Zhao Jiamin, 38, knows the importance of bringing information to the masses, and in a digital world filled with online content that is mostly in English, he has found a niche in providing Chinese translations of articles that appear in foreign publications. Born in Anshun, Guizhou province, Zhao founded Dongxi and co-founded Yeeyan, two popular community-translation websites. He talks about how they serve as tools for mainlanders to access a wide range of content from the foreign language press.
How did you become an entrepreneur of community-translation websites?
I received my bachelor's degree at Tsinghua University, and a few years later I completed my postgraduate and PhD studies at the University of Southern California. While I was working as an application engineer with [software and hardware systems company] Oracle in the United States, two friends and I set up a translation blog, in July 2006, posting Chinese articles about entrepreneurship, science and technology translated from English, because there was demand among Chinese readers. Back then, I had never expected it to be a business and to develop like it has today. After a few months, we noticed a growing interest among readers. We created a Web 2.0 site and decided to call it 'Yeeyan' [meaning 'translate the language'] in December 2006. More people joined as translators, and the articles became more comprehensive when the topics expanded to business, society, culture and other areas.
I came back to Beijing in May 2007 and started working with Yeeyan full time as general manager in March 2008. I founded Dongxi in December 2009 after leaving Yeeyan, and we took over Yeeyan this July.
How does the collaborative translation work?
Users recommend, translate and publish articles selected from foreign publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian and the Economist. Other users can discuss, comment, evaluate translations and look for mistakes, akin to quality control. The system and editors archive translators' performances.