About
The Translation Initiative aims to support a more inclusive community, where language is a bridge and not a barrier. Our goal is to create a shared vocabulary concerning iGEM and synthetic biology that is translated into different languages. By creating multilingual content, we’re trying to overcome the barrier of a single language and make our field and community accessible to more people. We started our work by creating a glossary of synthetic biology terms and, in the future, we hope to create multilingual videos and written content introducing iGEM and Synthetic Biology concepts.
How do you say (write) synthetic biology in your language? Answer our poll and help us create an amazing Word Cloud! Answer poll.
From synthetic biology to biología sintética, biologie synthétique, and 合成生物学: a shared iGEM vocabulary
SynBio Glossary
The SynBio glossary was originally developed as a keyword database in order to homogenize the terminology used in synthetic biology. The base for the glossary was gathered over the Risk Workshops, and it was expanded considering more glossaries available in English and in different languages. The Synbio Glossary is being gathered in the Airtable platform. The Current languages available are: English (base), Français, Español, 中文, Português, Italiano and Deutsch. You can use the filter tool to search for a specific word and find its definition and translation to different languages.
Contact
We want to expand our glossary, adding even more languages. If you want to help us and translate the terms into your own language, please contact us at openscience@igem.org
References
The terms and definitions in English were based on several glossaries, the references are listed below:
Contributors
The translations were done using the Google Translate tool, followed by the review of at least two native (or fluent) speakers of the target language. The contributors are listed below. The SynBio Glossary wouldn't be possible without them!
- French: Melody Dupré (France)
- Spanish: Diego Alberto Rosas Gomez (México), Estefany Sofia Sánchez Martínez (México)
- Mandarin: Heng (Annika) Shi
- Portuguese: Cibele Zolnier (Brasil)
- Italian: Gerardo Cendejas Mendoza
- German: Gilberto Mendoza (México), Kerstin Richter (Germany)
- Hindi: Tejas Borkar (India)
- Marathi: Tejas Borkar (India)
Collaborations
ORIgin Project
The ORIgin Project is a database for multilingual synbio learning content. We aggregate resources from various channels of different languages on the Internet, including videos, MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), curriculum, articles, etc.
Values & Risks Workshops
We helped with the translation of the Values and Risks Workshops to French, Mandarin and Spanish. These are three UN official languages and are widely spoken in the iGEM community, so they seemed like good targets to begin our multilingual journey. We hope that these new languages encourage thinking on safety and security that we’d otherwise have missed.
We presented the Translation Initiative at the 2021 iGEM Community Kick-off Event. In our video, we explain how scientific information is still shared only in English, and the importance of creating content in different languages. Watch our video às we start our journey “Engineering a Common (Synbio) Language”.
Disclaimer
The Glossary was built using crowdsourced translation and might present mistakes. We are currently organizing a peer-review process with experts in synbio from different languages to evaluate the translations. In the meantime, we appreciate feedback and suggestions for improvement, just send us an email at openscience@igem.org