The Rosetta Foundation

The Rosetta Foundation

Focus	Humanitarian
Location	Dublin, Ireland
Area served	Worldwide
Website	http://www.therosettafoundation.org/

The Rosetta Foundation is an off-shoot of the Localisation Research Centre at the University of Limerick, Ireland, and the Centre for Next Generation Localisation (CNGL), a major research initiative supported by the Irish Government. The primary purpose of The Rosetta Foundation is to make vital information available to individuals all over the world irrespective of their social status, linguistic or cultural background, and geographical location. The Rosetta Foundation intends to deploy a localization technology platform for volunteer translators and not-for-profit organizations that can contribute to the translation and distribution of life-guarding information to communities in need around the world.

Mission

"Relieve poverty, support healthcare, develop education and promote justice through access to information and knowledge across the languages of the world."

Origin of Name

The name is based on the Rosetta Stone. 196 bc the text of the Rosetta Stone was carved in Egyptian and Greek using three different scripts to honor the Egyptian pharaoh. The three scripts are hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek. Hieroglyphic was mainly used for important and religious documents, demotic was the common script of Egypt at that time and Greek was the language of the rulers of Egypt. The Rosetta Stone was written in all three scripts to make sure that everyone who could read would understand it. The Stone was discovered in 1799 in a small Egyptian village called Rosetta, which gave the name to the stone.

Goals and Aims

1) Relieve poverty, support healthcare, develop education and promote justice through access to information and knowledge on a global scale
2) Provide access to information and knowledge through the removal of language barriers
3) Remove language barriers by providing an infrastructure for translation and localization, both internationally and locally
4) Use this infrastructure to create employment and prosperity leading to greater equality
5) Ensure that this effort is sustainable, global, and based on principles of social enterprise

The aim of The Rosetta Foundation is, as the aim of the Rosetta Stone was, to provide information to as many people as possible. In order to make sure that information is not just delivered but received by people, it is important to communicate to them in their language. Access to information in your own language is a human right The Rosetta Foundation is committed to preserve and protect.

History

European Launch: The European launch took place at the AGIS ’09 conference in Limerick, Ireland on September 21-23, 2009. AGIS, Action for Global Information Sharing, provided an opportunity for volunteer translators, localization specialists and NGOs to come together to learn, network and celebrate their work.

North American Launch: The North American launch took take place at the Localization World conference in Santa Clara, California on October 20, 2009. This pre-conference workshop provided an overview of the organizational structure, the aims and objectives, and the strategic plan of The Rosetta Foundation. Participants were introduced to the Foundation’s translation and localization technology platform – GlobalSight

Areas of Activity

The Rosetta Foundation supports the not-for-profit activities of the localization and translation communities. It works with those who want to provide equal access to information across languages, independent of economic or market considerations, including localization and translation companies, technology developers, not-for-profit and non-governmental organizations. . The objective is to cater to translations requirements beyond those services offered by mainstream translation service providers and use communities on the ground. By using local resources, the work of The Rosetta Foundation can promote development, healthcare, education and justice.

Technology Platform

The Rosetta Foundation is actively involved in the development of GlobalSight and Crowdsight, which are used as its backbone. Both systems are open source systems originally developed by Transware and then moved into the open source space by their new owners Welocalize in early 2009. Sponsored by Welocalize, GlobalSight is an open-source Globalization Management System (GMS) that helps automate the critical tasks associated with the creation, translation, review, storage and management of global content. CrowdSight is another open-source application fully integrated with GlobalSight. It is used specifically to engage the right “crowd,” group or community to deliver quick-turn translation for on-demand content. The existing GlobalSight community has over 1,500 members.

This technology platform is used in projects run by The Rosetta Foundation.

Board of Directors

Reinhard Schäler, Localisation Research Centre

Alan Barret,

Brian Kelly, Breakout Interactive Ltd

Mahesh Kulkarni, Centre for the Devlopment of Advanced Computing

John Papaioannou, Bentley Systems

Páraic Sheridan, Centre for Next Generation Localisation

Michael Smith, iStockphoto

Francis Tsang, Adobe Systems Inc.

Smith Yewell, Welocalize

The Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network

As of March 2010, The Rosetta Foundation has become a member of The Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (NTEN).

The NTEN is a membership organization founded in 2000 made up of individuals, non-profit and for-profit organizations. NTEN aspires to a world where all nonprofit organizations skillfully and confidently use technology to meet community needs and fulfill their missions. One aim of the NTEN is to offer networking opportunities among its members and a knowledge exchange on technology related issues. It also offers educational and training programs and aims to provide access to discounted products and services for nonprofit organizations.

See Also

Nonprofit Technology Community