KUDO is VP of Client Success Barry Slaughter Olsen was awarded the Alexander Gold Medal at the American Translators Association Conference on October 29, 2021.
The prestigious award is presented to an individual or institution in recognition of outstanding service to the translating and interpreting professions. Professor Olsen accepted the award together with fellow interpreter Katharine Allen on behalf of InterpretAmerica, an entity they co-founded in 2009.
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A veteran conference interpreter, Olsen holds a professorship at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
When the pandemic disrupted the interpreting profession, InterpretAmerica turned to KUDO to host a town hall event to provide information and guidance to conference interpreters around the world. Attended by close to 3,000 participants representing 50 countries and five continents, the online gathering was made available in five languages (American Sign Language, Arabic, English, Portuguese, and Spanish) interpreted simultaneously over KUDO. Its global reach played a key role in educating conference interpreters about the technological tools available to provide remote simultaneous interpretation amid COVID restrictions.
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“COVID-19 made it immediately apparent that we needed to organize an online forum to spark as broad a conversation as possible about the global lockdown’s effects on the provision of interpreting services and what needed to be done to adapt to this new reality,” noted Olsen.
A strong advocate for close cooperation between academe and professional and industry associations, Olsen believes that translators and interpreters who understand technological tools to assist in human communication will be better prepared to adapt to a rapidly changing market.
Olsen joined KUDO in May 2020 as Vice President of Client Success, bringing his wealth of industry experience to the SaaS multilingual meeting platform at a time of tremendous growth and opportunity.