Transcriber: Gemma Lee Reviewer: Dewi Barnas
Thank you. Thank you. Love you.
(Korean) Annyeong hashimnikka?
(Korean) Jeo-neun Anwar Dafa-Alla imnida.
(Arabic) Assalamu'alaikum.
(Arabic) Ismi Anwar Dafa-Alla. Ana min Al Sudan.
Hello, everyone. My name is Anwar Dafa-Alla.
I am from Sudan, as you can see.
(Cheering)
OK.
I am a CEO of Afro Arab trading.
It's a trading company.
And a Ph.D. candidate of Chungbuk National University in Cheongju.
But in the last one and half year,
this title has been attached to me.
I am a TED volunteer translator, and I loved it. I love it. I do.
Translation is about sharing, right? And sharing is caring.
Here is my daughter, my son. They care for each other, right?
And sharing is beautiful, so...
(Laughter)
Sharing is humanness.
What you want to do for yourself, do it for your neighbor also, right?
So, translating TED talks is humane.
It's beautiful. It's for love.
I love you all. That's it.
(Applause)
Thank you.
So, TED's Open Translation Project was launched in May 2009,
gives the opportunity for English speaking volunteers like me
to subtitle into their local languages.
Maybe in the talk, you see the subtitles.
So this is what we do in the Open Translation Project.
It's one volunteer translator, and one volunteer reviser.
I am obsessed with two things.
One, is spreading ideas, ok?
The other is documentation.
I need to document any moment in my life.
I want to document this right now.
(Taking a photo) (Laughter)
It's going to be on Facebook.
(Laughter, cheering)
So I blogged the first talk that I published.
The reviser was Yasser Bahjatt.
And then, I had more than 4,500 views.
That was amazing for me,
because people usually don't interact with this vibration.
So I made a roadmap policy for myself
to continue in the Open Translation Project
that has, you know, this responsibility, commitment
and showing gratitude to your partner in the translation, and not arguing.
And express your willingness to continue on.
So I sum this in one email message that's always in my draft.
I send it to the guy I work with.
So how do we connect as volunteer translators together?
We form a Facebook group and in that group we used to communicate with each other.
The most active translators, that one was fascinating.
This guy, Yasser Bahjatt, he was the most active translator.
And we in Sudan, our neighbor countries or part of them,
stereotyped the Sudanese as lazy.
So, "most active"?
It looks attractive for me.
I want to join there, so I went there.
And then, I became [one].
(Laughter)
When I hit 120 talks in November 2009...
(Applause)
Thank you.
I had this interview on the TED blog.
and then someone from TEDxSeoul, Mr. Han, contacted me.
"You live in South Korea.
Let's contact and attend our afterparty."
I met with them on December 21st.
After that this was the biggest surprise in 2009 for me.
At that year, I received the best paper award in a scientific conference.
But it wasn't as nice as receiving this message.
We need you in California, at TEDActive.
Audience: Wow.
So, I went to get the US visa.
You know, Sudan, is a blacklisted country in American rules.
So, I get frustrated.
Maybe someone forgot to do his homework.
Am I right?
So, we get there.
After the second try, I got the visa.
And I went to TEDActive with some people who are here.
We get to the Translators Summit, the Volunteers' Summit, I call it.
It was really great. We shared ideas.
This very picture, I love it,
because embodies the connectedness
between different people who are passionate about spreading ideas.
So, I came back in February.
Continue [switching the slides], move on.
And this is the state of today.
(Applause)
So, am I Superman?
Audience: Yes.
No!
That wouldn't be happening without the help of the other collaborators.
So we have humanity here, human connectedness here in this one.
So I really want to give the credit for those volunteer translators
from everywhere.
And here is Khalid, he's attending here.
So, from different areas in the Arabic world,
we share the translators,
and we share advice, and we help each other.
So, we formed the TED4Arab.com,
and this is also an initiative to spread TEDTalks
in the area of the Middle East and so on,
because the internet speed is not that fast.
So, I have done something.
Am I super smart?
(Laughter)
We have this in common, right?
(Applause)
We have dotSub technology for the translation and Google translate.
Everyone here can do it, right?
(Laughter, cheering)
We need passion, right?
We need to share.
So, that's it.
The family support to us is a very important factor.
Because, if you have a wife or a partner that doesn't help you on this,
you can never get away from this.
And my wife's favorite TEDTalk is Jamie Oliver's TEDPrize wish
to teach every child about food.
They care about us. My wife will care about me and about my children, right?
Sometimes we are selfish, as men.
(Laughter)
So, we need to translate for our children, right?
To reveal the possibility, the opportunity, etc.
When your child, your daughter, goes to a computer,
finds something in her language, right?
To be understandable for her.
So, in TED 2010,
my favorite quote was:
"Whatever you are doing, failure is an option, fear is not."
We are going to organize the first TEDx in Sudan.
That is TEDxKhartoum.
Please cheer up for us.
(Cheering)
Thank you. Thank you.
(Applause)