Localization World returned to Seattle, Washington — the site of its inaugural conference — and more than 420 people came from 26 countries to attend the fifth conference on October 25-27, 2005. Major sponsorship was provided by Lionbridge Technologies (platinum), SDL International (gold) and Sinometrics (silver). WH&P and ForeignExchange Translations were bronze sponsors.
Localization World is produced by The Localization Institute and MultiLingual Computing, Inc., in cooperation with the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA).
Keynotes and sessions
Following the recent major mergers in the industry, the conference began with a keynote panel of Mark Lancaster, CEO of SDL International, and Rory Cowan, CEO of Lionbridge. The discussion was moderated by Hans Fenstermacher of ArchiText. With the auditorium filled beyond capacity, these leaders of the industry titan companies discussed new trends and outlined their approaches for the future.
The second keynote was also well attended. Adam Freed, Google’s director of international product management, gave the audience insight into Google’s internationalization strategy.
Both of these keynotes were interesting for what was said and for who said it. As one conference evaluation read, the keynotes “were worth the price of admission on their own.”
and Mark Lancaster, CEO of SDL International.
The conference advisory board was composed of Kevin Bolen, Lionbridge Technologies, Inc.; Laurie Gerber, Language Weaver; Jochen Hummel, SDL International; Gordon Husbands, Wordbank; Aki Ito, Prisma International; Rose Lockwood, consultant; Ultan Ó Broin, Oracle; and Jost Zetzsche, TM Marketplace. This group worked hard to create a program with interesting and challenging topics. Jaap van der Meer of Translation Automation User Society managed the program coordination.
Program highlights included market forecasts by Common Sense Advisory, Japan localization, controlled language authoring, different approaches for machine translation (MT) and managing geopolitical risks.
The preconference day included workshops on medical localization, what and how to deploy MT, whether to make or buy translation workflow tools and managing localization in a distributed environment. The Institute of Localisation Professionals (TILP) sponsored a session on terminology management. GALA held its annual meeting and also hosted a vendors-only session on collaboration.
The event closed with a panel discussion of impressions of the conference, followed by the GALA prize drawing session in which 23 companies provided prizes ranging from a Maine lobster dinner for two to an iPod to $5,000 worth of localization services.
Networking
The Localization World conferences are structured to provide ample opportunities for networking and getting to know fellow professionals better. One attendee wrote that the best part of the conference was “meeting people who work in the similar work environment and learning how they work through their problems. Meeting people who are vendors and what they could do to help our company out. . . . I learned a ton from attending.”
Conference photos may be viewed at www.localizationworld.com/LWSeattle2005/LWSeattle2005PhotoGallery
Next conference
The next Localization World conference, with a theme of “Working — Together,” will be held in Barcelona, Spain, May 30-June 1, 2006. The call for papers is open until January 31, 2006. M
Donna Parrish is publisher of MultiLingual and is on the conference management team.
This article reprinted from #77 Volume 17 Issue 1 of MultiLingual published by MultiLingual Computing, Inc., 319 North First Ave., Sandpoint, Idaho, USA, 208-263-8178, Fax: 208-263-6310. Subscribe
