Retell, Remix, Rejoice 2020: Meet the judges!

Posted by Pallavi Kamath on July 08, 2020

A big round of applause to all the participants for the fantastic response to our contest Retell, Remix, Rejoice 2020, which aims at finding and encouraging translation talent in 10 languages: Bahasa Indonesia, Chatino, Gondi, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Vietnamese.

We are delighted to introduce you to the wonderful judges - we are incredibly grateful to them for lending us their expertise and time.

Bahasa Indonesia - Maharani Aulia

Maharani Aulia has written dozens of stories and translated over a hundred titles from English to Indonesian. Her works have been featured in local and national media, and published as books. 

Chatino  (In collaboration with Endless Oaxaca Multilingüe) - Emiliana Cruz and Isaura de los Santos Mendoza

Emiliana Cruz

Emiliana Cruz originaria de Cieneguilla, San Juan Quiahije, Oaxaca. Es antropóloga lingüista. obtuvo el grado de doctor en antropología lingüística en la Universidad de Texas en Austin y actualmente es profesora-investigadora en [CIESAS-CDMX]. Ha realizado investigación y campo en el Valle de Yakima (Washington State, EUA) con jóvenes jornaleros; en la región chatina en Oaxaca; y Chiapas. Sus líneas de investigación son diversas e interdisciplinarias destacándose principalmente en el ámbito de educación, derechos lingüísticos, territorio, documentación y revitalización lingüística. Ha recibido el premio Distinguished Community Engagement Award otorgado por la Universidad de Massachusetts. Su trabajo se distingue por una amplia experiencia de colaboración comunitaria, además es parte del colectivo “Diálogos entre Académicos Indígenas”. En sus publicaciones se destaca su reciente publicación “evitemos que nuestro futuro se nos escape de las manos: tomás cruz lorenzo y la nueva generación chatina”, este fue el resultado de un trabajo colectivo con chatinos.

Emiliana Cruz is a linguistic anthropologist originally from Cieneguilla, San Juan Quiahije, Oaxaca, Mexico. She earned her doctorate in linguistic anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently a professor-researcher at [CIESAS-CDMX]. She has conducted research and field work in the Yakima Valley (Washington State, USA) with young day laborers; in the Chatino region in Oaxaca; and Chiapas. Her lines of research are diverse and interdisciplinary, standing out mainly in the field of education, linguistic rights, territory, documentation and linguistic revitalization. She has received the Distinguished Award Community Engagement Award from the University of Massachusetts. Her work is distinguished by a wide experience of community collaboration, and is also part of the collective "Dialogues between Indigenous Academics". Her recent publication "Let's prevent our future from slipping out of our hands: Tomás Cruz Lorenzo and the new Chatino generation ” was the result of a Chatino collective project.

Isaura de los Santos Mendoza

Isaura de los Santos Mendoza es originaria de San Miguel Panixtlahuaca, Juquila, Oaxaca. Actualmente es una estudiante de doctorado en la Universidad de Massachusetts, Amherst. Su proyecto se centra en la literacidad de la lengua chatino. Asimismo, colabora en el proyecto de documentación de la lengua chatino donde elabora textos y materiales sobre la gramática de su lengua natal.  Su pasión es la enseñanza y traducción de textos a la lengua chatino.

Isaura de los Santos Mendoza is originally from San Miguel Panixtlahuaca, Juquila, Oaxaca. Her passion is teaching and translating texts into the Chatino language.She is currently a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and her project focuses on the literacy of the Chatino language. She also works on collaborative projects for the documentation of Chatino, where she develops texts and materials on the grammar.

Gujarati - Jayant Meghani

Jayant Meghani has a postgraduate degree  in librarianship from the M.S. University, Vadodara. He was a librarian for eight years, before starting Prasar, a bookshop  that continues to run. He also works as an off-site editor-translator with Navajivan, Gandhiji's publishing house in Ahmedabad.

Hindi - Priyanka Gautam

Priyanka Gautam is a Hindi translator and research scholar. She has translated many books with multiple educational organisations.  

