Ranging from skills and training to quality management, and from technologies to promoting the language professions, discussions will put translators in the spotlight and show why they are the key to quality. | Brussels, Belgium + online, 8-10 November 2023
This year’s Translating Europe Forum – the 10th edition – will look into what it takes to achieve excellence in translation. Ranging from skills and training to quality management, and from technologies to promoting the language professions, discussions will put translators in the spotlight and show why they are the key to quality. We will also look back at how the profession has developed over the last 10 years – and what the Forum's role has been on this journey. Naturally the agenda will also include a glimpse into the future.
Programme8 Nov 2023, 14:15 - 18:30 (CET)
DAY 1, Wednesday14:15 - 15:25 (CET)
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION and WELCOME COFFEE15:30 - 15:55 (CET)
OPENING of the conferenceOPENING of the conference by the hosts and
WELCOME by
Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for Budget and Administration, European Commission15:55 - 16:40 (CET)
KEYNOTE SPEECH #1 - AI: Apocalypse imminent? - Katja SchipperheijnA keynote by Katja Schipperheijn. Speech on innovation, AI and LLMs with the right mix of inspiration and provocation to make the audience think about the near and distant future of work and learning with an open mind without seeing change as a threat.
16:40 - 17:40 (CET)
PROMOTING LANGUAGE SERVICES AND THE TRANSLATION PROFESSIONIs translation still an attractive sector for people who want to excel in their profession? How to change the general public’s view that translation is just Google Translate? How to convince customers that there is added value in paying for excellence, using a high-quality translation service? Are linguists still needed or are we looking for different profiles?
Chair: ANNA HOLMÉN (DG Translation, European Commission)
Panellists: EMMA HARTKAMP (Language officer at the EC Representation in the Netherlands)
CATHY WAY (University of Granada, Spain)
CARLOS LA ORDEN TOVAR (Insideloc)
ADRIAN PROBST (Freelanceverse)
17:45 - 18:30 (CET)
ONLINE PRESENTATIONSOnline presentation #1 - Strength in Words: Ukraine's Language Industry
Online presentation #2 - Data management, digital literacy and AI: understanding the way things work
9 Nov 2023, 08:45 - 18:00 (CET)
DAY 2, Thursday08:45 - 09:30 (CET)
NETWORKING COFFEE09:00 - 09:30 (CET)
ONLINE PRESENTATIONSOnline presentation #3 - The sooner the better. Presentation on two DGT’s projects for high-school students
Online presentation #4 - Superpowers with supermodels: Working with large language models for generative AI at DGT to build new services for complex language tasks
Online presentation #5 - The use of Artificial Intelligence for the assessment of live captions: Ner Buddy
09:30 - 09:35 (CET)
OPENING OF THE DAY 2 by the hosts09:35 - 10:25 (CET)
TECHNOLOGY AND CREATIVITY – FRIENDS OR FOES?PANEL DISCUSSION
While language technology undoubtedly increases translators’ productivity, it has a certain impact on quality. And some say it also has substantial effect on inventiveness in translation – setting barriers which make it impossible to be creative. And destroying creativity hampers quality. Also, being imaginative in this way is definitely one area where we, as humans, shine. How can technology and creativity work together? Is the diminishing space for creativity jointly responsible for the “talent-drain” in the language industry? And is the growing share of machine- translated content eventually going to impact the very way humans speak?
Chair: YOTA GEORGAKOPOULOU (LIND Group expert)
Panellists: ALEX HECKER (Pixelogic)
ANA GUERBEROF (University of Groningen, Netherlands)
WALTRAUD KOLB (University of Vienna, Austria)
10:30 - 11:30 (CET)
ATTRACTIVENESS OF THE LANGUAGE INDUSTRY FOR IN-HOUSE AND FREELANCE TRANSLATORSPANEL DISCUSSION
What is the situation on the employment market in the industry and what is the outlook for the near future? Is there really a talent crunch? If so, what can we do about it? How did language service providers evolve with respect to human resources policies or indeed people and culture, to keep a high level of staff motivation and become a good place to work. How can we show the impact of translation and the need for quality translations. What do the various industry surveys say about this? How widespread is the use of the new technologies? What can language service companies of different sizes learn from each other? How do platforms attract freelance translators?
Chair: HEIKE LEINHÄUSER (EUATC, European Union of Associations of Translation Companies)
Panellists: TERRI WHITE (Freelance translator)
other speakers tbc
11:30 - 12:00 (CET)
COFFEE BREAK12:00 - 13:00 (CET)
SKILLS FOR EXCELLENCEPANEL DISCUSSION
What skills must a professional have to make it in the industry today? And in 10 years from now? Are linguistic and translation skills still the most important asset, or should we substantially shift the focus onto mastering the technology? Or even better, how can we marry these two skillsets? How can we remain competitive vis-à-vis machine translation? Is specialisation a way ahead or are marketing skills the way to unlock our full (earnings) potential?
