administrative Science he joined FSFE in 2004.
He helps other organisations, companies and governments to understand how they can benefit from Free Software -- which gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt, and share software -- and how those rights help to support freedom of speech, freedom of press or privacy.
Recently, in his spare time, he has written the story "Ada & Zangemann - A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream", which is available as book at publishers in English, German, French, and Italian, and translated into over 25 other languages and as movie on several platforms.
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Notice: The placeholder video image is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The original image can be found hereChanges made to the image are: Cropped the image to a new ratio, part of the image was cut off.