Cosimo Accoto
Research Affiliate & Fellow @ MIT | Author "Il mondo in sintesi" | Business Innovation Advisor | Culture Change & Learning Lead | Tech Philosopher-in-Residence
Tech philosopher, research affiliate & fellow (MIT Boston), adjunct professor (UNIMORE), Accoto has published a significant philosophical trilogy on technology: Il mondo in sintesi, Il mondo ex machina, Il mondo dato. The Latent Planet is his latest work. He has also published in Economia & Management (SDA Bocconi), Harvard Business Review Italy, Aspenia, MIT Sloan Management Review Italy, Civiltà delle Macchine. He is a frequent speaker, contributor and discussant (Ambrosetti, Aspen Institute Italy, Harvard Business Review Italy, Fondazione Leonardo).
AI: A Sociotechnical Systems Transition
Nikita Agarwal
DIRECTOR AT MILESTONE LOCALIZATION
Nikita Agarwal heads Milestone Localization, a language company based out of Bangalore, India that works with businesses around the world to help them communicate across cultures. She started the company when she was 24 after spending three years travelling to Europe and China for business meetings where she worked with translators and interpreters and got introduced to the localization industry. Nikita speaks Hindi, Kannada and English and writes articles on entrepreneurship, marketing, languages and localization.
Renato Beninatto
CEO Nimdzi Insights
Renato Beninatto is the co-author of The General Theory of the Translation Company and leads Nimdzi Insights, a think-tank and consulting company that focuses on growth strategies for localization leaders. A former executive in some of the leading companies in the industry, Renato is also the co-host of The Global Podcast.
Question of the year
Sam Wukui Bao
ENGLISH – SIMPLIFIED CHINESE TRANSLATOR
Once a student in architecture, Sam Wukui Bao later discovered his passion for language and culture. He pursued translation studies at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, while actively engaging in translation projects with various social and cultural institutions. Having obtained his master’s degrees, Sam Bao further honed his skills through an internship at the Chinese Translation Service, United Nations Secretariat, assisting in translating summary records of U.N. conferences and provisional agenda items of the 74th General Assembly. Since then, he has been working in the gaming industry, providing simplified Chinese translation for high-profile products.
Carlotta Barelli
PhD student investigating glioblastoma stem cell biology at Human Technopole, Milan
Carlotta Barelli is a PhD student investigating glioblastoma stem cell biology at Human Technopole, Milan. Sha has graduated in neuroscience at King’s College London, where she focused on the neuroimmunology of the human fetal brain. She is also highly passionate about brain-body interactions and the use of yoga and breathwork as tools to access this connection.
Maria Casadei
PhD student at Jagiellonian University – Researcher of South Asian cultures and languages
Maria Casadei is a passionate young researcher of South Asian cultures and languages. She graduated in Languages, Cultures and Societies of Asia and Mediterranean Africa at the University of Venice, Italy. She pursued her studies at the University of Naples, with a specialization in Hindi and Urdu language. In 2021, Maria completed a three year course in Telugu language and literature at INALCO, Paris. Currently she is a PhD student at the Jagiellonian University, investigating the relationship between language, culture and Internet.
Paolo Ciuccarelli
Director of the Center for Design at Northeastern University
Architect and Communication Designer, Paolo Ciuccarelli is a Professor of Design and is the founding director of the Center for Design at Northeastern University in Boston as well as the DensityDesign Research Lab at the Politecnico di Milano. He collaborates with The Visual Agency in Milan and is a Senior Affiliate of Harvard metaLAB.
Design Intelligence
Toral Cowieson
CEO @Unicode Consortium | Board Advisor
Toral Cowieson is the CEO of the Unicode Consortium, the non-profit open source, open standards body that provides the foundation for everyone to communicate in their own languages (and emoji!) across all platforms and on billions of devices.
How Unicode’s Values Helped Shape the Digital World
Silvia Currò
Full-time freelance Translator
Silvia Currò has been a professional English/German to Italian translator for over 30 years. Native to Italy, she graduated with a degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures, lived in different countries in Europe and overseas, and finally moved back to her hometown, Genoa, where she started working as a freelancer in technical translation and language localization, after a career as a product manager in the pet food industry. For many years now her main focus is medical translation. New technologies and Artificial Intelligence are among her many interests. That is why her web space is called Translation Log.
The job of the freelance technical translator: an opportunity for inspiration and self-development.
