The Brazilian Language Industry Association (BLISS) held its second International Conference on June 20-22, 2024, in sunny Rio de Janeiro in front of Copacabana beach. The conference brought together around 50 people from different parts of the language industry to talk about “The New Era of the Language Industry: Challenges and Opportunities.”

On June 20, Richard Brooks gave a full-day workshop on how to accelerate growth, including insights on sales strategies, advanced marketing techniques, and account management.

On June 21, the Opening Keynote was given by Ewandro Magalhães, who shared his vision of engaging interpreters and translators to maximize their contribution in this fast-evolving moment. During his presentation, attendees had the opportunity to check out live AI interpretation provided by Kudo.

After his presentation, María José Alberto talked about project management, Filipe Alverca spoke about the relationship between linguists and vendor management, and Charles Campbell and Ewandro Magalhães made the audience think about why Latin American companies have such a small representative number in the total revenue of the industry.

To conclude the first full day, there was a high-level roundtable with representatives of the buyer side (Patrick Nunes from Rotary International, Priscila Mottola from KnowBe4, and Debora Weitrich from Expedia Group). They gave very useful testimonials on what they expect from their vendors and also discussed the latest developments in the use of technology. 

The next day started with the introduction of the Women in Localization Brazil Chapter by Andrea Pinto (Chapter Manager). A second roundtable featured representatives from three universities in Rio (Jorge Davidson from Faculdade Phorte, Talita Ribeiro from UERJ, and Lourdes Sette from PUC-Rio), who spoke about the challenges of keeping our industry attractive during this period of major change.

Other presentations included:

• Aline Rocha from Booking.com, who energized the audience with her presentation on how to embrace AI in your daily routine. 
• Frances Pearn-Rowe, who gave a timeline on the 40 years of Trados and what’s next with Trados 2024.
• Eduardo Quintella, who spoke about the modern translation market and related historical writers like Machiavelli to our modern lives.

The conference also invited some associations to talk about their role and the challenges they face in this fast-moving landscape; Celia Korn represented BLISS, Charles Campbell represented JUNTOS, Bruno Murtinho represented ABRATES, and Ana Beatriz represented SINTRA.

Finally, Richard Brooks gave the Closing Keynote about harnessing AI, including a comprehensive view of available tools and how to work with them.