1 minute read
Spreading the TED
Spreading the TED
by Simon Johnson
In July, seven-year-old Gold Coast girl Molly Wright gave the youngest TED Talk to date. When it went viral, Australian Multilingual Services were engaged to help share Molly’s message around the world, and IN TOUCH asked Simon Johnson, general manager at AMLS, to tell us about this unusual assignment.
Molly has been dubbed ‘The next Greta Thunberg’ since giving her now world-famous presentation ‘How every child can thrive by five’.
In it, Molly urges parents, carers and educators to put aside electronic devices and engage with infants and young children in meaningful and attentive interactions, as frequently as possible from the womb to the age of five.
Molly on stage with 12-month-old Ari
Photo courtesy of the Minderoo Foundation
Child psychologists have proven this deeply reciprocal and attentive engagement behaviour, typified by what they call ‘serve and return’ interactions, to be essential during these formative years. Critical for optimal neural and psycho-social development, it contributes to ensuring children feel cared for and important, and fosters strong self-confidence and the best prospects for future success in all areas of life.*
Our team was approached with an urgent dead- line for recreating the TED Talk video with children’s voices in Urdu, Hindi and Indonesian.
Our dedicated panel of translators completed the script translations at record speed and, working with sound recording studios that we have on our books in India, Pakistan and here in Australia, we were able to find children’s voice actors to professionally record them in each language.
Our technical team synced each recording to the video, then overlaid it with clapping and laughing from the original theatre audience, so the final videos looked and sounded as if Molly was presenting in the target languages.
Author bio:
Simon Johnson has over two decades of experience working in the translation industry. He holds an honours degree in political and economic science, and has a background in the digital media industry.
* A quick Google of ‘serve and return interaction’ will find plenty of academic research (dating back to the 1990s) and social media content on this topic.
