About Together 2027

Event Opening

Creativity and Machines: The Added Value of Professional Translators

Prof Ana Guerberof Arenas will discuss the interaction of machines Show more...and professionals in the creation process. She will discuss not only the inception of texts using technology by translators but also the reception of these texts by a wider audience: How does the creative
process develops when translating? And how is creativity received by readers and viewers? Is this an added value? She will present results from different studies on this topic as well as recent results from her ERC Consolidator grant, INCREC (2023-2028), funded by the European Research Council.

Coffee Break

How to Make Sure Going to a Conference is Worth the Investment

Everybody agrees that going to conferences is a good idea, but Show more...finding out HOW to get the maximum benefit from going to a conference can be a bit more tricky – especially if it is the first time, and you are sure everyone knows each other already, and you are the only one there “alone”. In my presentation, I will give the attendees some practical tips and tricks they can go out and apply immediately, so they can make sure spending time and money on going to Rotterdam is worth their investment. I will spice it up with some success stories and examples from my life as a conference goer through I don't know how many years in different parts of the world, so the attendees can see that what I am saying is not just words and theory, but it actually works in real life too.

Rebuilding Trust: Judgment, LSPs and Freelancers in the AI Era

Drawing on 15 years of localisation leadership across client-side Show more...and LSP roles, including managing a linguist pool of over 1,000 people and running adjudication as a daily mechanism for consistent quality at scale, this session looks at what rebuilding trust between LSPs and freelancers actually takes. I'll share a case study from Papercup, where freelancers were treated as the platform's primary users with a direct voice in product decisions, and make the case for a leaner, risk-tiered approach to quality that matches human review to actual risk rather than applying one standard everywhere.

Lunch

Behind the Curtain of AI-Powered Localisation Project

Join us for a 90-minute interactive workshop where we pull back Show more...the curtain on the creation of AI-powered localisation services. We will walk you through a "day in the life" of launching an AI project, covering everything from the initial client discussions and managing expectations to the nitty-gritty of planning, cost estimation, and risk management. We’ll explore the complete project lifecycle: the 'input' of client needs and data, the 'processing' of building a complex service, and the 'output' of delivering on quality promises. This session is designed for linguists, freelancers, and LSPs who want to understand the strategic and operational work that happens long before a project lands on their desk. Learn what shapes the AI-driven tasks you work on and how to better align with the project's core objectives.

Coffee Break

Coming Soon...

Networking Activity

Networking Dinner at Rodizio

Event Opening

Creativity and Machines: The Added Value of Professional Translators

Prof Ana Guerberof Arenas will discuss the interaction of machines Show more...and professionals in the creation process. She will discuss not only the inception of texts using technology by translators but also the reception of these texts by a wider audience: How does the creative
process develops when translating? And how is creativity received by readers and viewers? Is this an added value? She will present results from different studies on this topic as well as recent results from her ERC Consolidator grant, INCREC (2023-2028), funded by the European Research Council.

Coffee Break

Enough is Enough: Knowing When to Stop, Step Down and Start Again

In an industry built on deadlines, responsibility, resilience Show more...and being there for others, we rarely talk about the moment when being strong stops being sustainable. This session is about recognising that moment. Drawing on my own journey from translator to business leader, industry volunteer and mentor – and eventually back to freelancing – I will talk openly about what happens when professional commitment begins to come at too high a personal cost. I will explore the difficult decision to step down, the warning signs we tend to ignore, and the difference that self-awareness, genuine support and simply having someone who notices can make.

But this is not just a story about burnout or stepping away. It is about rebuilding: redefining success, learning to set boundaries, allowing ourselves to change direction and creating professional relationships in which people can say “enough” before they have nothing left to give. Because a sustainable industry starts with sustainable people – and sometimes moving forward begins with knowing when to stop.

Beyond Translation: A Repeatable Method for Building AI-Augmented Services

The industry keeps urging linguists to "move up the value chain” Show more...but rarely shows what that looks like in practice. This session starts with a case where I did it, then hands the audience the method behind it. I built editorial scouting into a paid service, using AI as a tool rather than treating it as a threat. Looking back though, I realised the valuable part was the method: spot an adjacent service that draws on skills we already have; find where AI genuinely accelerates the work and where human judgment stays the non-negotiable, billable core; then position and price the result as knowledge work, not per-word output. The method is portable, and I'll point it straight at services we could already be selling, such as AI-assisted competitor and market research, or web-content accessibility assessment. Scouting is the vivid example; these turn the method back on your own catalogue.

