Help Crowdfund Captioning and Interpreting for Polyglot Conference NYC!

Crossposting from the StenoKnight CART Blog, because I know there are a lot of linguists and polyglots in the Plover community:



Polyglot Conference NYC 2015 is looking for funding so that they can pay for captioning of two simultaneous tracks plus full interpreting teams for deaf attendees. Ellen Jovin, the organizer of the conference, writes:

Polyglot Conference NYC 2015 will bring hundreds of polyglots and language enthusiasts from around the world to New York this October for two days of wide-ranging language talks. Speakers include the inventor of the language Dothraki for the HBO hit Game of Thrones, multiple polyglots who speak 6+ languages, New York’s own celebrity teen polyglot Tim Doner, linguist-writer John McWhorter, representatives of major language-learning publishers, and many others. We will have exhibitors, book-signings, goodie bags for participants, and the sharing of absolute mountains of inspiring and useful information.

As part of our event, we are crowdfunding to pay for interpreter and live captioning services. The plan is to record the conference talks, then convert the live captioning later so that it can be used on videos available online to the deaf and hard of hearing, as well as polyglots and language enthusiasts around the world who do not speak English natively and might appreciate having a written transcript to supplement the audio/video. People who will benefit include many enthusiasts who wish to attend the New York conference but can’t afford it, or who have disabilities making travel impossible or difficult, or who are unable to obtain visas. If you know anyone who would be willing to contribute, we would be most grateful, as we want to spread information globally about the joys and value of language-learning to as many people as we can. Richard Simcott, who appears in the video, is a co-organizer and speaks 16+ languages. He is unbelievably gifted and a real leader in the polyglot community.

Please spread the word as far and wide as you can, and know that if you chip in a few dollars, you'll be able to see all the captioned conference videos online afterwards! I'd really love to be able to be one of the captioners at this conference. It looks absolutely amazing.

New Look for the Aviary!

In keeping with Ted's splendid redesign for this blog, I've updated the PHPBB version of The Aviary (which will hopefully help with the recent spam problem), and since the previous theme wasn't compatible with the new version, I've updated the theme as well. We've lost the cute bird motif, but overall I think it looks a lot cleaner, less dated and more usable. What do you think?

Check out the new rethemed Aviary here.

Oh, and one other bit of news -- the long-delayed Hover Plover game suite project seems to be getting off the ground at last, and we hope to be launching a crowdfunding campaign for it in the near future. We've got a game development studio on board, and they've got several ideas on what sorts of arcade-style drilling games would be best for learning steno, but if you've got any ideas of your own, please feel free to tell us in the comments! Nothing is set in stone yet, so now is definitely the time to give us input.