Since 2005, TAUS has organized 25 events in Asia. October 17-18, 2019, the annual TAUS Asia Conference & Exhibits was held in Singapore in collaboration with the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) of Singapore.

Today, the global language and translation industry are undergoing fundamental changes as a result of breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, digital transformation of business and ongoing globalization. With four official national languages and a central location, Singapore is an important hub for discussing these changes and their implications on the localization industry.

Together with the delegates from MCI and program committee members from various Southeast Asian countries, TAUS put together a program with panel discussions and presentations from a great group of speakers, to educate the audience in new technologies and best practices, share perspectives on how to redesign translation processes and strategies on global intelligent content delivery, and learn how CEOs of various players in Southeast Asia face challenges with globalization from the region.

The event also hosted new customers and vendors for advanced language and localization technologies, featuring eight exhibitors in the TAUS Collaboration Pavilion, who demonstrated their tools and technologies throughout the breaks. Through collaborations with local universities and the freelance translator community from the MCI, global talents and the future workforce were able to connect with their peers and potential employers.

In the Game Changers Innovation Contest, ten companies showcased breakthroughs in technology and innovation. The audience ended up voting Interpreter IO’s CEO Adam Hodgson as the winner, with his live demonstration of their new technology Artificial Intelligence Assisted Interpreting (AI AI).

As the biggest TAUS event to date, 211 attendees came together representing 23 countries from all over the world (82% Asia, 11% Europe, 4% North America and 3% Oceania). Among the audience were many freelance translation practitioners from Singapore and neighboring countries, as well as students and professors of translation and localization departments at Southeast Asian universities, adding a practical perspective to the conversations on machine translation, speech translation and the modern translation pipeline.

On the second day of the event, the TAUS Asia Conference was honored with a visit from Senior Minister of State Sim Ann, who welcomed TAUS and its audience to Singapore and spoke with various speakers and exhibitors at the event to learn more about the industry.