Translating Europe Forum 2023

Programme

1. 8 Nov 2023, 14:15 - 19:00 (CET)

   DAY 1, Wednesday
2. 14:15 - 15:25 (CET)

   CONFERENCE REGISTRATION and WELCOME COFFEE
3. 15:30 - 15:50 (CET)

   OPENING of the conference by the hosts and welcome by Johannes Hahn

   OPENING of the conference by the hosts and

   WELCOME message by Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for Budget and Administration, European Commission

4. 15:50 - 16:40 (CET)

   KEYNOTE SPEECH #1 - AI: APOCALYPSE IMMINENT OR WILL HUMANITY RISE AGAIN?

   A 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.

5. 16:40 - 17:40 (CET)

   PROMOTING LANGUAGE SERVICES AND THE TRANSLATION PROFESSION

   Is 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)
   • CATHERINE WAY (University of Granada, Spain)
   • CARLOS LA ORDEN TOVAR (Insideloc)
   • ADRIAN PROBST (Freelanceverse)
6. 17:45 - 18:30 (CET)

   ONLINE PRESENTATIONS

   Online presentation #0 - Localization industry fundamentals: an ABC for newbies

   Online presentation #1 - Strength in Words: Ukraine's Language Industry

   Online presentation #2 - Data management, digital literacy and AI: understanding the way things work

7. 9 Nov 2023, 08:45 - 18:00 (CET)

   DAY 2, Thursday
8. 08:45 - 09:30 (CET)

   NETWORKING COFFEE
9. 09:00 - 09:30 (CET)

   ONLINE PRESENTATIONS

   Online presentation #3 - The sooner the better. Presentation on two DGT projects for secondary 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

10. 09:30 - 09:35 (CET)

    OPENING OF THE DAY 2 by the hosts
11. 09:35 - 10:25 (CET)

    TECHNOLOGY AND CREATIVITY – FRIENDS OR FOES?

    PANEL DISCUSSION 

    While language technology arguably increases translators’ productivity, it has a certain impact on quality. Some say it also has substantial effect on inventiveness in translation – setting barriers which make it difficult to be creative. And constraining 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? Is the growing share of machine-translated content eventually going to impact the very way humans speak?

    Chair: YOTA GEORGAKOPOULOU (LIND Group expert)

    Panellists:

    • ALEXANDRA HECKER (Pixelogic)
    • ANA GUERBEROF (University of Groningen, Netherlands)
    • WALTRAUD KOLB (University of Vienna, Austria)
12. 10:30 - 11:30 (CET)

    ATTRACTIVENESS OF THE LANGUAGE INDUSTRY FOR IN-HOUSE AND FREELANCE TRANSLATORS

    PANEL DISCUSSION 

    What is the situation on the employment market in the industry and what is the outlook for the near future? Will jobs in the translation industry be killed by AI or are we rather facing a talent crunch? If so, what can we do about it? How can we show the impact of translation and the need for quality translations? 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 do platforms attract freelance translators? Is there an advantage for freelancers to work directly for end clients?

     

    Chair: HEIKE LEINHÄUSER (EUATC, European Union of Associations of Translation Companies)

    Panellists:

    • TERRI WHITE (Freelance translator)
    • MARTA ARAGÃO (Inpokulis)
    • GÖKHAN FIRAT (University of Surrey)
    • ALESSANDRO CATTELAN (Translated)

     

13. 11:30 - 12:00 (CET)

    COFFEE BREAK
14. 12:00 - 13:00 (CET)

    SKILLS FOR EXCELLENCE

    PANEL 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 (Ralf Lemster Financial Translations)
15. 13:00 - 14:30 (CET)

    NETWORKING LUNCH
16. 14:30 - 15:15 (CET)

    KEYNOTE SPEECH #2 - EVERYONE HAS MISUNDERSTOOD AI

    ASHKAN FARDOST, Global speaker on the impact of AI and digitalization on industries, societies & human behavior.

