At the 15th Process Innovation Challenge held at LocWorld50, Gabriel Fairman, CEO of Bureau Works, clinched the esteemed title of “2023 Innovator of the Year — USA.” The award ceremony took place on October 11 in San Jose, California, recognizing some of the brightest minds reshaping the localization industry.

Fairman’s cutting-edge creation, the “BWX Generative Language Engine – Translation Smells,” heralds a revolutionary shift in decision-making technology. Fueled by GPT instances from Azure, Open AI, or tailored setups, the innovation catapults AI from mere interaction to a refined language problem-solving tool. Early adopters attest to its potency, noting up to a 50% reduction in editing time, enhanced control for linguists, and elevating the quality of human translations.

Runners-up for the coveted award included Mathijs Sonnemans of Blackbird International (with “Setting up Custom LLM Orchestrations in Minutes”) and Catarina Farinha from Unbabel (presenting “Content Transcreation Layer for Cultural Awareness using Responsible Generative AI”). Both innovations underline the industry’s pace of technological evolution and the embrace of AI-driven solutions.

Generative AI tech starred prominently in the competition, with Dave Ruane, PIC founder and co-host, emphasizing its prevalence in four of the six finalist entries. He remarked on the swift surge of novel tech platforms at PIC, forecasting more groundbreaking unveilings in the upcoming year. With attendance surpassing previous years, over 350 localization aficionados engaged, giving feedback, and propelling the event’s success.

Judges for the event, affectionately dubbed “dragons,” included industry stalwarts Alessandra Binazzi, Erik Vogt, and Ben Cornelius. Production and hosting credits go to Alex Bernet from LocWorld and Dave Ruane from XTM International. Expressing gratitude, organizers thanked MultiLingual Magazine, LocWorld, and XTM International for their unwavering support.

The competition was fierce with finalists representing top-tier innovations:

• Gabriel Fairman, Bureau Works: “BWX Generative Language Engine – Translation Smells”
• Catarina Farinha, Unbabel: “Content Transcreation Layer for Cultural Awareness using Responsible Generative AI”
• Sheriff Issaka, African Languages Lab: “All Voices: Empowering Text and Audio Data Collection and Validation for Low-Resourced Languages”
• Emily Randall, Uber: “Quill: Bringing Context to the ‘Point of Translation'”
• Mathijs Sonnemans, Blackbird International: “Setting up Custom LLM Orchestrations in Minutes”
• Ágnes Varga, memoQ: “Adaptive Generative Translation (AGT)”

For more information, visit the Process Innovation Challenge page.