Kudo
Certificates issued online
(May 28, 2020)

Yes, we got these too. Our employer had no choice but to switch to virtual training, during the pandemic, and so my wife and I had to get these certificates for that purpose as well.

Getting the certificates is actually very easy; you just have to go through the basic explanation of how the Kudo platform works. The real problem is getting your client to pay for access to the Kudo platform, which is very expensive, I hear.

Online live interpretation has become common place and far easier and cheaper to implement than it used to be twenty years ago.

For us, interpreters, however, not much has changed in the realm of video conferencing. The challenges with this mode of interpretation remain pretty much the same, after two decades, despite the many technical improvements to sound equipment, computers, and bandwidth.

As interpreters, even if all goes well, in terms of bandwidth and signal quality, we are still left to contend with poor choice of microphone type and placement, as most people will simply use their laptop’s built-in microphone and speak from a meter away. Yes, after all this time, we are, still, far more likely to be hearing fan noise and dog barks, during a videoconference, than the actual voice of the presenter.

But Kudo is a well-thought-out software platform and, clearly, the people behind this idea are experienced simultaneous interpreters or have been around them long enough to truly understand our needs. The people at Kudo are constantly pushing for the use of headsets with built in microphones, which is a simple enough solution—we just have to wait until it catches on… [long sigh of patient wait…]

There are a few, tiny, minor things I would change or add to Kudo here and there, but, trust me, it is, by far, the best system I have used for remote interpretation. Kudos to you, Kudo! (I bet no one ever thought of that before!).

Back in the early 2000’s or late 1990’s—I really can’t remember—Marisú and I were hired by a transnational telecommunications company, in El Salvador, for a videoconference in which Peter Drucker or John Naisbitt (or maybe both) were expected to appear. The event was set to be massive. All adjoining ballrooms of the chosen hotel had been turned into a single massive hall in order to accommodate the waves of eager spectators that started to show up from very early in the morning. There, all the way in the back, behind the endless, uniform rows of standard chairs, was our tiny interpretation booth, with Marisú and I in it. We were anxiously waiting for the show to begin, but, sadly, it never did. Instead, the corporate head stood in front of the crowd and apologized because they had not been able to establish the connection—Déjà-vu much, anyone? Luckily, our clients were very honorable and they did pay us for the full session, although it never came to be held.