Globalization and Localization Association
Unicode Technology Workshop
About Unicode – Unicode (Em)Powers Our Digital World
Time zone conversion. Alphabetical sorting. Metric vs. imperial. Scientific notation. Bidirectional text. Currency exchange. Local calendar formats. Searching for the apple emoji 🍏 in your language.
What began in 1988 as a standard for character encoding has grown into a powerful portfolio of open source standards, code, tools, libraries, and products that ensure global language support, interoperability, and resiliency across billions of devices.
Behind what most take for granted on screens today is the Unicode Consortium, the non-profit open source, open standards body for the internationalization of software and services. Unicode is embedded in every major operating system and used on more than 20 billion devices worldwide. It may be the most widely deployed technology ever.
For more information about Unicode that you can share with leadership, peers, and your network, visit and download this overview.
About the Unicode Technology Workshop
Expect workshops, seminars, free-form discussions, and lightning talks centered around i18n libraries, locale data frameworks, globalization tooling, localization pipelines, input methods, and text rendering. Network with the developers and users to help shape the future of Unicode technology.
You will come away with deeper knowledge on how to solve tough problems in the i18n and l10n space and how to engineer products that work better for global users. To encourage maximum collaboration amongst the attendees, this is an in-person-only event.
From Attendees at UTW 2023 and UTW 2024
“I have to say the emoji, bidi, and MessageFormat sessions, and the workshop on how to use the CLDR survey tool were all so valuable and fascinating to me!!”
“I appreciate the two tracks, one for people relatively new to Unicode, and one for deeper technical topics.”
“Sessions and discussions led to new content and ideas I hadn’t considered before, not just repeats of things I already knew.”
Event Dates
Join us at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View, California for one, two, or all three days of community building around the Unicode technology that makes software work for billions of people.
🗓️ November 11 - Tutorial Day on Unicode Technologies
🗓️ November 12-13 - Unicode Technology Workshop 2025
💲Industry & Media Partner Pricing
As a valued partner, we are extending the same rates available to our Organizational and Individual Members. Early bird registration code for a discounted price on your registration. The code is: UTW2025Early. ⏳ Early bird closes Aug 31.
Learn more and complete your registration here.
📣 Call for Submissions Now Open! We Want to Hear from You!
In addition to leaving with valuable new connections, tools, and actionable next steps, we also welcome you to share your experiences and help us envision the future of Unicode technology. Program and product managers who work with engineering teams are also strongly encouraged to join and propose sessions.
We are seeking proposals for workshops, seminars, case studies, and tutorials that center around Unicode i18n libraries, locale data frameworks, globalization tooling, localization pipelines, input methods, character encoding, text rendering and more! Tutorial topics might include: front design and Unicode properties, introduction to Software Internationalization (i18n), and how to best support Bidirectional text.
The deadline for submissions is July 31st.
Please visit https://www.unicode.org/events/utw/2025 for updates. You can also sign up for all of the latest Unicode news. If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected]. We look forward to seeing you in November!