Kannada - Hema S

Hema S has translated articles, stories, and poems from Hindi and English to Kannada. Her translated works have appeared in popular Kannada dailies like Prajavani, monthly magazines like Mayura and Kasthuri, and online literary portal Kendasampige. She is known for translating Akira Kurasova's autobiography to Kannada, and the same has been published episodically on Kendasampige. Hema's published Kannada translations include Abbas Kirasthomi's poems collection titled "Hesarillada Hoo" by Sanchaya Publishers and "Uriva Banada Kogilegalu", published by Srushti.     

Malayalam - Parvathi Aithal

Parvathi Aithal has translated 40 literary works in 5 languages -  English, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and Tulu. She has also written 28 original books and penned short stories, novels, essays, plays, monographs, book reviews.

Marathi - Meera Joshi

Meera is a veteran journalist and  has been associated with Pratham Books as a reviewer and Marathi language expert for a long time.

Tamil - Salai Selvam

Salai Selvam is a Tamil writer, interested in education, childhood studies, and children’s literature. Her writings have appeared in several Tamil feminist journals and newspapers. For over three decades she has been working on literacy and gender issues in rural India. Currently, she is with an educational foundation that supports teacher education.

Telugu - Suresh Kosaraju

Suresh is the editor at Manchipustakam where he manages translation, editing and publication. has been associated with Pratham Books as a Telugu language expert for many years. 

Stay tuned for the results of Retell, Remix, Rejoice 2020!

The winner(s) will have a one-on-one mentoring and feedback session with an editorial expert. The winner(s) will also receive a print copy of the translated book (only for participants based in India), and the winning translation will be published and highlighted as a Recommended title on StoryWeaver.

Illustrations by Aindri C, from Shoecat Thoocat, written by Shalini Srinivasan and published by Pratham Books.

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We're hiring a Data Analyst for StoryWeaver!

Posted by Remya Padmadas on February 17, 2020

Pratham Books (www.prathambooks.org) is a not-for-profit children's book publisher that was set up in 2004 to publish good quality, affordable books in many Indian languages. Our mission is to see ‘a book in every child’s hand’ and we have spread the joy of reading to millions of children in India. As a publisher serving every child in India, Pratham Books has always pushed the boundaries when it comes to exploring innovative ways in which to create access to joyful stories and have been fortunate in finding partners to collaborate with who share this vision.

In 2015, Pratham Books' increased its footprint by going digital. As an industry leader, we were one of the first publishers in the country to open license our content. All this content is now available on StoryWeaver, which is a digital platform that hosts stories in languages from India and beyond, so that every child can have an endless stream of stories in her mother tongue to read and enjoy. The stories can be read, translated, versioned or downloaded for free. All stories on the platform are openly licensed.

We are looking for a Data Analyst for StoryWeaver.

We are looking for a Data Analyst who will work closely with our product development team and other internal teams. They will discover the insights within the data sets, and help make smarter decisions to deliver better results for end users.

In this role, the person will be responsible for providing requirements for new features for collection of data, execute data validation checks, ensure data integrity, use statistical techniques to analyse and interpret data, take complete ownership of Google Analytics, identify trends and provide insightful reports to internal and external audience. We’re looking for a self-motivated, detail-oriented individual who loves digging into data, developing insights and communicating data-based recommendations. They will work closely with the internal teams and tech partners to implement recommendations, track the impact and course correct. 

The position will report to the Senior Product Manager of StoryWeaver but also requires working closely with the top management. The person needs to be an out-of-the box thinker and should be a strong believer and propagator of use of open technologies.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Work closely with internal product owners to understand the target audience and their motivations, generate the product enhancement, development ideas and requirements docs.

  • Perform steps required to create analysis-ready data sets.

  • Perform regular data analysis to assess readership, content gap, trends and performances.

  • Extracting valuable insight from our data and generating analysis that drives user retention and conversion.

  • Build a visualization tool that allows internal users to interactively explore the data and insights.

  • Respond to ad-hoc report and analysis requests from other teams as needed.

  • Take all data driven features to fruition by working closely with the product development teams.

  • Be the bridge between organization and other data-for-good communities. 

Required skills

  • Bachelors in Computer Science, Statistics, Market Research, Operational Research, or related quantitative disciplines.

