Speakeasy: Down with the language barrier!

The fish is looking for where it is deeper, and the man - where it is better. Nowadays, when the borders between civilized states are becoming more transparent, many people think about trying to reach their potential in other countries. Someone this way is easy, someone does not, but everyone, I think, will agree that the main difficulty that confronts visitors abroad is the language barrier.

Of course, having arrived in New York or London with serious intentions, you can always find former compatriots, or even an entire community of “our own,” ready to help with advice and deed. But if you go to a smaller city, or for some other reason, at a critical moment you simply have no one to turn to, even the most harmless trifle can cause you serious problems.

For countries with traditionally soft immigration policies, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, the issue of slow assimilation of newly arrived residents is becoming more serious every year. It is not at all necessary for the state that visiting people settle in areas where the population speaks their native language, completely ignoring local orders and traditions. This creates problems both economically and socially.

And now, after watching this situation in Boston’s Chinatown, the urban organization Asian Community Development , represented by Jeremy Liu with the help of TIT Hirsch of MIT Media Lab, developed and implemented the Speakeasy project, applying not only the most modern technology, but also the latest trends of the “social revolution”, calling on volunteers to do the most important part of the work.
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As part of the pilot phase of the project, which took place in the fall of 2004, about 250 residents of Boston Chinatown experienced a simple pattern of operation of the mechanism, the “gears” of which are the users themselves, and the “lubricant” between them is the equipment for VoIP and mobile communications. Everyone who needs to get a quick explanation about the work of state services or any other issue that is almost impossible to understand without knowing the language and nuances of local life, simply contacted by cell phone the call center Speakeasy, where it was connected to a volunteer who had previously declared his readiness help people as much as they can. If he could not help, the call was forwarded to another person, and so on.

The use of Voice over IP technology has reduced the cost of maintaining the service to a minimum, although they are already small due to the lack of need to maintain a staff of consultants whose role is played by ordinary people on a voluntary basis.

The project received a generous investment from the mobile operator Cingular and won a prize at the Ideas Contest held by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As the developers promise, from the New Year, it will begin to operate in working mode and will begin its march across the planet. They also hint that applications for its implementation in other cities are already enough to be completely confident in its successful future.