Language Tools and Software Officer - CHLS0 at African Development Bank - AfDB

Reference: ADB/18/079
Location: Côte d’Ivoire
Grade: PL6
Position N°: 50089981

Objectives

• Established in 1964, the African Development Bank is the premier pan-African development institution, promoting economic growth and social progress across the continent. There are 80 member states, including 54 in Africa (Regional Member Countries). 
• The Bank’s development agenda is delivering the financial and technical support for transformative projects that will significantly reduce poverty through inclusive and sustainable economic growth. In order to sharply focus the objectives of the Ten Year Strategy (2013 – 2022) and ensure greater developmental impact, five major areas, all of which will accelerate our delivery for Africa, have been identified for scaling up, namely; energy, agro-business, industrialization, integration and improving the quality of life for the people of Africa.

The Complex

• The Vice-Presidency, Human Resources and Corporate Services Complex ensures the delivery of efficient, people-centered, client-oriented, corporate services to guarantee overall institutional effectiveness in all aspects of the Bank’s corporate services.
• The Complex leads efforts to ensure the competitiveness of the Bank as the employer of choice and is responsible for providing leadership in the formulation and implementation of Bank’s people, IT, general services and institutional procurements, language services, business continuity, and health and safety strategies.

The Hiring Department/Division

• The primary role of the Language Services Department is to ensure, as required by the Bank's Agreement, the accessibility in the two working languages of the Bank (English and French, and on occasion Arabic and Portuguese) of all issues and documents submitted to the Senior Management and governing bodies of the Bank, for efficient decision-making aimed at the achievement of the Bank's mission.
• In this regard, the Department accords high priority to ensuring an accurate and effective flow of communication within the Bank, and also between the Bank, its shareholders, development partners and the public at large, by providing the highest quality of translation, interpretation and terminological services to the Institution.
• The main objective of the Language Tools and Software Officer is to assist the Department in boosting language services by leveraging IT, keeping abreast of technological advances, collecting and analyzing CAT Tools data for benchmarking purposes, conducting surveys on the quality and efficiency of language tools and services.

The Position

• Under the general supervision of the Director, the Language Tools and Software Officer helps the Department deliver its mandate by optimizing the use of Computer-aided Translation Tools and artificial intelligence in the provision of language services at the African Development Bank.

Duties and Responsibilities
The Language Tools and Software Officer will:

• Contribute to the Language Services Department’s mandate, by leveraging technologies in translation, editing and interpretation activities;
• Keep abreast of developments in computational linguistics;
• Work in close collaboration with the Bank’s IT Team to develop, design, fine-tune or acquire language tools that are relevant to the Bank’s activities;
• Conduct surveys to determine the need, relevance and cost-effectiveness of CAT Tools in the provision of language services in the Bank;
• Design initiatives aimed at reengineering business processes through the deployment of language tools;
• Produce periodic reports on the development, quality, productivity and use of IT Tools in terms of value for money;
• Monitor the trends of CAT tools and make recommendations to the Department on the way forward;
• Carry out related research, including consulting sister institutions, language tools designers and developers in the industry;
• Generate data from CAT Tools (Multitrans, Workflow, Interpretation Scheduler, SDL Trados) and periodically report on their use and efficiency;
• Drive automation, through stepping up the deployment and efficient use of translation, editing and interpretation software, ensuring it complies with Sophos standards;
• Liaise with business owners to agree on deliverables and key expectations in their respective areas;
• Drive innovation, by exploring cutting edge technology in Machine Translation and Remote Interpretation;
• Liaise with IT Department to ensure that business continuity arrangements and back-up systems related to language tools are fully reliable;
• Designing Toolkits to promote and facilitate the use and optimization of language tools;
• Operate computer assisted translation (CAT) tools to improve efficiency.

Selection Criteria
Including desirable skills, knowledge and experience:

• At least a Master's degree in translation/computer science or a closely related discipline.
• A minimum of four (4) years of practical experience in the use and deployment of language tools, with particular emphasis on Computer-aided translation tools.
• Sound knowledge of language tools and emerging trends in the industry
• Capacity to analyze such trends and make recommendations on the way forward.
• Capacity to adjust rapidly to a complex multicultural environment.
• Ability to fit into a multilingual team and maintain seamless working relationships.
• Ability to manage multiple projects under pressure and remain professional
• Capacity to work with the Bank’s IT Team with a view to maintaining and setting up tools for language services
• Ability to follow up developments in CAT Tools and artificial intelligence linked to language services
• Ability to communicate excellently (written and oral) in English and French.