By Steve Ragan Apr 3, 2007, 14:30 GMT
IBM earned a golden halo today, when they announced that they are going to give $45 million worth of translation technology to the United States government, after one engineer’s story about his son made it all the way to IBM’s CEO Samuel Palmisano. The story from the IBM engineer as reported on several news wires is that his son while serving in Iraq was hurt and lost both his legs. Palmisano was moved by this story, so moved he wrote George W. Bush.
In the letter, Palmisano stated, “IBM employees returning from service with the U.S. military in Iraq have consistently emphasized two points: the importance of communicating with the Iraqi people and the operational challenges posed by the need to do so. Although in many instances human translators are essential, we also believe that there are technological solutions to help mitigate the problem.”
IBM is set to provide one-thousand automatic two-way translation devices and ten-thousand copies of the software for future use. The systems can recognize and instantly translate over fifty-thousand words in English, and one-hundred thousand words in Iraqi Arabic. The devices are designed to civic use such as training and medical work.
Code-named MASTOR (Multilingual Automatic Speech Translator) the devices are critical in the effort to improve communication and understanding between Iraqi and English speaking people. The lack of understanding of Iraqi Arabic is a major concern among military personnel and their families in Iraq. The issue was recently addressed in the Iraqi Study Group report, which highlighted the importance of better communication and recommended this issue be given the highest possible priority.
“The government sincerely appreciates IBM's efforts in offering this donation," said Admiral Edmund Giambastiani, Vice Chair of Joint Chiefs of Staff. "This type of technology can help to improve communication for U.S. and coalition personnel with Iraqi citizens and aid organizations serving in Iraq."
There are fewer than twenty commercial translation systems currently available globally. Yet the need for cross-language communication has never been more urgent. However, while the gift is indeed special it has not yet been accepted. While Giambastiani said he appreciated the donation, his spokesman, Lt. Col. Gary Tallman, told the Associated Press, "the offer is under evaluation right now" and "does not constitute acceptance" by the Department of Defense. Part of the evaluation is to determine a proper legal way for acceptance.
In fact, there is an entire legal team pouring over records and laws to see if indeed the US can accept such a large gift, even if it is a freebie. If the books are clean, IBM just made the largest donation of any military contractor. It is very rare that a defense contractor as large as IBM is gives anything away, not when there are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.
With that said IBM is known for its charity work, providing technology and services to aid humanitarian relief efforts including Hurricane Katrina, the Southeast Asia tsunami, the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks, and the Pakistan earthquake in 2005. IBM has also in the past sent their Global Crisis Response Team to support governments around the world in managing relief efforts and multiple resource teams by deploying IT based solutions.
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