Last week, we offered our congratulations to Dmitry Kornyukhov, the winner of TermWiki.com’s most recent contest. Aside from rallying up his fans, working on translation projects, and helping build TermWiki’s database of terms, Dmitry was also kind enough to spend some time with us answering a few questions for our curious readers. Read on for some insightful thoughts from our TermWiki iPad 2 winner, Dmitry Kornyukhov!

Beginning earlier this summer, TermWiki has been promoting the iPad2 contest to encourage users to take a more proactive role in building and strengthening the TermWiki community. With the TermWiki iPad2 contest officially coming to a close today, congratulations are in order:

Although localization services and solutions extend across borders, languages, and industries, one of the most surprising things about localization is that it still remains a rather mysterious industry. If you are ashamed to admit confusion about what exactly the localization industry entails, take comfort in the fact that you’re not alone (and that there are resources out there to find out more—for some localicious examples, see here, here, and here).

This is quite shocking considering that the market research firm Common Sense Advisory predicts that this $26 billion market will continue to rise, reaching $38 billion by 2015. With such growth amidst a turbulent global economic climate, even students are showing a growing interest in localization. Already in schools across the globe there is an increased focus on foreign language studies, translation, and language services. Students who are interested in learning how to competently help businesses achieve international success should consider a career in localization.

This summer, the University of Washington announced one of their newest certificate programs in localization, offered by the Professional & Continuing Education school. The three-course, nine-month program offers flexible options for students interested in enrolling—classes are available in the evening and online, in addition to a traditional classroom setting. The course covers:

The TermWiki bee has been busily buzzing around this summer, working hard to provide users with new and improved additions to the world’s fastest growing social learning network. Below is a recap of what’s new at TermWiki:

1. TermWiki speaks with the pronunciation feature available in 20 languages

As a social learning network, one TermWiki’s long-terms goals is to provide users with access to a variety of learning tools. We understand that everyone has different approaches to learning and work hard to demonstrate our understanding of this. The pronunciation feature offers additional support to learners by allowing users to hear how a term is pronounce in twenty different languages, including major world languages, such as English, French, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, German, and Japanese.

2. The Wall is a one-stop shop that makes it easy for users to see all of the latest updates on TermWiki.

Recent visitors to TermWiki may have noticed the website’s welcome page was recently restructured to include the TermWiki Wall. The Wall allows visitors to see the latest updates to the site via a real-time feed, including term and translation contributions, new questions or answers to AnswerBea, the latest forum post, announcements, new additions to the community, etc.

As promised, check out the photos below for a snapshot of the various events that took place during our 2011 World Operations Summit from earlier this month! Since 2004, CSOFT has held an annual operations summit with a different theme, though the purpose has remained consistent: to take part in discussions, engage in learning, and align ourselves with CSOFT’s goals as a quality-driven language service provider. The themes throughout the years have ranges from Accelerating for Growth to Cultivating an Innovative Culture and Passion for Excellence. This year’s theme, A Whole New World, was not only accompanied by song (with North American representation!), but also by the belief that CSOFT is paving a new road to unparalleled innovation and progression within the localization industry.

It was indeed quite the localization extravaganza, and we’re very happy to share it with you all! (Click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

In keeping with CSOFT tradition, at the end of last week’s World Localization Summit our President and CEO, Ms. Shunee Yee, hosted a Friday Night Party for all of CSOFT’s internal and extended team members, some clients, friends, as well as localization industry experts. Before wine bottles were uncorked and the festivities began, we were all treated to the inaugural CSOFT International Symphony, which was a concert personally hosted by Shunee for all of her friends and colleagues.

The pieces chosen for the concert were all hand-picked around a loose tribute to classical music used in theatre, movies, and television, which made for a pretty interesting mix. And it also made for the best opening sequence to a symphony orchestra ever, which we’ve uploaded to YouTube for your viewing pleasure:

Every year, CSOFT hosts an annual Summit in which we invite our global team of linguists, business development managers, operational experts, clients, and fellow industry experts from around the world to CSOFT’s World Headquarters for a week of learning, sharing, discussion and team-building. It’s an exciting, action-packed week of discussions, presentations, and not a whole lot of sleep!

For CSOFT employees and extended team members, the summit serves two purposes: the first being to further strengthen our bonds as CSOFT members and to remain united in our goals and vision; the second is to better align ourselves with the most recent developments within the industry, in terms of technology, best practices and standards.

It’s funny how a-ha moments strike when you are least expecting it. A fun fact about TermWiki that you might not know is that it was conceived in a downtown bar in Beijing! The live music band that was onstage that night was supposedly playing with such gusto that the beat of the drum and the strums of the guitar were enough to pulsate to life the beginning wisps of what would soon turn into TermWiki.

A few weeks later, the TermWiki concept began unraveling, synthetic bricks being laid down to form the foundation of an idea that would change how countless companies, individuals, and translators from all around the world would approach social learning and terminology management.

It is hard to believe that a year has already gone by. The entire journey has been a great adventure and experience, and the hard work of many around the world made every moment worthwhile. To all of our supporters, contributors, and believers, many thanks…This day goes out to you!

The timeline below will take you through TermWiki’s first year—our achievements, the addition of new features, and the result of ongoing collaboration with all of our supporters.

Our thoughts are with Japan and all its residents right now as they continue to wage against the devastating effects from Friday’s 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami. The anticipated losses of human life, homes, heat, water, electricity, order, and security alongside handling other unforeseen affairs—heavily damaged nuclear plants not the least of them—have been tremendous obstacles for the Japanese government and people to deal with. They are in an extraordinary situation, and our thoughts are with them all.

The hardest hit coastal city was Sendai, about 130 km (80 miles) west of the earthquake epicenter. Tokyo, in comparison, is about 373 km (231 miles) southwest of where the epicenter was. Tremors were felt and buildings shook in the capital city, but the damage was far more intense and widespread in northern Japan. Thousands have perished, with many more injured and displaced. The latest numbers from Japan’s Red Cross unit can be found here.

CSOFT’s Japan office is located in Osaka, about 400 km (250 miles) west of Tokyo. We have been in touch with our two head linguists there, Hiroshi-san and Yutaka-san, who are both safe. Hiroshi-san manages a translation team that works with medical content, supporting our MedL10N division. Yutaka-san’s team handles IT and engineering translations.

The CSOFT family has some BIG news to share with you all: just last Friday we expanded our headquarters into the Central Business District (CBD), right in the heart of Beijing! Bustling with raw, productive energy, dynamic individuals, and reputable businesses committed to progress, the CBD was the next natural step for CSOFT’s next-generation approach to localization services and cutting-edge language technology.

Powered by a state-of-the-art communications infrastructure, our team is fully equipped to provide our valued clientele with faster and better customer service than ever before. In an effort to share our feelings of excitement, festivity, and exhilaration, here are some photos from the big move posted below for your viewing pleasure:

1. Excitement in the air as work finished for the day. 2. People gathering their belongings into boxes. 3. Taking extra care. 4. Workers outside, ready to begin the process. 5. Boxes. 6. More boxes. 7. Boxes galore. 8. A quiet moment, saying farewell.