think! Interpreting 2016 to focus on Next-Gen Language Services

Published September 3, 2015

Announcing: Next-Gen Language Services: Changing Needs, Changing Models

We want to thank everyone again for their tremendous support over the past month of our campaign to fund The Interpreter Film. We are thrilled the campaign was a success. Stay tuned for announcements for screenings of the film starting sometime next spring.

Now we pivot to our next project: t hink! Interpreting 2016

InterpretAmerica is excited to partner again with the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) to produce the third installment of think! Interpreting, in New York City.

What is think! Interpreting? It differs from the InterpretAmerica Summit, which is 100% the work of InterpretAmerica. Rather, it is an ongoing and very productive collaboration with GALA to help highlight the interpreting profession and market within the larger language services industry.

The interpreting profession, in dollar terms, is the smaller sibling when compared to the much larger translation and localization branches of the language services family. In growth and opportunity terms, however, interpreting is catching a lot of people's attention.

think! Interpreting allows us to showboat the best new trends in interpreting to a large audience from the business side of our profession. This can have real impact for interpreting, from the individual to the corporate level. Since think! Interpreting began in 2014 in Istanbul, we have seen productive collaborations result leading to new services and new opportunities.

One great example is Voiceboxer, an interpreting startup from Denmark who presented in Sevilla earlier this year. Their multilingual web presentation platform was subsequently used to successfully livestream parts of the 5th InterpretAmerica Summit and is now being used as a training tool in at least two master-level interpreting programs.

We are very excited to be in the United States for the first time since the think! Interpreting series began. We see this as an unprecedented opportunity for US-based interpreting companies to take advantage of all that the GALA annual conference has to offer.

The third installment will run concurrently with GALA 2016 and will give conference participants the opportunity to network with other interpreting and technology providers from around the globe and gain unique insights into the interpreting market.

The call for proposals is out and submissions are due September 30th, 2015.

We are seeking presentation proposals for the following formats:

Short Talks (a.k.a. lightning talks) 20-minute presentations of concepts that stoke conversation, debate, or curiosity.
Panels: Longer presentations with multiple speakers that address advanced subject matter and provide diverse viewpoints.
KnowledgeFest Sessions: Long-format roundtable discussions which emphasize peer-to-peer learning and require engagement by all participants. Requires a moderator rather than a speaker.
Master Class Sessions: 2-hour workshops that present expert-level, practical training in a particular discipline or topic.