Pop!Tech Releases Internationalized Video Content for the Web

Renowned online “Pop!Casts” Feature Global Visionaries In Eight Languages

Camden, ME, October 12, 2007 – Pop!Tech, the annual ideas summit and social innovation network, announced today the release of new, international editions of some of its most popular video podcasts. With the support of dotSUB (www.dotSUB.com), creator of a new browser based tool enabling subtitling of web video, a subset of Pop!Tech’s “Pop!Casts” will now be available in freely downloadable, subtitled versions in eight languages. The Pop!Casts feature some of the world’s leading thinkers sharing their visionary work and ideas, and can be accessed at www.poptech.org.

“Today, less than a third of the Web’s content is available in any particular language – even English,” says Andrew Zolli, Curator of Pop!Tech. “While our Pop!Casts already enjoy thousands of subscribers, through our new translation efforts with dotSUB, we hope to engage many new global participants in a dialogue on world-changing ideas.”

Initially, a selection of eight (of the more than forty current) Pop!Casts is being made available in each of the eight languages – and also captioned for the hearing-impaired.  More will be released in the future. The content was gathered from Pop!Tech’s annual summit, which annually unites nearly 600 global thought leaders for an ideas summit that spans many disciplines.

The subtitled Pop!Casts feature such luminaries as  Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and best-selling author;  Bunker Roy, one of India’s most successful social entrepreneurs; Jesse Sullivan and Dr. Todd Kuiken, the world’s first bionic man and the doctor who helped him become so; Carolyn Porco, who leads the imaging team on the Cassini missions to Saturn; Zinny Thabethe, a front-line warrior in  the battle against HIV in South Africa; and Richard Alley, the renowned paleoclimatologist and climate change expert. The eight target languages (Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, Swahili, Farsi, Arabic, French and Spanish) were picked because they represent vital areas of the developing world.

dotSUB was founded by Michael Smolens, an entrepreneur with a lifetime of experience doing business in high risk emerging economies, along with Thor Sigvaldason and Laurie Racine. Recognizing the potential of global communication powered by the Internet, the founders went to work creating a web-based tool that enables video to be accessed in an open, collaborative, ‘wiki’ type environment. This tool gives both professional and amateur viewers the ability to translate video content into multiple languages via subtitles rendered over the video file. The same tool facilitates captioning video for the hearing-impaired.

The partnership developed out of mutual core values. According to Smolens, each organization is heading in a similar direction. “Like Pop!Tech, dotSUB can be an impetus to create positive world change by helping to share messages across cultures. We want to empower people to translate their personal experiences and improve lives by sharing their thoughts, ideas and works across cultures.”

Pop!Tech 2007: The Human Impact, will convene this year from October 17-20, 2007, in Camden, Maine, and will explore the influence human beings have on the world and on each other. Participants will include leading cognitive scientist and New York Times-bestselling author Steven Pinker, Grammy-award-winning R&B artist John Legend, healthcare pioneer Dr. Victoria Hale, leading humanitarian Zainab Salbi, award-winning photographer Christopher Jordan, and biotechnology pioneer Jay Keasling as well as nearly three dozen other presenters and performers. Pop!Tech has also secured a Who’s Who list of corporate partners, including companies such as Lexus, Nokia, Yahoo!, eBay, The National Geographic Society, Steelcase and Fast Company. Visit www.poptech.org for more.

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