OOONA launches The POOOL for audiovisual translation professionals

A new online facility named The POOOL has been launched by OOONA to link service providers and individuals with AV translators experienced in specific fields and language pairs. OOONA provides translation, subtitling, management and captioning tools for the media localisation industry. The POOOL is a directory of professionals offering services such as subtitling, closed captioning, audio description, linguistic and technical quality control, metadata translation, spotting, transcription and postproduction editing, a key element of which is AVT Pro Certification, which will be a professional qualification recognised and accepted by the localisation industry as a badge of quality and competence.

“We are establishing The POOOL in response to the rapidly increasing demand for media content localisation resources,” commented OOONA CEO, Wayne Garb. “A so-called ‘talent crunch’ is evident right across the media industry, accelerated by the ever-growing popularity of video-on-demand services. An industry-specific web portal is essential if you are trying to find media-savvy professionals with the right experience in translating audiovisual productions between specific languages. The POOOL is configured to be that portal. We have always made a point of being attentive to the needs of the AVT industry at every level and will be especially so in ensuring this venture achieves worldwide recognition.”

The company has been developing The POOOL in cooperation with some of the world-leading specialists representing all the stakeholders in media localisation, including LSPs, translators’ associations, localisation professionals and academia.

“The increasing popularity of video-on-demand viewing, combined with the globalisation strategy driving the fast development of most OTT providers, has led to a vast increase in the volume of translation and access services needed to operate successfully in such a competitive mediascape,” added Jorge Díaz Cintas, professor of translation at University College, London. "The POOOL looks set to become a really useful online hub for AVT specialists, allowing interested parties to identify and contact professionals with the necessary experience in terms of language combination, education, specific skills and location. In terms of AVT Pro Certification, the time is certainly ripe to establish such accreditation. I am delighted to be part of the discussions which have now been initiated and am confident that this joint effort will yield fruitful results in the very near future.”