I know, I predicted that kind of business model somewhere before, either in one of my posts or in a comment. It was definitely in the discussion string about “Google Translate: The End of the Road for Interpreters?” which then left this blog to Skype, email, Twitter and also got a spin off in my post about the “24/7 Teacher Cloud or the Learning Help Desk“.
Anyway, somewhere along the line I predicted that someone will sooner or later offer a cloud based service with personal interpreters I could simply call via my mobile phone instead of using the Google Translate Conversation Mode. Something similar to the Premium Fan Page model which lets me choose whether I want to have a machine translated version of my website or prefer a translation done by a professional interpreter.
A very early stage startup is now trying to build a service that will enable conference organizers and individual users to have personal interpreters via mobile devices. The short presentation of the idea in the video below explains it best, I think.
Babelverse in a nutshell:
- live audio translation powered by a global community of human translators, on your computer or mobile device
- translations can be requested on the spot by any user, or pre-booked by event organisers
- any user can earn money by translating
The two founders Josef Dunne and Mayel de Borniol are now heading to Chile. Why Chile? Because they take part in a very interesting initiative by the Chilean government called “Startup Chile”. Seed stage startups from around the globe can participate and the ones which are selected will receive a funding of $40.000, a one year visa to Chile, free office space in Santiago de Chile and other benefits without giving up equity in the company. The general idea is of course to keep the startups in Chile after the first year and to boost the local tech scene, a win-win for both sides.
Anyway, I will try to get the guys for a short interview as always and then cover their product as they move along. Will be pretty interesting to watch their way.
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