November was a highly successful month for the Department of Translation Studies, and one of the most exciting news was the prize awarded by the European Commission Directorate-General to our student Bc Andrej Birčák for his results in the eMT challenge.
This competitive evaluation of automated quality estimation in machine translation was attended by 112 MA students from all over Europe. Interested students from the Department of Translation Studies had the unique opportunity to prepare for the competition directly with industry experts. A key part of this training was organised in collaboration with the translation technology expert Dr Jakub Absolon, owner of the translation company ASAP. The Department has been closely collaborating with the company for a number of years, aiming to prepare students for the practical challenges awaiting professional translators. Our results show that this collaboration provides students with extra skill sets and experiences as well as with a motivation boost, all of which significantly heighten their career prospects. In the words of Dr Absolon, “the platform we are given in selected university lectures gives us a chance to introduce to the students some of the real processes and technologies currently used by employees in translation companies. Such successful collaborations between universities and the industry are not overly common, and we hope that this concept will be an inspiration for other departments or universities”.
Thoughts from the awarded students: “My interest was piqued from the beginning by the range of the competition, as it was attended by students from the entire EU. Aside from an enticing prize – the invitation to attend a conference in Brussels – it also allowed me to test my own abilities in machine translation quality assessment, so the whole competition felt like it was made for me”. Was the competition challenging? “The competition required some basic knowledge about machine translation and its functionalities, but also quick analytical thinking necessary for the presentation of results as well as in writing a short essay. Thanks to my previous experiences and meticulous training with Dr Absolon, I didn’t encounter anything unexpected and was able to evaluate and process everything as planned.”
The winners in the individual categories were invited to an award ceremony as part of the Translating Europe Forum, which took place between 9-11 November in the Directorate-General for Translation in Brussels. We are delighted to see our student succeed in such a prestigious competition and hope that it will boost his confidence and future posibilities.
Author: Doc. Emília Perez, PhD.
Photos: DGT EC archive a A. Birčák's archive