Meedan

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Meedan is a global technology not-for-profit that builds software and programmatic initiatives to strengthen journalism, digital literacy, and accessibility of information. Meedan builds Check, an open-source software platform for fact-checking and content annotation[1] and runs Health Desk, a service that brings together public health professionals to provide expertise and summaries of challenging public health concepts on-request for journalists, fact-checking organizations, and media outlets.[2] Meedan also runs Check Global, a project to improve digital literacy, community-building and political engagement skills for citizen journalists, activists, journalism students, civil society organizations and human rights defenders[3] and the Digital Health Lab, which focuses on applied research and policy for improving the quality and equity of online health information.[4][5]

Background[]

Meedan was founded by in 2005 and incorporated as a nonprofit charitable organization in 2006. The organization began with the aim of to increase cross-language interaction on the web, with particular emphasis on translation and aggregation services in Arabic and English. Through its use of machine translation (MT), machine augmented translation (MAT), and distributed human translation, Meedan’s goal was to increase dialogue and exchange between Arabic and English speakers primarily by launching a cross-language forum for conversation and media sharing. That service was designed to stand as "a digital gathering place for a linguistically, culturally, and geographically diverse community of Arabic and English speaking Internet users".[6]

Bice, who was formerly Executive Director of , remains CEO with a board comprising , President of , a social media company for , , Chairman and CEO of and a former senior adviser and member of the Board of Directors at the World Bank, and , Senior Human Resources Manager at Procter & Gamble in Cairo, Egypt.

Vision and aims[]

Meedan – whose name means "gathering place" or "town square" in Arabic – sees "dialogue and collaboration" as the key to creating "understanding and tolerance" between the Arab and Western worlds. A fundamental premise of the organization is that social technology on the web can play a part in enabling citizen-to-citizen diplomacy between the peoples of Arab and Western countries, thereby helping to improve cross-cultural understanding. Meedan's vision is thus to "innovate technologies that enable dialogues across linguistic, cultural, and ideological boundaries".[7] The company describes itself as "multi-cultural, non-partisan, non-ideological, and supportive of diverse viewpoints".[8]

Past Projects[]

Meedan.net[]

Launched in 2009, Meedan's first product was a forum for cross-language conversation and media sharing in Arabic and English.[9][10][11] Users could browse aggregated sources around world events – blogs and mainstream sources; opinion and reporting; Arabic and English writing – and help expand the news narrative by posting articles and comments themselves. All sources and comments were mirrored across Arabic and English using a combination of machine and human translation.

Meedan's translation technology was developed in collaboration with The Watson Research Group at IBM with which it entered into a research partnership in 2006. Development had focused on Machine and Machine Augmented Translation tools that enable users to improve translations collaboratively, including IBM's Transbrowser – a browser tool for creating a translation layer on the web.[12]

Bridge[]

In 2015, Meedan built Bridge, a tool for social media translation using a combination of human and machine translation.[13] Translators using the app could follow different topics or users, and when they saw a post they wanted to translate they could tap on it to start a translation. Once they got to the main translation screen, users could call up a machine translation from Bing.

Steering committee[]

Meedan's steering committee was established in October 2008 to serve as a high level advisory panel for the project. Members include: the Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Dr. Ismail Serageldin; Dr Sabri Saidam, minister of telecoms and IT for the Palestinian Authority serving in the ninth Palestinian cabinet; and prominent media personality Muna Abu Sulayman, Executive Director of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, the philanthropic arm of HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal's Kingdom Holding Company.

Funding and research partnerships[]

Meedan's funding partners include

Meedan has received more than $3.2 million in research and development support from IBM to further the development of its Arabic-English Automated Translation technology and to support Meedan’s ongoing work on “a social media sharing platform bridging the Arabic and English speaking communities”. Other technology partners include, dotSUB, , , Carrot Search, and .[15]

In addition, Meedan has a number of social network partners:

References[]

  1. ^ Granger, Jacob. "Check uses automation to improve fact-checking during elections". journalism.co.uk. Mousetrap Media Ltd. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  2. ^ LaRose, Emily; Shroff, Anshu; Huang, Jessica; Gyenes, Nat (2021). "Mobilizing Public Health Professionals to Support Journalists and Fact-Checkers During the Covid-19 Pandemic". Harvard Public Health Review. 33.
  3. ^ Quadri, Sultan. "Student-led outlet fights misinformation, trains young fact-checkers in Nigeria". International Journalists' Network. International Center for Journalists. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  4. ^ Nigeria Health Watch. "Nigeria Health Watch Partners with Meedan to counter Misinformation on COVID-19 in Nigeria". Nigeria Health Watch. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  5. ^ Beckert-McGirr, Pascal; Yan, Eric. "Experts Address Vaccine Hesitancy, Health Misinformation at School of Public Health Event". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  6. ^ "Ideas", http://www.meedan.net[dead link]
  7. ^ "Vision", http://www.meedan.net
  8. ^ "Mission", http://www.meedan.net
  9. ^ Singel, Ryan (21 February 2010). "Site Hopes Automatic Arabic-English Translation Translates into Peace". Wired. Condé Nast. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  10. ^ Block, Melissa (30 April 2010). "Bridging the Online Language Barrier: Translating the Internet". NPR. NPR. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  11. ^ Giles, Jim (12 December 2008). "Learning to Talk". The New York Times Magazine. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  12. ^ Schofield, Jack (22 February 2010). "Meedan puts machine translation into practice". The Guardian. Guardian News & Media. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  13. ^ Lichterman, Joseph (31 August 2015). "Tweeting across borders: With a new mobile app, Meedan is working to improve social media translation". Nieman Lab. Harvard College. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  14. ^ "Partners", http://www.meedan.net
  15. ^ "Partners", http://www.meedan.net

External links[]

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