Remote Interpretation for the MIT’s Scratch Conference

About Scratchlab

ScratchLab is an experimental lab created by the MIT.

They develop new features for Scratch, an educational programming language for children.

The Challenge

In 2022, the MIT’s Scratch Lab hosted the Scratch Conference, an online event made to facilitate networking for educators committed to creative learning and using Scratch as a tool for students around the world.

As a consequence, Scratchlab decided to offer live interpretation in 3 languages

• English
• Spanish
• Portuguese

Additionally, they also offered ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation and captions, in order to improve accessibility.

What We Did

Effortless 3rd party integration

On this occasion, Scratchlab provided their own team of interpreters. Thankfully, Polyplay AV services are flexible and can easily integrate with 3rd party suppliers and partners.
On this project, our mission was to provide the full range of AV services required to deliver the interpreted content to the audience.

Full Remote Interpretation Delivery

We delivered our AV services entirely remotely. To do that, we trained and prepared the team of 3rd-party interpreters to use our online, low-overhead interpretation solution.

This state-of-the-art interpretation backend enabled the interpreters to deliver a high-quality service, comparable to using on-site cabins, minus the logistical implications and for a much lower cost.
Our tool suite also offers remote access for our AV technicians, to monitor the service, tweak audio levels, and communicate with the interpreters.

Captioning services

In addition, we also sourced human captioners from our delivery partners, and we deployed our online captioning solution to deliver the full service as required.

PolyPlay Player

Finally, we used PolyPlay Player to make all interpreted video feeds available to the audience in a single player, in all languages, including captions.
As a result, this allowed participants to easily select their preferred language, with or without captions or sign language, using a simple interface, all in the same player.

This greatly improved the experience for the audience, and saved a considerable amount of time for the organizers. No need to duplicate the event platform’s configuration for each language video feed!

Results

Thanks to our lean, online based interpretation and captioning solutions, we delivered a high-quality service to Scratchlab with reduced costs.
PolyPlay Player added a lot of convenience for the audience as well as the organizers, by making all the content available in one single player.

This contributed to the event’s success and accessibility to a greater audience, to the satisfaction of the client.