Babelverse to launch on stage at LeWeb conference

Babelverse is one of the 16 startups participating in LeWeb’11 Startup Competition, after being selected out of more than 600 applications, by both a jury and a round of online voting.

16 NOVEMBER 2011, SANTIAGO, CHILE
Summary
After several months of development, the Babelverse team has reached a major milestone in their globally spanning start-up pursuit. Mayel de Borniol (French) and Josef Dunne (British) will officially launch their company on stage at the prestigious LeWeb Conference, after being selected out of more than 600 applications, by both a jury and a round of online voting.

Babelverse is the first application for real-time voice translation, powered by a global community of human interpreters. Anybody can use it to obtain on-the-spot interpretation, in any language. It creates a new source of income for multilingual speakers all over the world.

LeWeb is the #1 tech conference in Europe, boasting the most diverse international audience worldwide (60 countries at last count). It brings together 3000 of  the most influential people in the Internet ecosystem. It all happens in Paris from the 7-9th December 2011.

The Startup Competition will honour startups creating state-of-the-art apps and products for the Social/Local/Mobile marketplace, to find the most exciting and innovative ideas.

Mayel says that ”having lived abroad for several years, most recently in Greece and then Chile, it’s nice to return to Paris and show what I have been building. Babelverse is aiming to be a truly global company, and so we feel that LeWeb is the perfect place to launch our product to the world.”

During LeWeb'11 the public will be able to vote for the start-up that they love the most, the winner being honoured on the plenary stage as "the people's choice award", presented by Google. A jury composed of industry experts will also present awards to the top 3 start-up competition winners.

“I am looking forward to being back in Europe, a continent of multiple languages,” adds Josef. “Being a native English speaker who lives abroad, I experience many people trying to use English as the de-facto language, but this unfortunately lowers the quality of communication. We want to enable everyone to understand one another while each speaking in their native language.”

The Babelverse team has been based in South America for the last 4 months, where it is participating in the Start-Up Chile programme, a government initiative that seeks to attract world-class early stage entrepreneurs to spend 6 months in Chile to start their businesses, using it as a platform to go global. The end goal of the accelerator is to convert Chile into the definitive innovation and entrepreneurial hub of Latin America.

Quotes
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart." Nelson Mandela
Videos
About Babelverse

Babelverse is the first application for real-time voice translation, powered by a global community of human interpreters.

  • Anybody can use it to obtain on-the-spot interpretation, in any language.
  • It creates a new source of income for multilingual speakers all over the world.