    We all know this: Evolution is the process of information passing from one generation to the next. The medium is DNA. For human beings the story is different. The next generation cannot rely on DNA alone: their survival depends on blueprints for tools, wisdoms and social structure — culture! The medium is language. Human evolution is thus the study of how human information is transmitted over time. For with every information revolution comes a paradigm shift: speech enabled the hunter-gatherer tribe, writing took us from tribe to agricultural empire and print gave us the mass-producing nation state. Today, a fourth revolution is at our doorstep: a digital-electronic-algorithmic network of 5 billion human brains and counting. Once again our environment is being transformed. And with it the ways we shape our identities, organize our societies and how we collaborate to create value. Welcome to the Digital Revolution.

17. 15:15 - 16:00 (CET)

    THE AI PARADIGM: CHANGING TRANSLATION, SHAPING THE FUTURE

    New 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? What is the role of AI for the future of humanity? How do we ensure a human-centric approach to AI? Which human capacities can AI match and which can it not compete with?

    Moderator: ANNA WYNDHAM (Slator)

    Panellists:

    GRY HASSELBALCH (Expert on data and AI ethics and governance)

    JAAP VAN DER MEER (Taus)

18. 16:00 - 17:00 (CET)

    THE TRANSLATION INDUSTRY AND PROFESSION – PAST, PRESENT AND THE FUTURE

    PANEL DISCUSSION

    How has the language industry and profession 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)

    • EVELYNE CHAUVEHEID (Stoquart)
    • CELIA RICO (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)
    • ANTHONY PYM (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain)
    • RUDY TIRRY (EUATC)
    • DORIS HERNANDEZ (United Nations Vienna Office)
19. 17:00 - 19:00 (CET)

    NETWORKING in the Charlemagne building
20. 17:15 - 18:00 (CET)

    ONLINE PRESENTATIONS

    Online 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

    Online presentation #9 - Translation: upholding language rights amidst crisis

21. 10 Nov 2023, 09:00 - 13:30 (CET)

    DAY 3, Friday
22. 09:00 - 09:30 (CET)

    ONLINE PRESENTATIONS

    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

    Online presentation #12 - Pricing primer for freelance translators

23. 09:00 - 09:30 (CET)

    NETWORKING COFFEE
24. 09:30 - 09:35 (CET)

    OPENING OF DAY 3

    OPENING OF DAY 3 by the conference host

25. 09:35 - 10:45 (CET)

    FAIR PLAY – FAIR PAY

    PANEL 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:

    • MIKLÓS BÁN (espell)
    • AMMERINS MOSS-DE BOER (NGTV)
    • AMALIE FOSS (AVTE)
    • MAX DE BROUWER (CBTI/BKVT)
    • HANNA GORSCHELNIK (Kieliasiantuntijat)
26. 10:45 - 11:55 (CET)

    QUALITY IN TRANSLATION SERVICE PROVISION

    PANEL DISCUSSION

    This expert panel will explore the issue of quality from the perspective of the buyer/client and translation service provider. What is the nature of quality? How do you define and agree on customer needs and expectations? By defining and offering different service levels? How do we define them and based on which criteria? Are different rates for different service levels 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? What about quality levels. Are they the same as service levels or different? Can standards be useful in this context?

    Panel chair: INGEMAR STRANDVIK (DG Translation, European commission)

    Panellists:

    • MARYSE BENHOFF (ISO International Chair TC37/SC5 Translation, interpreting and related technology)
    • JENNIFER VELA VALIDO (Quality Program Manager, Spotify)
    • ALAN MELBY (FIT, International Federation of Translators)
    • KATEŘINA GAŠOVÁ (Argos Multilingual, Global Quality Director)
27. 11:55 - 12:05 (CET)

    COMFORT BREAK
28. 12:05 - 13:20 (CET)

    BACK TO THE FUTURE

    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.

    • ALEXANDRA KRAUSE (University of Vienna, Austria)
    • DANA SZABADOS (Freelance translator)
    • ANDREJS VASIĻJEVS (LIND Group expert)

    Moderated by MIHA ŽLIČAR (DG Translation, European Commission)

29. 13:20 - 13:30 (CET)

    CLOSING REMARKS AND CONCLUSION OF THE CONFERENCE

    By Christos Ellinides, (Acting) Director-General of the Directorate General for Translation of the European Commission.

30. Show 24 more items
31. 13:30 - 15:00 (CET)

    NETWORKING LUNCH

Practical information