A Higher Purpose (Literally!): WeRobotics Partners with ProZ Pro Bono

Following our partnerships with Beluga Linguistics and Crowdin to enhance linguistic inclusivity in our work with the Flying Labs Network, WeRobotics is pleased to welcome a new partner to support our translation activities. ProZ.com is a platform for language industry professionals, which, through its Pro Bono project, allows these translators and interpreters to offer their time and skills to various causes that make a difference in the world. In this blog post, Andrew Morris, Director of ProZ Pro Bono, shares how drone technology and language technology come together to help us build a more inclusive world. 

Article written by Andrew Morris, Director of ProZ Pro Bono

When ProZ Pro Bono first launched in September 2022, our mission was clear: to help non-profits around the world communicate across language barriers by providing free translation. The work would be powered by a community of professional but socially engaged translators and interpreters and funded by members of ProZ.com – the world’s largest translator network and marketplace.

The idea behind ProZ Pro Bono was – and is – to offer our services without any cash ever being involved in order to allow our clients to focus their resources on their key needs. In the almost two years of our existence, we’ve grown to 1250+ volunteers in 95+ languages, 120 clients, and a massive 7.7 million words translated (as of July 2024). And we’re constantly expanding as new translators join our ranks, new clients reach out, and new texts are generated. Dealing with all those words is, of course, a logistical challenge, and we count on the generous support of Crowdin, who provide their translation platform to our program free of charge. 

The subjects we would deal with seemed predictable enough – look around and you’ll see where the crisis points lie: climate change, refugees, mass migration, pandemics, wars, discrimination of all kinds, from gender to sexuality, and a whole raft of social issues, from poverty to homelessness. And of course, the links between these individual crises are plain to see – climate change drives resource wars, which lead to migration, which in turn puts strain on social services and healthcare. We are truly living in a time of polycrisis. 

And yet our focus in the humanitarian space is less on what’s going wrong and more on what we can do about it, each making our own little contribution. 

However, back in those early days, the idea of “drones” never crossed my mind, if I’m honest. Even as a relatively informed person who follows the geopolitical scene, I unthinkingly associated drones with real estate agents and hobbyists on the local front and, further out, with innovative but nefarious practices such as delivering drugs to prison inmates or as weapons of war.

So when I opened an email from WeRobotics asking for our services, I initially did a double-take. Even when I saw the first box checked, “Yes, we’re a non-profit”, I was still discombobulated as to how drones fitted into our mosaic of good causes. 

Consider me discombobulated no longer.

After talking to Jan Hinrichs at Beluga, then Kenneth Ramah at Werobotics, and especially after meeting Sonja Betschart, I now see very clearly just how effective this technology can be. Solution data, whether for topographic mapping, land use and land cover analysis, disaster management, coastal and marine mapping or agricultural monitoring – to name but a few examples – is now much more easily accessible, thanks to this affordable and high-impact technology. 

Even better, there’s an empowerment angle that’s enticing too. What used to be the preserve of government institutions with exclusive access to satellite data is now available to anyone with a flying camera and a software program. So a community in the Amazon, for example, is now able to generate their own reports on logging practices without waiting for official reports, which might well be in the pocket of the timber industry. 

And all that using a tiny camera with wings… and a laptop.

When I spoke to Sonja, I asked her, “Why the non-profit angle?” This is obviously hot tech and, no doubt, a lucrative sector. Without hesitating, Sonja said, “The commercial sector’s covered. Basically everyone’s onto it and the tech is looking after itself. What concerns us is those who are left behind.”

She had me at “those who are left behind”. Because beyond “merely” providing translations, the truly global community that makes up ProZ Pro Bono (which extends from Somalia to Sumatra and from Thailand to Togo, as well as all stations in between) is also on a mission, in its own small way, to make the world a more equitable place. And as Director of ProZ Pro Bono, I’m delighted to be on board. 

You use drone technology, we use language technology, but we’re all flying high and heading towards the same goal. 

Andrew Morris (andrew@prozprobono.world)