Martín Curzio
TEDx Speaker | CoFundador & CEO de ELdeS | Alianzas estratégicas
Martin Curzio, a 36-year-old architect, is the Co-founder and CEO of ELdeS. In 2021 he founded ELdeS with his brother Fabián, the world's first platform to enable the teaching of Sign Language in a widespread and interactive way thanks to AI. They both have low vision, so they know firsthand what it's like to live with daily limitations that not everyone faces. EldeS was launched in Uruguay in March 2023 and has already garnered Educational and Ministerial Interest from ANEP, MEC and MTSS. It was launched in Argentina in October 2023, endorsed by the CUI, UBA, UTN.BA and Señas de Comunicación. EldeS seeks to scale throughout the rest of LATAM and Europe by 2024-2025.
The symbiosis between AI and humans opens up a world of possibilities for social inclusion
Arianna Dagnino
Writer, researcher & translator based in Vancouver. Author of the post-apartheid novel & screenplay "THE AFRIKANER"
Born in Genoa, Italy, she studied in London, Moscow, and Boston before becoming an international reporter, which led her to spend several years in Southern Africa and Australia, where she was awarded her PhD in Comparative Literature. Arianna teaches as part of the Italian Studies program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and is the Cultural Events Coordinator for the Dante Alighieri Society of BC.She is a member of the Writers' Union of Canada and the Literary Translators' Association of Canada. She holds Canadian, Australian, and Italian citizenship. She is the author of several books in Italian and in English, including the novel “The Afrikaner”, a penetrating story whose narrative describes the sociocultural context of post-apartheid South Africa, and “Il Quintetto di Istanbul”, a fascinating work that takes us inside the minds of five transcultural authors.
Transculturality in today’s world
Micaela De Fino
Traductora pública | Certified Translator | ES<>EN | Copy Editor
Micaela De Fino is a Certified English to Spanish Translator graduated from Universidad de la República, and specializes in legal and medical translation. Since 2020, she has worked for national and international clients, translating diverse academic, financial and corporate documents as well as medical journals for publishing. Micaela has interpreted at CASMU Hospital and worked on the subtitling for the series Golazo and the short film Raíces en la arena. She is passionate about bridging cultures and enjoys using her skills to connect people through language.
How is AI perceived globally? In your culture?
Giordano De Marzo
PhD Student at Sapienza Università di Roma
Giordano De Marzo is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Physics of Sapienza University of Rome and at the Enrico Fermi Research Center. He is also Junior Data Scientist at the Complexity Science Hub of Wien, student of Sapienza School for Advanced Studies and external consultant of UNU-MERIT and ILO. He received his master’s degree in theoretical physics at Sapienza University of Rome. Giordano’s research interests cover different topics of complex systems, such as social dynamics, economic complexity, neural networks, scaling laws and networks theory.
The value of languages
Michele Gazzola
Lecturer in Public Policy and Administration at the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences at Ulster University, UK.
Michele Gazzola holds a PhD in Multilingual communication management (University of Geneva), a MSc in Economics (University of York, UK), and a degree in Public administration and international institutions management (University “L. Bocconi”, Milan). His research areas include public policy, language policy and planning, the economics of languages, and multilingualism as a social phenomenon. He is editor of the academic journal Language Problems & Language Planning.
No taxation without translation
Marco Gervasi
Artificial Intelligence and Data Privacy Lawyer, CIPP/E and CIPM
Marco Gervasi was the founder and managing director of Red Synergy Shanghai, a company that provides legal and strategic assistance in the Chinese market. Marco has over fifteen years of experience in China, where he assists industrial companies, investment funds, venture capital and Internet companies in their investment strategies.
E-commerce strategies in China
Josh Goldsmith
UN/EU Accredited Interpreter (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan > English); AI+Tech Trainer
Josh Goldsmith is a UN and EU accredited translator and interpreter working from Spanish, French, Italian and Catalan into English. He splits his time between interpreting, translating, and working as a trainer and researcher focusing on the intersection between interpreting, technology and education. As Co-Founder and Chief Educational Officer of techforword, Josh shares tips about technology, translation and interpreting in conferences and workshops, academic articles, and on Twitter.
Question of the year
Jan Hinrichs
Founder/CEO at Beluga & LocLunch
Jan Hinrichs is the founder and CEO of Beluga, a translation company helping fast-moving companies run efficient localisation programs and positively engage with their global audiences. In the past 15 years, Jan has been deeply involved in the emerging market of web-service and mobile app localisation and the supportive software infrastructure of online TMS to guarantee smooth and continuous translation workflows. In early 2019 he started the global LocLunch movement. With more than 500 events worldwide, LocLunch has added a new layer of communication to the translation and localisation industry.