Chair: BRITTA AAGAARD (LIND Group expert)
Panellists: CRISTIAN BRAŞOVEANU (DG Translation, European Commission)
PABLO ROMERO-FRESCO(University Vigo, Spain)
DIEGO CRESCERI (Creative Words)
LISA RÜTH (Lemster Financial Translations)
13:00 - 14:30 (CET)
NETWORKING LUNCH14:30 - 15:15 (CET)
KEYNOTE SPEECH #2 - Everyone has misunderstood AIASKHAN FARDOST, Global speaker on the impact of AI and digitalization on industries, societies & human behavior.
15:15 - 16:00 (CET)
INTERVIEW-STYLE DEBATE ON CHAT GPT AND OTHER AI SYSTEMSNew technologies are changing (translation) jobs. What are the consequences for workers? How can we promote these ‘new’ professions? What are the consequences for workflow. Is the future set for headless management systems? How can new technologies lead to more efficiency – and therefore to increased income? What about ownership of data and ethics issues? How to regulate without hampering progress? And why? Are there any risks of relying on technology too much?
Moderator: ANNA WYNDHAM (Slator)
Panellists:GRY HASSELBALCH (Expert on data and AI ethics and governance)
JAAP VAN DER MEER (Taus)
16:00 - 17:00 (CET)
THE TRANSLATION PROFESSION THROUGH THE YEARSPANEL DISCUSSION
How has the translation and localisation industry developed in the past three decades. Have the workload and working methods changed for better or for worse? Indeed, is it still the same industry? It has been dramatically changed by the technology, but at the same time it has been a pioneer in embracing and using new technologies, such as AI, on a large scale. Does the industry and its labour force have a promising future?
Chair:
CLAUDIO CHIAVETTA (LIND Group expert)
17:15 - 18:00 (CET)
ONLINE PRESENTATIONSOnline presentation #6 - ISO and ASTM standards related to translation
Online presentation #7 - Taking the AI way: Exploring and building new AI-powered prototypes and services at DGT
Online presentation #8 - Croatian and Slovenian experience with collective bargaining for freelancers
17:30 - 18:00 (CET)
NETWORKING in the Charlemagne building10 Nov 2023, 09:00 - 13:30 (CET)
DAY 3, Friday09:00 - 09:30 (CET)
ONLINE PRESENTATIONSOnline presentation #9 - Pricing Primer for Freelance Translators
Online presentation #10 - QATS – Quality at the source
Online presentation #11 - Do we need more compute? Lessons learnt from training high quality machine translation models for the eTranslation service on a supercomputer
09:00 - 09:30 (CET)
NETWORKING COFFEE09:30 - 09:35 (CET)
OPENING OF DAY 3OPENING OF DAY 3 by the conference host09:35 - 10:45 (CET)
FAIR PLAY – FAIR PAYPANEL DISCUSSION
Panel on good practice in the relationship between translation agencies and independent translators. Covenants and agreements between respective associations have been concluded in different countries, regulating relations between the two stakeholder groups. People representing those who took part in the negotiations discuss what they entailed, which issues were covered and how can we all contribute to creating more mutual understanding between independent translators and language service providers.
Panel chair: JOHN O’SHEA (LIND Group expert, FIT EUROPE)
Panellists: MIKLOS BAN (espell)
AMMERINS MOSS-DE BOER (NGTV)
AMALIE FOSS (AVTE)
MAX MANDART (CBTI/BKVT)
10:45 - 11:55 (CET)
QUALITY IN TRANSLATIONPANEL DISCUSSION
This expert panel will explore the issue of quality from the perspective of the buyer/client. How do you define and agree on customer needs and expectations? By defining and offering different service levels? Based on which criteria? Are different rates for different levels of quality the right way to go? How to convince customers that they need a higher (and therefore more expensive) service level, when this is the case? How do you know that you get what you ordered? How do you evaluate the deliverables? Using which metric? Can standards be useful in this context? Will LLM-based AI tools bring about a major change or is this just hype?
Panel chair: INGEMAR STRANDVIK (DG Translation, European commission)
Panellists: MARYSE BENHOF(ISO)
JENNIFER VELA VALIDO (Quality Program Manager, Spotify)
ALAN MELBY (FIT, International Federation of Translators)
KATEŘINA GAŠOVÁ (Argos)
11:55 - 12:05 (CET)
COMFORT BREAK12:05 - 13:20 (CET)
BACK TO THE FUTUREPANEL DISCUSSION
Leading experts will take turns to give us their take on what the future might hold for the translation market, the skills required from language operations professionals, quality issues and the role of technology. Prefaced by a short reminder of what they said about some of those topics at the Forum in years gone by.
JAAP VAN DER MEER (Taus)
ALEXANDRA KRAUSE (University of Vienna, Austria)
DANA SZABADOS (Freelance translator)
13:20 - 13:30 (CET)
CLOSING REMARKS AND CONCLUSION OF THE CONFERENCE