Call for Proposals

The GALA Program Committee values original human-created proposals. For this reason, we discourage the use of AI for generating proposals. We will show preference for proposals that lay out authentic ideas in plain, natural human language.

Proposal evaluations will place weight on the originality of the ideas, the clarity of expression, and the practical/actionable nature of the proposal. Much less weight will be placed on perfect grammar, spelling, or punctuation.

GALA conferences attract professionals from all areas of language operations and global user experience including software developers, language services suppliers, and buyers of services and technologies.

We also welcome professionals who play a role in multilingual communication in adjacent industries. Our delegates serve in many different roles and are looking for challenging, growth-oriented topics presented at an advanced level.

Session Types (Formats)

• Fire Starters: Presentations (including Q&A) of concepts that promote conversation, debate, and/or curiosity.  (30 minutes including Q&A)
• Perspectives: Panel discussions that engage the audience in a dialogue around a specific topic. Four panelists maximum. (60 minutes including Q&A)
• Deep Dive: Long-format sessions that emphasize peer-to-peer learning and require engagement by all participants. (90 minutes)

Tracks

For each track, we are looking for proposals offering actionable intelligence. These may include best practices, use cases, case studies, success stories, and lessons learned.

We have provided examples to demonstrate the types of topics that fit into each track. You may use these examples as the basis for your proposal or create a proposal that you believe fits into the appropriate track but isn’t mentioned in the examples. If you are unsure which track your proposal fits into, make your best guess.

Proposals should:

• Not be commercial or promotional.
• Not repeat presentations from other industry conferences.
• Address the conference theme in a clear manner.
• Fit one of the conference tracks.
• Cover a breadth and depth appropriate for an experienced, sophisticated audience.
• Contain a minimum of 3 clear takeaways for the audience.

Track 1 -Soapbox

This is a special track with a special format for those who’d like to take a stand, express their opinion, and bring lively debate into the conversation.

• What do YOU believe that most people in our industry would disagree with?
• What do you think will happen in the localization industry in the future that most people think is unlikely?
• What questions do you think people in the industry are having a hard time answering and why?
• Is there some industry groupthink that you believe should be challenged?

We’re looking for proposals for short (5-8’ max.) and snappy presentations. No slides or any other props—just you and your ideas.  Q&A will follow after all Soapbox presentations have been delivered.

Track 2 -TechReady

Equipping professionals with knowledge at the intersection of technology and language.

•  ETL tools, content pipeline management best practices and localization use cases
• AI-compatible architectures
• Agentic AI use cases
• LLMs in localization
  • Leveraging LLMs to supplement machine translation
  • Clients’ use of LLMs for localization
  • Competing against GenAI: A lost battle?
• Human vs AI in audiovisual localization
  • Captions and subtitles
    • Evaluating AI and the quality-cost-time triangle
    • The role of humans: still ongoing?
  • Integration of AI-driven transcription, captioning and dubbing tools into existing pipelines
  • Best practices for buyers of AI-powered audiovisual localization
• Evaluation and certification of speech technology solutions
• Voice interfaces: Impact on localization
• Synthetic voices in multimedia localization
• Multimodal AI solutions

Track 3 -MarketReady

Focusing on global business strategies and market expansion.

• Reshaping services: Thinking like a tech company
  • Examples of AI-native offerings
• Measuring impact and connecting outcomes
  • What are companies measuring and what should they be measuring?
  • Connecting services with end results (ROI, outcomes, and user behavior)
• Pricing, PEMT effort and setting the right expectation for low resource languages
• User research and brand governance:
  • User research across cultures (ethnographic research)
  •  Synthetic users and digital twins in UX research
  • Brand voice governance: Style guides and term glossaries as machine-readable assets
• SEO in the AI era
  • SEO vs. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and AI Optimization (AIO)

Track 4 - RiskReady

Addressing compliance, data security, and geopolitical challenges.

• AI and language accessibility
• Designing accessible language tools
• LLMs and inclusive language:
  • Converting large non-inclusive datasets to inclusive
  • LLMs applied to enable variants & minority languages
• Initiatives for digitally disadvantaged languages
  • Cultural relevance, social responsibility, and ethical considerations in language access initiatives
  • Language tech for digitally disadvantaged languages
• Indigenous languages: challenges, writing systems, standards

Track 5 - PeopleReady

Strengthening leadership, culture, and workforce development.

• The ideal industry people
  • From project managers to vendor managers to salespeople
• Upskilling and training
• Collaborative pathways to new skills and job roles
• AI-powered vendor management and HR
  • Onboarding, risk checks, compliance monitoring, predicting vendor performance, etc.
• The new roles and responsibilities model
  • Breaking the silos of AI specialists, linguists, and engineers to ensure cross-functional collaboration
  • What organization units are optimal for deploying AI: Mission squads, multidisciplinary pods, hub-and-spoke teams?
• DEIJ (Diversity Equity Inclusion Justice) initiatives in the localization industry
• Translation and interpretation programs
  • What works and what doesn’t? And why? What challenges remain?
  • Creating internship programs for all parties to benefit

Track 6 - LanguageAccessReady

Advancing accessibility and inclusion through language.

• AI-powered interpretation and translation in regulated industries
• AI as a supporting tool for linguists
• Machine interpreting and LLMs
• Universal design
  • How accessible design improves the user experience for all users
  • Best practices for accessible and universal design in multilingual digital accessibility
•  AI impact on accessibility
  • Special needs users: is AI making an impact on accessibility for this category of users
• Preservation and revitalization of minority and First Nation languages:
  • Projects and initiatives in the localization space
  • Data scarcity and model training: Methodologies and frameworks
  • Cultural and linguistic challenges: Ethical, collaborative, and community-involved approaches

Proposal Deadline

The deadline for proposals is 26 October 2025. Please complete your application using the form online. Final accept/decline notifications will be sent to speakers on 9 January 2026 at the latest. 

Speaker Agreement

Please review the speaker agreement. You will be asked for your consent to the terms during the submission process. Speakers whose proposals are selected will be required to sign and send the agreement.

Submission Form

Please log in to your GALA user account to submit your proposal. 

Event Details

The selected proposals will be presented in-person at the WorldReady Conference Berlin, presented by GALA. Selected speakers will receive a discounted registration rate for the event.

When: 12-14 April 2026
Where: Titanic Chaussee Berlin | Chausseestraße 30, Berlin, 10115, Germany