First off, Happy New Year to all of you who’ve been a part of this journey so far.

KUDO is now officially in its second year, after a successful product launch in mid-2017. We thought we’d do a quick recap of last year’s many accomplishments and offer you a glimpse of the path we have mapped out for 2018.

The first half of 2017 was dedicated to product development and fine-tuning, to make sure we would bring a mature product to market and back it up with the necessary support materials, on and off-line. Our team of developers worked diligently in testing every feature in KUDO, while our Marketing and Communication teams put together a killer website with ample resources and a thorough review of KUDO’s feature-rich platform.

Success Stories

After a few mock events, KUDO made its commercial debut on August 14-16 with the successful interpretation and multilingual streaming of a regional conference of ITU — the oldest specialized agency of the United Nations. The meetings were interpreted remotely in Portuguese, English and Spanish.

Soon thereafter, KUDO helped Telebras attract investors through an international Roadshow, with meetings in Sao Paulo, London, New York and Brasilia, over a period of two months, as part of the promotion of their new geostationary satellite. Another resounding success story.

By November, interactive online demos were in full swing, with more clients and partners signing up as a result. These multilingual demonstrations are a truly interactive experience, allowing you to test the system for yourself and review KUDO’s many features. If you haven’t participated in one yet, be sure to register for the next one.

Another important concern in the first year was to reassure the interpreting community — and the individual interpreters — of KUDO’s responsible work ethics and the value it places on interpreters as key partners in our business model. A video message by KUDO’s VP of Communication — former chief interpreter in the United Nations system — acknowledged the interpreters’ justifiable concerns and shared news of all that we are doing to protect their reputation. It also emphasized the importance KUDO assigns to safeguarding the ideal working conditions the interpreting profession has fought so hard to establish. And it finally shows how KUDO intends to give interpreters the credit and visibility they deserve. Incidentally, demos specifically tailored to interpreters are also being offered on a bi-weekly basis.

The First Award and the First KUDO Studio

We were also proud to have sponsored breakthrough events such as ConVTI and the NTIF’s Interpreting Technology Challenge, in Helsinki, where KUDO was awarded “Most Versatile Solution“.

And just two weeks before Christmas, the first KUDO Studio opened in Washington DC, offering a centralized location, where interpreters can work comfortably and professionally, with a dedicated support team on stand-by to ensure interpreters can work in teams and do the stellar job we’ve come to expect from them. We’re now working hard to expand our network of KUDO Studios nationally and internationally through partners. Contact us today to learn how you, too, could set up your own studio and service meetings all over the world.

That was 2017 in a nutshell. An exciting foundation year that allowed us to take a mature, feature-rich product to market.

And just two days into the new year, we’re proceeding at full throttle to make KUDO even better. Version 2.0 is being polished for release in early February. The new KUDO will offer full multilingual support to web conferences where every participant can speak, make presentations and share their screens. We are also finalizing an onboarding process for interpreters who would like to become KUDO-certified interpreters. You will hear all about it in the next weeks.

To make sure you stay up-to-date, please follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. We’ll keep you posted on our new developments, upgrades and special events.

We’re very proud of our accomplishments so far. We thank those who’ve been with us on this journey so far and greet those that will join the ride in 2018.