On April 17 and 18, the TEDxArabInternationalUniversity translateathon took place in Damascus, Syria. The event was a collaboration between Magma, a Syrian educational and social enterprise founded and headed by Arabic TED Translator Ghalia Turki, and TEDxArabInternationalUniversity organizers.
Day one saw the eight participants translate six recent TEDxArabInternationalUniversity talks from Arabic to English. On the second day, the translators reviewed the previous day’s translations. The talks will be available online soon.
To round out the translateathon, the attendees watched a video of Mario Gioto discussing his experience as a TED Translator and the benefits and possibilities afforded by translating TED and TEDx talks. The participants also received gift bags that included books published by TED, as well as bookmarks containing inspirational quotes from TED Translators around the world. As Ghalia remarked after the gathering, everyone involved walked away with not only sharpened translation chops, but palpable excitement to ramp up their translating efforts in the future, too.