GALA is happy to once again partner with tcworld/tekom to present the GALA Localization Forum at the 2023 conference occurring 14-16 November 2023 in Stuttgart, Germany. This track is designed to shine a light on translation, localization, and the language industry as a whole. It is a way for us to introduce our industry to new audiences and provide a deeper understanding to those already familiar with it. 

The GALA Localization Forum is a series of 45-minute sessions addressing translation and localization topics, designed for content authors, technical writers, and localization managers. It complements the other tracks offered at the conference, providing a comprehensive look at the many facets of technical communication.

Localization Forum Program
View the full conference program here. 

Revolutionizing TMS: Don't Throw the Baby Out with the Bathwater

 09:00 - 09:45
  C7.2
 Andre Hemker, Wordbee

Session Description: A translation management system (TMS) simplifies managing content across different languages and locales. It's easy to see why the buzz for "headless TMS" has caught on. They claim to allow content to be managed, extracted, repurposed, and delivered through numerous endpoints. But is it worth removing the front-end for these capabilities? With modern front-ends using identical endpoints, it's unnecessary. There are commercially available systems that can serve this function without the immense downside of lacking "human in the loop" capabilities that headless systems bring. These lack traditional translation management capabilities and any business functionality. Any intervention can create a plethora of problems. Rejecting traditional TMS altogether is not the answer. Instead, modern LangOps provides a better solution that keeps the valuable and discards the unwanted.

The Quiet Translation Quality Revolution: Trends, Strategies, and Success Stories

  10:00 - 10:45
  C7.2
 Jennifer Vela-Valido, Spotify & Katerina Gasova

Session Description: Translation is a rapidly evolving field, shaped by advancements in language and translation technologies. As the industry progresses, the need for smart and scalable Translation Quality Management (TQM) and Evaluation becomes paramount.

From theory to practice, this session will explore the latest trends in TQM and the efforts undertaken by international bodies such as ISO and ASTM to establish quality standards and best practices in translation and localization.

We will also present different quality perspectives and priorities, as they play a pivotal role in shaping translation quality and balancing priorities such as accuracy and creativity to strike the right equilibrium.

To illustrate the practical application of these new approaches to TQM and evaluation, we will conclude with a selection of use cases from the areas of regulatory and manufacturing industries, both related to accuracy-focused and marketing-oriented content.

Quality Prediction - The next evolution of human-quality translation

  11:30 - 12:15
  C7.2
 Adam Bittlingmayer, ModelFront & Shamus Dermody, ModelFront

Session Description: In the three decades since the internet started to change the way billions of people live and work, only two technologies had significant impact on the efficiency of human-quality translation: the translation memory and machine translation.

Now the next evolution is here: machine translation quality prediction (MTQP).

Global companies and institutions are using quality prediction to translate up to 5x more efficiently - at the same human quality - by accurately deciding which segments require human post-editing, and which don't.

Like GPT, quality prediction is built with Transformer-based multilingual LLMs (large language models) first researched in academia and companies like Microsoft and Google, but it took startups to make it accessible as a cloud product, available in translation management systems and trusted by enterprise teams translating millions or billions of words a year.

We'll cover the problem, what quality prediction is, the use cases and how to get started.

Un-Excel your translator queries and turn translators into usability testers!

  14:00 - 14:45
  C7.2
 Klaus Fleischmann, Kaleidoscope GmbH

Session Description: No one reads a text as carefully as translators, except for lawyers maybe. Would it not be cool to benefit from this usability test and identify passages in your content that are ambiguous, imprecise, or simply wrong? Too much work? That´s because very likely, you are still sending around Excel lists, flooding e-mail inboxes, or misusing ticketing systems without any integration into your processes. But it can be done if you start to work systematically and collaboratively, share and document findings among the team, and even return them to the content creators to fix the issues right in the source.

 How to super-charge language data management with AI

  15:00 - 15:45
  C7.2
 Daniel Zielinski, Loctimize & Simon Varga, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany

Session Description: The role of language data is evolving rapidly. Thanks to recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and natural language processing, it has become a valuable asset not only for authoring and translation, but also for training language and translation models. These models, in turn, can be used to create and maintain linguistic assets and even to make them meet increasingly diverse quality requirements and needs in terms of adapting content for different target groups and communication settings.

In this presentation, we present case studies showcasing how artificial intelligence technologies can help us maintain and adapt language data, e.g. by allowing us to apply custom quality checks and terminological changes to existing content, switch between formal and informal tone of voice, or generate training data for machine translation customization.

 All-Things Automation

  16:30 - 17:30
  C7.2
 István Lengyel, BeLazy Technologies

Session Description: Integration, automation, no-code, low-code, middleware. TMS, BMS, invoicing, CRM, CMS, code repository. Zapier, Make, Mulesoft, Camunda, n8n, AutoHotKey. Xillio, iLangL, Blackbird, BeLazy. LexiQA, Modelfront, Content Quo. Customer and submitter portals, vendor portals, CMS connectors, order forms. Emails. SOAP APIs, REST APIs, web scraping, traffic capturing. Quotations, file preparation, updates. Full automation, script-based automation. People in our industry easily get daunted by all these technologies, and remain paralyzed in a world where automation is a top differentiator.

This presentation aims to define all the above concepts relating to automation in the translation industry and clear up the fog, and we will also give a practical step-by-step guide on getting started with automation. While we will get a little technical, the webinar is also suitable for non-technical participants with a couple of years of experience in the translation industry.

(Q) Standardization or flexibility? (A) Yes, please!

  17:30 - 18:15
  C7.2
 Marcus Danei, SAP

Session Description: Integration, automation, no-code, low-code, middleware. TMS, BMS, invoicing, CRM, CMS, code repository. Zapier, Make, Mulesoft, Camunda, n8n, AutoHotKey. Xillio, iLangL, Blackbird, BeLazy. LexiQA, Modelfront, Content Quo. Customer and submitter portals, vendor portals, CMS connectors, order forms. Emails. SOAP APIs, REST APIs, web scraping, traffic capturing. Quotations, file preparation, updates. Full automation, script-based automation. People in our industry easily get daunted by all these technologies, and remain paralyzed in a world where automation is a top differentiator.

This presentation aims to define all the above concepts relating to automation in the translation industry and clear up the fog, and we will also give a practical step-by-step guide on getting started with automation. While we will get a little technical, the webinar is also suitable for non-technical participants with a couple of years of experience in the translation industry.

Join us after the conclusion of the final session across the street from the conference venue at the Mövenpick Hotel Stuttgart Airport to enjoy some light refreshments and connect with like-minded professionals to network, exchange knowledge, and foster professional communities. Please RSVP here. 

Host organization: Globalization and Localization Association