  • 2-4 years of experience in the industry

  • Experience working with data and analytics.

  • Good technical background with some hands-on experience with Python/R, relational databases (PostgreSQL) to perform data analysis.

  • Ability to interpret findings through data visualization and delivery of presentations to both internal and external stakeholders.

  • Expertise with Google Analytics and common Data Visualization platforms like Tableau, Apache Superset, Google DataStudio etc.

  • Strong analytical thought process, ability to extract data and transform it into valuable, actionable insight.

Nice to have but not mandatory:

  • Experience working with non-profits.

  • Experience with Machine Learning.

Location:

This is a full time position in our Bangalore office.

Compensation:

Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Write to us:

Email your resume with ‘Data Analyst- Storyweaver’ in the subject line to [email protected]

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"Children are inherently multilingual."

Posted by Amna Singh on March 20, 2018
 
Kollegala Sharma is a scientist by profession, but a science communicator by passion.  He teaches translation, science communication and science teaching through workshops, and has also been writing and translating science books from English to Kannada for the past three and a half decades. We spoke to him about multilingualism and how he uses the StoryWeaver platform in his interactions with children.
 
Q: How do you think multilingualism benefits children?
 
A: I believe that we are inherently multilingual. We speak a colloquial language and learn a standardized version in schools. However, it all depends on the age of the speaker and how he/she interacts with the  language. Wider interactions with a  language make the speaker adept at working with it anywhere. StoryWeaver provides an opportunity to learn different languages. I visualize a classroom where a teacher uses a story to teach Tamil to Kannadiga students with a Tamil translation in her hand. Why not? Also, I believe that learning a local language along with English is important.
 
Q: How and for what do you use Storyweaver?
 
I use StoryWeaver to excite young students to read and write and also to help adults who may not be very conversant in English learn the language by using translation as a tool. I ask participants at workshops to translate stories from English to Kannada to help them to understand the nuances of the language. Since the text is limited and is accompanied with pictures, it becomes easy for them to comprehend and then try translating. Long texts can put off beginners from learning a new language. I have worked with the teachers in Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalay. Even the teachers who aren’t familiar with computers and technology take to the platform easily as StoryWeaver makes it easy for them to type both English and Kannada.
 
I have also used StoryWeaver to teach nuances of translation to participants of workshops on translation at the National Translation Mission. The participants were from various states and to find examples of translation in all the languages was difficult. In this case I turned to StoryWeaver, as it is a repository of stories in several Indian languages. This helped the participants appreciate both the translation process and also the differences in the process when translating in different languages. I also encouraged participants, whose language is not represented on StoryWeaver, to collaboratively translate and practice online in the open class. This serves well for both the language and the participants. StoryWeaver allows for a very active and collaborative interaction. Some potential translators for StoryWeaver will also hopefully be born. They can practice translation here, revise, review and upload without any hesitation.
 
I’d also like to explore ways to use the platform to enthuse students with different competencies. For example, I would like to excite students with drawing and painting skills to develop themes for future stories. And I also plan to use the stories on StoryWeaver and encourage versioning them to audio formats.
 
 
Mr. Sharma's colleague's daughter reads a story in Kannada, and makes herself the main character!
 
Q: How do you see StoryWeaver benefitting children?

 

The online stories are freely available both for teachers and students alike. Such a reading resource is unimaginable in any school, especially the Government schools.
 

Mr. Kollegala Sharma at a recent story telling session organised by Pratham Books to celebrated National Science Day.

 
Q: What are the challenges around translating?
 
Translation poses many challenges. For example, character names might work in one language but will be very funny or strange to Kannada readers when translated. If the name is essentially part of the cultural ethos it can be retained, but in some stories where the ethos is general and can be applied anywhere in India, the strange names may sound unattractive. Secondly, spelling them in Kannada may not be appropriate for certain reading levels.
 
Q:  What can be done to effectively make children learn a new language?
 
Reading and retelling stories is a wonderful way to introduce children to a new language.


If you're using StoryWeaver to help spread the joy of reading, and would like to be featured on our blog write to us at [email protected]

 

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