Speaker: Yuliya Tsimashenka, Freelance translator

Over the past two years, several formats of translation events have emerged in Belarus: from going with colleagues to the cinema in Belarusian and foreign languages, to the Belarusian Translation Forum. How did I come up with the idea of arranging meetings for translators and interpreters? Why do we need local industry events? What have we achieved?

Yuliya shared her experience of organizing such events and the future plans.

Interpreting into English by Anna Oliinyk and Anna Kolomiitseva

Speaker: Paul Filkin, Client Services Director for SDL 

What can we expect from the future? More importantly, what’s driving the changes?

In the internet age, when content matters more than ever, we need to create more content, to translate more content and to deliver more content. How can we manage all these processes?

Paul also talked about human optimized approach in the era of automation.

Speaker: Kimmo Rossi, Head of Research & Innovation sector (European Commission)

Artificial intelligence, privacy, GDPR, copyright, fake news - these topics are currently on the European legislative and policy agenda. Work, business and education are in rapid evolution and individual creativity and new skills are in great demand. The pace of change challenges traditional tools, institutions and regulation.

What does it take to be successful and what role do language and language skills play? 

Speaker: Dmitry Pavlov, Founder of Transeller Consulting 

During the presentation Dmitry talked about serious topics in an accessible and understandable way, with some humor and irony, adding a lot of practical cases and sharing his experience. Watch the video of his presentation to learn more about effective collaboration between production and sales and its role in a company’s organic growth, and about misunderstandings between these two departments, why they occur and what to do about it.

Video is available in Russian and English.

Interpreting into English by Svitlana Bregman and Dmytro Kushnir

Speaker: Inga Michaeli‬, CEO at Wander Words

In the past ten years, we’ve seen many translators try to cope with the changing landscape of this industry by calling themselves linguists, transcreators and what not. Yet, it seems that the state of mind of many of us hasn’t changed a bit.

When we look to the next twenty years, what will the industry look like? And where will we fit in? Or should we be asking ourselves: In the age of social media and influencer marketing, when many of our clients are millennials looking for full-stack professionals, are we still relevant? And where do we go from here?

Inga has elaborated on the 'untouchable' part, suggesting it is high time we stop thinking outside the box and realize there is no box, and that we must bring back the free in FREElance.

Speakers: Anna Kolomiytseva, Aleksandra Komarova

It is impossible to be a full-time interpreter outside of Kyiv, interpreters in other regions are no good – you get to hear many of those rumors. Still where is smoke, must be fire – there is an issue with the quality of interpreting, and it is not less relevant than the logistics. Interpreters of our country work quite separately. There is no single set of professional standards, no established exchange of best practices among the interpreters.

On top of that, those who call themselves conference interpreters often work under such conditions that inevitably compromise the quality of their interpretation. That comes from both ignorance of the professional standards and isolation. We are convinced that we could create a professional community where each of us would be competing with the others in the civilized way and at the same time would offer support to the colleagues. We take the Professional Standards of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) as a reference.

Interpreting into English — Krystyna Yelisieieva, Anzhelika Kuznetsova (from Odessa)

Speaker: Nigel Saych, founder, owner and CEO (Interlex Language Services)

I’m a creative translator. You might be a technical, medical, legal or scientific translator. That makes us very different. Or does it? My presentation will not be about your translations, but about how to take a creative attitude to your work, whatever subject you specialize in. How you can look at things a different way, how you can see your clients or the agencies who supply you with work in a different light.

It will be based on my experiences from ‘both sides of the fence’ - as a translator and the owner of a translation company. On Saturday I will be attempting to convince LSPs and agencies of the same message. We both need each other, so let’s not build that fence into a wall.

We have prepared something very special for you. We invite you to have a rest and plunge into the magical world of nature. This is exactly how we see UTICamp-2019 and its venue, Meteorit camping park…A serene river, a green forest, a barbecue with your friends, volleyball, kayaks, yoga, chess, board games and relaxation on the beach.

You can also get to Meteorit by the river - a little trip that will give you energy for a very long time. The Dnipro river is mighty and wide, while the Samara is quiet and cozy. Scenic landscapes, a lot of birds and wonderful nature await you.

Translation into English is in high demand, but the quality of this service is often not up to the mark. 

There are many questions that LSPs ask with this regard: Do we really need a native speaker? Would an English-speaking proofreader be enough? Can we do without their help? And if yes, under what circumstances?  And last but not least, how do we check the quality of the resources involved?