thebigword

thebigword Elite Values

EXCELLENCE - As professionals we strive for excellence in everything that we do. LEADERSHIP - We encourage a working environment that inspires people to take ownership and lead from the front. Pioneers of AI language technology, we create trends and inspire. INNOVATION - Our collaboration and ‘can do’ attitude make us innovative. Through our ongoing investment in cutting edge thinking and AI technology, we create and deliver market ready solutions and value for our customers. TRUSTWORTHY - Our integrity and determination to ‘do what’s right’ has led to 40 years of experience in delivering successful solutions for the world’s most demanding brands. EMPOWERMENT - We believe in our people and support their growth, helping them to realise their full potential. We recognise them as our greatest source of opportunity.

thebigword helps make the world a smaller place by breaking down language barriers, supporting global trade and empowering people to access goods, commerce and services in their own languages. The company provides the best translation, interpretation, localisation and language technology solutions for businesses, the Public Sector and individuals while handling around 50,000 worldwide assignments every day.

Previously known as the Link Up Group, thebigword was originally founded in 1980 by Chairman, Larry Gould, and established itself as a leading recruitment and Language Service Provider. Upon the sale of its recruitment division in 1996, the company were solely focused on becoming a world-class LSP. Since then, the organisation has evolved into a truly global name and operates with 12 offices globally and has over 600 staff.

Having worked in the industry for over two decades, Gould has witnessed first-hand how the industry has changed throughout the years. “The language technology industry is growing in spite of global challenges and for those companies that invested in workflow automation and artificial intelligence as well as machine learning, the language technology

Techwave

Techwave and thebigword Completes Two Years of Strategic Partnership

Techwave is delighted to share that its strategic partnership with thebigword has grown stronger as it enters the third year of its collaboration. During this partnership, Techwave successfully enabled thebigword to deliver nextgeneration services in an efficient and timely manner. Techwave continues to empower this alliance with its technological prowess by introducing cutting-edge solutions to the thebigword ecosystem.

We provided thebigword with strategic support across applications, data, and infrastructure landscapes as per industry standards. Our collaborative One Team approach helped in migrating to Microsoft Azure cloud and developing application platforms across interpretation, translation, and localization services.

Commenting on the occasion, the Chief Information Officer of thebigword, Mark Rice, said, “I truly believe that we now understand each other, and we exhibited all of the necessary criteria to truly define us all as ONE TEAM. It gives me great confidence in our growing partnership.”

Murthy Maddali, Head of Western Europe Region, said, “The WordSynk tool build for thebigword has revolutionized how linguist communities interact in real-time. As a global leader in consulting technology, Techwave has helped thebigword leverage sophisticated cloud-based services to drive its digital transformation initiatives.”

Moving forward, Techwave will continue to commit to its superior standard of performance while being agile in a dynamic marketplace.

www.techwave.net

Accelerate Your Digital Transformation Journey with Techwave

NETHERLANDS Eindhoven Techwave Consulting B.V., High Tech Campus 9,5656 AE, Eindhoven, Netherlands, infoEU@techwave.net UNITED KINGDOM London Techwave Consulting UK Limited, 2 Eastbourne Terrace, W2 6LG Paddington, London, United Kingdom, infoEU@techwave.net GERMANY Düsseldorf Techwave Consulting GmbH, Stadttor Medienhafen,Stadttor 1, 17. Floor, 40219 Düsseldorf, Germany, infoEU@techwave.net

industry is phenomenally exciting,” says Gould. “As a result, our industry attracts billions of dollars’ worth of investment each year. thebigword through our WordSynk platform utilises the latest advancements in machine learning and AI making us a significant force to be reckoned with in an already exciting industry.”

Gould is well aware of his organisation’s competitive advantage. thebigword’s WordSynk platform bridges the spoken and written world through an all-in-one language platform that makes professional language services easy. The platform combines all services, from translation through to transcription and interpreting within one language technology platform.

“We’ve invested tens of millions of pounds in our WordSynk Platform and have adopted the latest in AI based technologies,” explains Gould. “WordSynk is an industry first allin-one platform that combines all services into one platform to provide instant access to both translators and interpreters 24 hours a day and in over 250 language combinations.

“Through the WordSynk platform our clients have access to over 1.4 billion machine translation combinations and through deployed AI our system will select the best combination of these machine translation engines to provide our customers with superior machine translation when compared with available free machine translation.” thebigword Group believes that language is the ‘last barrier to peace and prosperity’ and the firm makes it their mission to break down the communication barriers wherever they are. Gould points to the company’s work in providing language services that supported the COVID-19 Testing Programme in the UK as a particularly important project. “It is essential for public health that important information about coronavirus testing is available to everyone no matter what language they speak,” affirms Gould.

Inside the WordSynk platform

Through WordSynk, clients have instant access 24/7/365 to both interpreters and translators in over 250 languages, making interpreting and translation easier than ever before.

From emergency and time sensitive telephone interpreting through to managing the end-to-end translation and localisation process, WordSynk provides clients with a world of languages at their fingertips.

