Astha Srivastav

Ant networks have recently gained popularity not only due to the fact that they are as complex as the internet and had evolved much earlier but also because they are simple yet complex.

As shown by the "Anternet", ants have used a method similar to Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) since years before the internet even came into being. Using phermone trails which are left behind by returning forager ants, the outgoing forager ants start going out depending upon the incoming rates and both are positively related. It does not require as much communication but just the number of ants coming in, to convey how far the food is, the quantity of food present etc.
This in turn helps the outgoing ants to get an idea of the shortest path and also of the food source and whether it would be worthwhile to take up the task or if it should be abandoned altogether. If the ants which have gone out do not come back within a certain period of time then no more ants are sent out.

As translators we should be able to use our own skills in a way that we may be able to communicate the right information with the minimum amount of unnecessary transmissions. This would help us not only in being more precise as we translate or interpret but to also do so in a manner which is crisp and to the point. Further it would teach one how to do better team work when the information which is being passed from one person to the next is correct and can be verified in an easy manner. If the task is
not worth the effort being put in, in a more practical situation, if there are more losses than profit, then it should be abandoned by the team.

In an ant network, the process of finding and locating the best source of food is not centralised but depends upon the individuals, however, the individulas themselves may not amount to much but when it is in a collaborative system, they may be able to perform feats such as the building of such complex networks. In a company, an individual is nothing but a part of the whole, therefore, it [the company] can only become a proper working system if the individuals work in harmony and are able to give their best for the growth of the industry. If this cannot be achieved and there is a breakage in the network, then the company too, will not be able to function in an optimum manner and would suffer in various ways.

I would like to work and collaborate with Modlingua to form such networks once I have finished this internship course so that we can form a larger community of translators and interpreters who are from various places and speak different languages so that the transfer of information may be easier and more efficient when it is so needed. I hope that this network will help in a clear dissemination of the information which is restricted to a few individuals due to broken or incomplete networks.

Writer Astha Srivastava is Japanese and English Language and Translation Intern at Modlingua, India's No1. certified translation and Language service providers based in New Delhi