>> Jen Schuck: Hello, and thank you for joining us today.
Today, we are going to get to know
our Director, Łukasz Dutka,
a little bit better.
Łukasz, thank you for taking the time
today to tell us a little bit about yourself.
Can you tell us how long you've been in
this business, what method you use,
and why you became a captioner --
or however it is you refer to it
in your part of the world?
>> Łukasz Dutka:  Hello there.  Hello, Jen.
Thank you for having me.
And hello to everybody who's watching us.
I'm from Poland.
I work and I'm based in the capital city
of Poland -- that is Warsaw --
that's in central Europe.
And I started working as a live captioner
or actually I call myself here
a live subtitler.
So I started working as a live subtitler
eight years ago.
At that time, we didn't have any providers
of live subtitling for our language.
And one of the reasons why was that
there were no steno machines.
So we don't have steno machines
developed for our language,
as is the case for many languages.
So the first method that we found that
was actually working, and allowed us to
create live captions, was what we call
respeaking or voice writing.
So using speech recognition,
as many professionals do in the United States.
So we stumbled upon this method, and
we started experimenting with using
speech recognition.
And I started to get trained as one of
the first respeakers, or voice writers,
in the country.
So that's more or less how I started.
And I got into live captioning because before
I worked as a subtitler, or captioner,
creating post-production captioning.
>> Jen Schuck:  So you are well-rounded in all facets
of the business, both post-production
as well as live translation.
Do you do subtitling in any other languages,
other than your native language?
>> Łukasz Dutka:  Sure.
The thing that we have to say about
Europe, that when you look at the
United States, there are many languages,
but surely the main language,
the one most widely used, is English.
When you look at Europe, you think
what is the main language?
The answer is that the main language of
Europe is translation.
So we work a lot between different languages.
I have a degree in English and Spanish.
And I also know some Portuguese, Italian.
And I often work with subtitles,
either translating from Spanish or English
into Polish.
But I also do it the other way around,
so I would create subtitles in English
for Polish content, or subtitles
in Spanish for Polish content.
And that's very typical for people to work
in a number of languages in this way,
creating subtitles that we call
interlingual subtitles,
because there's a switch in the language.
>> Jen Schuck:  I find that very fascinating.
And it also makes my brain hurt
just a little bit thinking about it (laughing).
Switching gears a little bit,
can you tell us why did you want to be
on the Board of the Global Alliance?
>> Łukasz Dutka:  So one of the first things I want to
mention is that whereas we both do here
in Europe and the colleagues in the
United States or Canada, we both have
very similar challenges and very similar needs.
But very often the practices,
the professional practices,
or the software that we use,
or the workflow that we have,
very often differs significantly.
So you would think that in a globalized world,
everything everywhere is the same.
But that's not true.
And it's certainly not true
when it comes to live captioning.
So the practices differ greatly.
Things are done differently in European
countries versus in the USA or Canada.
So one of my -- one of the reasons why
I got so interested when I learned of the
existence of the Global Alliance,
was that I wanted to learn more.
I wanted to connect with colleagues
from other countries.
And the Global Alliance, of course,
being a global organization, but it's an
organization that was born in the
United States, and it has a lot of colleagues
from there.
So it was a great opportunity
to connect with them.
And to learn more, and also to
work together to promote captioning.
>> Jen Schuck:  Yes, as you had indicated and the reason
why you went into this profession,
was because there weren't enough
subtitlers in your country.
And I would say that is true around the world.
So we absolutely need to promote this profession.
Because as we have said often,
hearing loss has no boundary.
So it doesn't matter what country
you are in, there is captioning or
subtitling that is definitely needed.
What would you like to see the
Global Alliance accomplish in the next year?
>> Łukasz Dutka:  That's a very good question.
So when I'm thinking about the projects
I'm most excited about, one such project
would be certification.
So now the Global Alliance is looking
into creating a certification process
for live captioners.
Certification that would be
method-agnostic.
So as you rightly pointed out,
it doesn't matter where you're based,
in which country you live,
because hearing loss knows no borders.
But also, it doesn't really matter which
particular method we're using, as long
as we are able to respond to these needs
that people with hearing loss have.
Whatever method you use is good as
long as it serves its purpose and
delivers good quality to the client,
to your customer, to the person
who needs this service.
And there is so far, there's no such
certification anywhere in the world
that would be method-agnostic.
So that's something that's very
important and I'm very excited about
working on this.
And as you said, I got into
live captioning because for my language,
there weren't enough professionals available.
And we still need more.
And one of the challenges is how do you
attract people who want to invest in training,
who want to devote the time
and become trained.
Very often, those people are a bit afraid,
"Will I then have work?"
"Will I be able to reach customers?"
And having a certification process that
allows you to test your skills and
become confident yourself that
you're delivering a good service.
But also, once you're certified,
it's something you can show to your
potential clients, and that shows that
you're really a good professional.
And it's also important for those clients
to have a way of making sure
that somebody they are hiring,
that this person is a professional
and will deliver a good service.
So certification is certainly missing.
There are maybe some certificates
available in some areas.
You can take some exams.
But these are very -- they are limited
to only certain areas or only to certain methods.
So creating a method-agnostic
certification is certainly a revolution,
and it's long overdue.
>> Jen Schuck:  I don't think I could have said it
any better if I tried.
So I love that we are creating a revolution.
So I think I would put that in the category
of one of the strengths of the
Global Alliance, of creating that
method-agnostic certification going forward.
What would you say are some of the
weaknesses of the Global Alliance?
And maybe a call to action that would
help us resolve those weaknesses?
>> Łukasz Dutka:  Sure.
But first, I think I need to mention
one more strength -- that the
Global Alliance is full of really great
professionals and passionate captioners
who are looking for ways to make a difference.
And that's something --
that's a very nice group to be together with.
You asked me about weaknesses.
When I think of some of the weaknesses
of the Global Alliance, I can maybe
think of one thing, is that we need --
to do the work that we need to do,
we need more resources, and we need
to have more people on board.
So whoever is watching us or listening
to us or reading us now, please join the
Global Alliance of Speech-to-Text Captioning.
Do it now, because together with you,
we will be able to achieve more.
>> Jen Schuck:  Yes, absolutely, manpower is required.
We have a lot of goals.
And we intend on reaching those goals,
but we need more manpower to be able
to do that.
Well, I so appreciate you taking the time
today, which is morning for me,
but evening for you.
And we are thrilled to have you as
a Director on our Board, and
looking forward to working with you
in the future, creating this certification,
and empowering consumers to make the
right decision when it comes to deciding on
which captioning services they need
for their particular event or whatever their
scenario may be where they need accessibility.
So thank you, again.
We thank you for your time
and your effort on the Board,
and we're glad that you're with us.
>> Łukasz Dutka:  Thank you, Jen, and see you soon.
>> Jen Schuck:  Thanks.