WordSynk provides language-software solutions for some of the world’s biggest companies and brands, including well-known Silicon Valley tech firms, as well as British and US Government Departments. WordSynk is a market-leading sourcing platform that works behind the scenes in order to find a linguist in seconds. The app connects users with a database of more than 20,000 linguists globally and uses set criteria to find the right linguist for a client’s needs.

The platform was developed through microservices architecture. The application service code is independent, and allows for faster scaling and future maintenance, improved productivity, fault tolerance and business alignment. Through its collaboration with Microsoft, WordSynk provides a multi-layered approach to security with Azure while leveraging a team of 3,500 cybersecurity experts globally.

Worldwide Languages Ltd

Interpreting and Translation Services

Northern Baptist College, Luther King House, 29 Brighton Grove, Manchester, M14 5JP 07884472618 worldwidelanguages.ltd@gmail.com www.worldwidelanguages.co.uk

“Another example is where we recently worked with a law enforcement agency to assist them with a modern-day slavery case,” he adds. “They required over three million rows of chat data recovered from twenty digital devices seized from suspects translating from Mandarin and Italian to English across a variety of language settings.”

The expediency of the process was key in order to manage risk, identify potential victims of trafficking and highlight vital strands of evidence. thebigword deployed WordSynk’s machine translation and were able to deliver this extremely quickly, enabling the law enforcement agency to safeguard vulnerable victims of modern slavery.

“I am especially proud of the work we have done to support the US, and UK Army in the Middle East in their nation rebuilding missions,” explains Gould. “We have played a small part in enhancing human rights and fostering good relations across Afghani and Iraqi communities. I am extremely proud of our team.”

With partnerships an essential component to all companies globally, Gould stresses the importance of key, strategic partnerships to thebigword.

“We have some really great partnerships that are vital to our success as a business and underpin our WordSynk Platform,” he says. “Microsoft is a phenomenal partner who provide us with the means to bring some of the greatest technology and apply it to our services. Without technology we can’t exist, which makes Microsoft a critical partner of thebigword Group.

“We have also partnered with Vodafone to transform our global connectivity and communications to be faster, and more intelligent to the benefit of our clients globally.”

To Gould, employees remain central to the company’s strategy. “Our employees have a voice in the workplace. We make it our business to listen to the strategies of the people who are doing the work and have the relationships with our clients.

“We develop our management and leaders to be top notch communicators and we appreciate that their success is our success.”

With the next few years in mind, Gould affirms that his focus remains on expanding the company’s primary platform. “We’re rapidly growing, and we will continue to support the ongoing growth of the WordSynk Platform.”

Leeds, London, New York, Beijing, Tokyo, India

info@thebigword.com

thebigword.com

Revolutionising Quality Engineering

Aviram Shotten, Chief Information Officer at Qualitest Group, discusses the emergence of AI within quality assurance

Writer: Sean Galea-Pace | Project Manager: Vivek Valmiki

It’s so important to have fun in what you do. Being good at it will follow,” stresses Aviram Shotten, Chief Information Officer at Qualitest Group. “For me, it’s about making sure people get what they want from their software - that’s what got me into quality engineering.”

After chatting with Shotten for just a few minutes, it’s clear that he has an abundance of passion for quality engineering. Shotten is an experienced c-level executive and has a global track record of working in the aerospace and defence, information technology and services industries. However, by his own admission, he actually ‘stumbled’ into the organisation to begin with.

“Like all good things in life, I fell into it,” he admits. “When I started my career, I got sucked into the industry based on previous knowledge I had. It was so exciting to be in a position where you could influence the technology that people will be using from how the user gets benefits from the system.”

To Shotten, he understands the true value of technology and believes he is empowered to work in the industry as a result of his passion for the sector. “If you do a good job, people will know and recognise that,” he explains. “If the industry is growing and it’s something that you can influence, then it is very exciting. Technology has always been important to me, so it’s only natural for me to work in this space.”

With the industry growing at an exponential rate, Shotten is keen to point out that automation is only half the battle. “Innovation is endless,” he explains. “We are all trying to be as

Aviram Shotten, Chief Information Officer, Qualitest Group automatic as possible, but we also need to recognise that automation can only take you so far. You have to invest in advanced technologies like AI, and make sure you have a resilient approach to software development.”

Qualitest is an AI-powered, scaled and independent global specialist. The firm provides precise, scalable quality engineering solutions to bring real value to its partner clients and unparalleled end-to-end quality delivered more efficiently at lower costs. For the past six years, Qualitest has been recognised as the only visionary pure play QA and Testing Services company within the Gartner Magic Quadrant.

Shotten is clear about his company’s competitive advantage and what makes his organisation stand out from its competitors. “Qualitest is a unique company because we’re focused on quality engineering, but there isn’t a company in the world that does just one thing,” he affirms. “I believe that what makes us stand out from the crowd is our culture. There is a famous saying that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast.’ We need to maintain our culture of innovation, because it sets us apart from the crowd, drives strong leadership and internal alignment.”