Lunch

Customising Claude for Translation Projects

As a curious translation and localisation professional, maybe Show more...you've spent more time than you'd like testing AI tools, switching platforms, comparing outputs, and wondering which tool can tick all your boxes. The endless search for the ""right"" platform is exhausting and distracting. But very often the problem is not which AI you are using, but rather making sure you know the full potential of the tool and can customize it to your needs. When you set Claude up properly, your endless search can finally stop.

This hands-on workshop shows translators and project managers how to customise Claude with projects, skills, scheduled tasks and automatic workflows to enforce terminology accuracy, style guide compliance, automate QA, and process files. Participants will learn how to make the best use of Claude Cowork and Claude Design for client-facing deliveries.

You'll leave with a configured Claude workspace tailored to your clients and ready to deploy on your next project.

Coffee Break

Job Fair

Networking Dinner at Rodizio

Rebuilding Localisation Through Better Collaboration

After more than 20 years working almost exclusively with language Show more...service providers, I've learned that localisation quality depends less on language skill than on the quality of collaboration. In this session, I'll share practical lessons from two decades of working with project managers, vendor managers, and localisation teams across software, marketing, UX, and digital content. Through real-world examples, we'll explore how context, communication, and a thoughtful use of AI can reduce revisions and make localisation projects run more smoothly for everyone involved. Rather than focusing on translation techniques or technology, this session is about sharing experience and identifying the small practices that build trust, strengthen partnerships, and create better outcomes. Participants will leave with practical ideas they can apply immediately to improve collaboration, regardless of language pair, specialisation, or role in the localisation process.

Introducing my Friend: The Shadow Localiser

AI is making localisation more distributed, and that actually Show more...isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When a colleague can generate an acceptable AI draft in seconds and apply deep customer, product and market knowledge, shadow localisation can be a perfectly rational choice. But DIY has a cost: localisation becomes the side hustle multilingual colleagues never applied for, rarely get credit for, and fit in on top of their real job. Many would love to offload it. Enterprise localisation teams sit in the middle. We understand why stakeholders choose DIY, but also see the hidden costs. The alternative gets harder to motivate when outsourcing the translation doesn’t actually outsource the work. AI means this behaviour isn’t going away. So instead of asking how we stop shadow localisation, let’s get curious. I’ll share tensions I’m navigating from the enterprise side and ask the freelancers and LSPs in the room: what could we do differently?

Coffee Break

Facilitating the Evolution: A Shared Aim

Traditional translation services have seen a decrease in the Show more...last years, affecting greatly to LSPs and moreover, freelancers. Although the volume is lower, corporations still outsource localization services. With this scenario, LSPs are evolving by offering more services to their clients: writing, validation, plain language, live captioning, language tuition… you name it. To make this evolution, we, LSPs, must help our excellent linguists and internal people to work on tasks that might be new to them. Are we ready to close the gap between the new demands and the skills at hand? I´d like to share how we approach this at Nuadda, a company with a long-standing pool of linguists. We understand this is a joint effort.

Understand your Client, Communicate your Value, Sell with Confidence

As times change, so does our business offer. Roles in translation Show more...(and beyond) are evolving from narrow technical work into broader knowledge work. That shift asks businesses to pivot: instead of explaining what we offer, we need to ask about our client's problem and solve it. But how do we get there? It often takes time and effort, and we tend to avoid those conversations altogether. But what if it felt easier and more natural? In this session, we'll walk through how to pivot your offer and map the client communication journey, from that first approach right through to the sales call, so you can read what prospective and existing clients actually need and sell your new offer with confidence.

Lunch

Coming Soon...

#Teaming up: Does Community Impact Translator-Client Relationships?

This presentation is an interactive study – your attendance affects the results! Show more... As founders of an online community of freelancers, #TeamTranslator, we wanted to challenge our own assumptions and answer a few questions. Firstly, does being part of a community actually have an impact on freelancers’ relationships with their clients – whether that’s positive or negative? And secondly, how are the LSPs actually perceiving these relationships themselves? By the end of the session, together with you, we’ll build a comprehensive view of relationships within the industry and provide actionable recommendations for freelancers and LSPs alike, all based on the data.

Coffee Break

Panel Discussion

Closing Session