For our fourth post in the ‘5 Questions’ series, we are very excited to introduce you to Louise Faherty, Technical Project Manager of the Professional Services team at KantanMT. This series of interviews aim to give you a deeper insight into the people at KantanMT.
1. What’s your role at KantanMT?
I am the Technical Project Manager of the Professional Services team. My team manages the engine building projects on behalf of some of our clients. We work with their data and create the highest quality Custom Machine Translation engine possible, using KantanMT’s technology. My role in this involves either leading projects or helping the other members of the Professional Services team achieve their maximum potential.
Our team is also involved with a number of other things, including training, early project scoping and working with the Software Development team to create and test new platform features! It’s a pretty varied role!
2. What according to you is the most outstanding technology in KantanMT right now?
KantanMT is such a dynamic, feature-rich platform that it’s difficult to choose a favourite. But I think, KantanLQR™ is a fantastic new piece of technology which is already positively impacting the entire localization process. The benefits of KantanLQR will be felt by translation Project Managers (PM) and Reviewers every step of the way.
Good MT output comes from carefully customised and optimised engines. Before running your translation through an engine and sending it to be post-edited, a clever PM will ask a linguist to look at a sample of the content to look for repetitive errors. They will also see if there are any serious, time consuming problems in the engine, and provide an extra safety blanket to review any company specific style and terminology. This is where KantanLQR comes to its own, by allowing PMs and Reviewers to automate and streamline the process.
To know more about KantanLQR, check out our previous interview with Louise Faherty, where she spoke about the features and benefits of KantanMT.
3. What according to you is the least appreciated piece of technology?
I’m still completely mystified by technologies like Shazam. I find it fascinating that a massive world of music knowledge is at our fingertips, so long as you can get your phone out before the song ends! I even remember, before the age of smartphone, calling the Shazam number on our phones at parties in University. Now you get a nice graphic in the app and it can sync with your preferred music player! Amazing!
4. What interests you the most in the world of automated translation?
The implications of a world linked by effective automated translation are mind-blowing. It can potentially stop wars, end hunger and propel us into space. However, the word effective must be stressed. If the quality is poor, it will do more harm than good.
For too long, poor quality translation has been associated with automated translation. People believed that there is no way of achieving good quality without a human. This is not so much the case anymore.
What must be stressed, is that Machine Translation is only as good as the data and the process you use it with. The quality depends on how the source texts are structured, how the TM is developed, how terminology is managed in the TM, the way the terminology is used in MT and finally, how well suited the engine is, to the content it is meant to translate.
This is exactly what we do in Professional Services. When all of these elements are considered and carefully designed, MT is extremely well suited to our needs, useful and effective.
5. If you could be any fictional character, who/ what would you be, and why?
This is a really hard question to answer! If I had to choose, I always loved the cartoon the Moomin when I was young. A few years ago I went to my friend’s wedding in Estonia and we stopped off in Finland on the way. There I found out that the Moomin were created over 70 years ago by a revolutionary and quite political Finnish novelist and painter, Tove Jansson.
This was really interesting because I had no idea of Moomin’s history before. The original books were much darker and more detailed than the cartoon, and I fell in love with the images. I guess I would be a Moomintroll or Snorkmaiden in that case. Although, I’m about to become a mummy, so hopefully I’ll turn into a Moominmama in December!
KantanMT: Thank you Louise for introducing us to the super cute world of the Moomins, and we wish you all the best in your new role as the Moominmama!
If you would like to find out which Moomin character you would be, take this Moomin character personality test.
Louise Faherty will be joining Business Development Manager Mihaly Latkatos to host the webinar titled, ‘Learn How a Managed Machine Translation Solution Eases Localization Pain,’ where they will discuss how a bespoke, managed translation consultancy can help overcome localization pains and help sell successfully across multilingual borders. Don’t forget to join them to learn how the Professional Services Team can help.
About Louise Faherty
Louise Faherty is the Technical Project Manager of the Professional Service Team at KantanMT. Together with her team, she assists KantanMT’s clients at the genesis of their experience with KantanMT.com. They also work on developing and expanding the suite of client supports on the platform. Louise has extensive project management experience in the translation and localization industry, having worked at TransPerfect where she managed complex e-learning translation workflows. Louise holds a European MA degree in Translation Technology from Dublin City University.