Microsoft and the Indian Translators’ Community : Forging Relationships The upcoming Indian Translators Meet aims at being a point of convergence for a class of professionals that has gained currency in recent history – the members of the Indian translators’ community. The Indian Translators Meet aims to bring to the forefront the economic relevance of this industry and to propagate a forum for language professionals to interact and support each other. Microsoft Bhashaindia, has recognized the potential and the requirements of this growing industry and places its support behind this venture. Vishal Dakoliya, Microsoft’s representative for the Meet, says “Microsoft Office Hindi will find great significance in the translation industry. Microsoft Office Hindi comes equipped with a Dictionary feature that would ease the translation of Hindi phrases and synonyms to English and vice versa. Also, the Office package comes with a variety of input tools to enable work in several languages. These tools will provide a tremendous amount of support to the efforts of translators in India”. The convener of the Indian Translators Meet 2005, Mr. Ravi Kumar, is a consummate linguistics professional with more than eight years of experience in translation, interpretation, foreign language teaching and trade book publication. While stressing on the immediate goals for the Meet would be the development of a forum for translation professionals, he also states the importance of the involvement of technology in the further expansion of this community as an economic force. He says, “Technology is a very important feature in the work of a translator. The basic tool used by most translators is Microsoft Word. Microsoft has led the technology in this with their localization initiative, Bhashaindia. We look forward to Microsoft Bhashaindia to carry forward their localization drive and develop more tools to assist us in our line of work”. To showcase the current possibilities of technology in the multilingual environment that inhabits the translation industry and Microsoft’s commitment to assisting the development of linguistic localization, Mr. Dakoliya will be outlining Microsoft’s localization initiatives in the field of Indian languages and will provide a demonstration of Microsoft Office 2003 Hindi with its array of multilingual features and tools at the Indian Translators Meet 2005, scheduled to be held on the 17th of September this year. With the powers of Indian computing added to the capabilities of the Indian translation industry, the Meet promises to be an important milestone towards the recognition and growth of this sector towards the fullest of its capacities. Indian Translators Meet 2005 Issues Ahead of The Indian Translators Meet 2005