Marko Hozjan is the CEO and co-founder of Slovenian company TAIA translations.
Only a few weeks after TAIA translations received a whooping investment of 1,2 million euros we had the opportunity to sit down with Marko Hozjan and talk to him about the company he co-founded.
Marko Hozjan, you are the CEO and co-founder of company TAIA Translations. Could you please tell us a little bit about your company? Where did you get the idea for the company?
TAIA is a product of years of different entrepreneurship projects. Her latest predecessor is a language school (www.jezikovna-akademija.si) where we’ve started to receive first demands for translations. We started translating and even opened a separate company in 2017 as a translation agency. We quickly realized that the sea is bloody, the common denominator for all companies was the price and nothing else. We’ve seen that traditional translation agencies work in old fashioned ways, without the latest technologies and with old business models. And that’s when the idea for TAIA was born. We’ve seen that we can use our tech and business knowledge and build something better.
How does TAIA Translations platform work?
TAIA helps our users by making the whole process easier, faster and more transparent. If I mention only one way – ordering process through our app is easier where a user can upload almost any kind of document (64 file types supported). But he future of translations is in seamless translations where TAIA connects to any kind of system – an ERP, CRM etc. with the API or other integration and enables users to order and receive translations directly within their system.
Who can use the TAIA Translation app? What benefits can your potential clients receive by using TAIA Translations platform? What is the company’s goal for its clients?
TAIA is becoming a one-stop-shop platform for all your translation needs. We’ve seen that companies need different types of translations at different times and don’t want to have dozens of vendors because of it. TAIA is a full-service platform where you can choose your product and quality all from Machine translation to HQ human translations.
TAIA has two goals. One is to make the platform irreplaceable by having everything that you need in one place together with the unique translation products that we offer. The second goal is to offer our clients our tools, so they can translate by themselves much more efficiently.
Could you tell us into how many languages TAIA Translations offer translations to? What types of files does the TAIA Translations support?
We translate to more than 100 languages and rising. TAIA supports 64 file types. From all Office file types to localisation files like .html, .xhtml. .dtd, .json, .yaml, .yml, .xliff, .sdlxliff, .tmx, .ttx, .xlf, .mif, .properties, .resx, .xml. .sxml, .txml, .dita, .strings, .srt, .wix, .po, .g, .ts, image files like .bmp, .png, .gif, .jpeg, .jpg, .tiff or graphic files like .pdf, .idml, .icml.
How is TAIA Translations different from Google Translate? Is it the use of automation and application of deep machine learning technology? Or a personal touch by professional translators ?
TAIA does not compete with GT but has him as a partner. TAIA uses a variety of different Neural networks and combining them to get the best output. Beside that TAIA learns from our own human translators where we (at the moment) translate over 1 M words per month.
Why is translation memory so essential for faster and more efficient translation and how does it actually work?
Translation memory is an older but complementary technology to machine translation. It works by remembering the already translated segments so the translator doesn’t have to translate the same segments over again. It also helps the MT output be better.
How do you think the future of machine learning will change with translation platforms such as TAIA Translations?
Automatization together with Machine translation is already drastically changing the industry and will continue to do so and even with a higher pace. Automated translations and machine translation will continue to gain market share until they become the market leader. At the same time, the translation market is growing 6% annually because of globalisation so the need for translations will increase. This change is proof that TAIA is built for the future need of the market.
Where does Slovenia stand in the field of machine learning and translation memory? How do we compete with other countries?
Unfortunately, Slovenia has only one prominent player in ML regarding languages and that is the Institue of Jožef Štefan. With the new and future fundings, we at TAIA plan to change that.
TAIA Translations recently received an investment of EUR 1.2 million! We would like to congratulate you on that major achievement. How does TAIA translations plan on upgrading your services and features in the future with the investment? Can you reveal any plans?
Majority of the funds will be spent directly on international growth while the rest of the funds will go for development.
TAIA’s upgrades have two streams. One is upgrading the TAIA platform with new features and services and the second are the SaaS products for companies to translate by themselves.
