Giancarlo Tallarico remembers the first time he saw The Day After Peace. “I was totally blown away by the film,” he said recently. “I can still recall walking out of the screening and thinking to myself, ‘Anything I can do to help, to become a part of the Peace One Day effort, I’m willing to do it.”
For Tallarico, the CEO and Co-founder of MeGlobe, Inc., this sentiment was driven by more than just the quality of the filmmaking. In Jeremy Gilley, the film’s director, and in Peace One Day, the non-profit organisation that Gilley founded, Tallarico sensed that he had found a kindred spirit of sorts – one that not only shared his vision for what could be achieved in the world but also seemed to be following a path similar to the one along which Tallarico and MeGlobe were walking.
“I was incredibly excited when I was first met Giancarlo,” said Gilley. “I’ve said before that I believe intercultural cooperation to be paramount for the survival of humanity, and that new digital technologies were now providing us with an opportunity for intercultural cooperation on a scale never before possible. And here was a company that not only shared this philosophy but was also working every single day to make it a reality.”
Through its free, web-based application – launched in early 2009 – MeGlobe integrates instant messaging (IM) with real-time translation technology, meaning that a user can type in his or her own language and immediately translate what is typed into the language of the other person with whom one is chatting. (MeGlobe is currently available in 15 languages, including all six of the official languages of the United Nations – Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), English, French, Russian, and Spanish – and will work with existing AIM, MSN, or Yahoo! accounts.)
“So much of the cultural misunderstanding that exists is rooted in language barriers. First and foremost to our ever achieving intercultural cooperation is the idea that we be able to understand each other,” said Tallarico, who refers to himself as a ‘Wishful Polyglot’. “Since our formation, MeGlobe has been dedicated to the task of breaking down these language barriers and to allowing the global online community to communicate with each other more easily,”
Similar to other translation programs available today, MeGlobe utilizes machine translation (MT), where computer software translates the text or speech from one natural language to another. However, unlike many of the other offerings, MeGlobe allows users to make edits or revisions to the translations – a sort of co-creation on the part of volunteers, much in the way that Wikipedia, the multilingual, Web-based, free-content encyclopedia project, has been created primarily through anonymous contributions.
This mass-collaboration is, according to Tallarico, “integral to breaking down language barriers” and is also something he saw Peace One Day trying to encourage in its own efforts to spread awareness of Peace Day.
“There really does seem to me to be a natural alignment between our two groups,” Tallarico explained. “MeGlobe’s success is ultimately dependent on the strength of our user-contribution system, much in the same way that Peace One Day and Jeremy need help from people around the world.”
And with Peace Day just two weeks away, MeGlobe is stepping up its own efforts to encourage others to make their commitments for Peace Day. The company recently redesigned their website (www.meglobe.com) in support of Peace One Day. In addition, Giancarlo is blogging the message of Peace Day to MeGlobe’s ever-growing user-base.
With help from MeGlobe, Peace One Day’s mission of reaching 3 billion people with the message of Peace Day by 2012 is becoming a reality:
What will you do to make peace on 21 September?
Que ferez-vous pour faire la paix le 21 septembre?
¿Qué harás para contribuir a la paz el 21 de septiembre?
Что сделаешь ты для достижения мира 21 сентября?
您在9月21日将会如何支持和平？
ماذا ستفعل لتحقيق السلام في 21 سبتمبر؟
