By Tori Pittman
You may have heard a little bit about Intersteno on social media in the past few months. Intersteno 2015, the 50th Congress, was held in Hungary the week before the NCRA Convention & Expo took place in New York. Several members of NCRA participated, but we would love to have more for Intersteno 2017 in Berlin.
Officially, Intersteno is the International Federation for Information and Communication Processing. As such, it encompasses all manner of information technology, but the court reporting subset is part of a group entitled the Intersteno Parliamentary and Other Reporters Section, or more informally IPRS.
Every two years, Intersteno holds a Congress – like our annual convention – in which members participate in seminars, excursions, networking events, and competitions. The seminars and competitions are usually held in a school of some kind, whether it’s a college or a secondary school. Gala events may or may not have other locales. And excursions could be anything from a walking or cycling tour to a bus tour of the host city or local area.
There are a myriad of competitions, and the competitors range in age from 8 or 9 years old to people in their 60s and older! Team USA mainly competed in audio transcription, speech capturing, and realtime speech capturing. Additional competitions include text production, text correction, professional word processing, and note taking and reporting.
One of our first-time attendees, Clay Frazier, RMR, CRR, of Los Angeles, Calif., said this of his experience: “For seven years, I have been a deposition and arbitration stenographic reporter in California. Having competed in state and national competitions in the United States the last two years, I decided to try my hand at Intersteno. I had the desire to measure my stenographic proficiency and to represent my country in doing so. What I left Budapest with amounts to much more. Keyboardists from other countries were not just eager to share with me their writing systems but also their friendship. The atmosphere of the Intersteno festivities was enjoyable and educational, and I found the beauty of Budapest to be nothing short of breathtaking. I am honored to have been a part of it and look forward to Berlin in 2017.”
If you would like more information about Intersteno, please visit the organization online intersteno.org or intersteno2017.org. There is also a Facebook page for Intersteno as well as discussion groups, including Intersteno USA and IPRS – Intersteno Parliamentary and other Professional Reporters.
We look forward to sharing our Intersteno experiences with you and hopefully inspire you to become part of Team USA for the Internet Competition in spring 2016 and Berlin in the summer of 2017.
Tori Pittman, RDR, CRI, a freelancer in Wake Forest, N.C., also attended the 2015 Intersteno Contest. She is chair of NCRA’s Intersteno Task Force. She can be reached at tori@tori-pittman.com.