Question of the year
Sheriff Issaka
Data Scientist | AI/ML/NLP Expert | Entrepreneur & Innovator | Cloud Tech Enthusiast | Researcher | Localization | Bridging Human & Tech Collaboration for Impact
Sheriff Issaka is a King-Morgridge scholar graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he majored in Computer Science with minors in Entrepreneurship and African Studies. He is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) researcher, enthusiast, alarmist, and most interested in the intersection of cutting-edge AI technologies and society. His AI research includes analysis of the state of AI in Africa, AI optimization solutions in Midwest dairy farms, utilization of predictive and assessment models to improve operations in multinational banks, and the use of generative adversarial networks for realistic image reconstruction. As part of Sheriff’s own African Languages Lab (All Lab) initiative, he works with teams around the world to build text-to-text translations, speech recognition, and conversational chatbots for low-resourced African languages.
Marion Jõepera
Content Strategist & Senior Copywriter
Marion Jõepera is a travel writer, tour guide and copywriter. She has spent the last 20 years creating (user) journeys on screen, paper and mountain trails, and can often be found participating in projects that bring us closer to experiencing the world as directly as possible. When not enhancing user experience or guiding in the remote wilderness, she is collaborating with theatre directors, climbing mountains or helping post-grad students pursue their fervent academic goals.
Nereo Kalebic
Research Group Leader at Human Technopole
Nereo Kalebic is a Group Leader at the Centre for Neurogenomics. He obtained his degree in Molecular Biology at the University of Zagreb in Croatia in 2007. In 2012, he completed his PhD in Molecular Biology at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and Heidelberg University. During his PhD, Nereo studied the role of microtubule post-translational modifications in the development and function of the nervous system. From 2013 to 2019, he carried out post-doctoral research in Wieland Huttner’s group at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, studying the development and evolution of the human neocortex. Nereo’s current research focuses on the molecular and cellular biological mechanisms underlying human neocortex development and their implications for human evolution and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Vidushi Kapoor
Co-founder – Process9 | Nasscom | Women In Localization
Vidushi graduated from Delhi University with a degree in Economics. After working with Ernst & Young and Goldman Sachs, her deep interest in Indian languages combined with a passion to solve complex problems, led her to join hands with veterans in the language technology space to co-found Process9. Nine years into the industry, she has helped build products & solutions for the various challenges brought forth by Process9's clients, and has learnt to read and speak many new Indian languages along the way. She has spoken at forums hosted by FICCI, CITLoB and others.
Guglielmo Maccario
European Central Bank/ UNINT University
Guglielmo Maccario is a Contract Professor in Development Studies at UNINT University, where he earned his Ph.D. in International Management in 2022. Passionate about communication and languages, Guglielmo started his career in an advertising agency and then worked in UN specialized agencies in Rome. With a Bachelor’s degree in foreign languages, he lived in Beijing for two years, where he studied Chinese and worked in the Marketing sector.
Priya Mani
DESIGN AND RESEARCH AT LEAPCRAFT
Priya Mani is a Copenhagen based designer and cultural researcher working to create gastronomical experiences.Mani grew up in India and studied at the National Institute of Design. In her career, over the past 20 years, she has pursued the craft of culture, through textiles, technology and food. She is particularly interested in the human factor and has worked for over a decade in the area of design and innovation across industries. She explores and writes on how people use everyday technology, migration and food and digital democracy in emerging economies.
Joseph Mariani
Research Director Emeritus at CNRS
Joseph Mariani is now Research Director Emeritus at CNRS. His research activities concern Spoken Language Processing, Human-Machine Communication and Human Language Resources and Technologies.
Question of the year
Momtazul Mohiuddin
Translator, Lingual and Audio Services Provider, Translation Project Manager, Editor
Momtazul Mohiuddin is a Bangladeshi freelance language services provider, born and brought up in Rajshahi, a divisional town in Bangladesh that stands by the river Padma. He is forty years old and offers services mainly in the Indian languages. He graduated in English literature from University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. Being a Rajshahi University Cultural Student’s Union (RUCSU) activist and a musician, he had the access to the world of music as well, which eventually inspired him to start offering lingual and audio services altogether. Twelve years in the localization industry paved a way for him to come close to newer technologies like AI, that are changing the scenario of not only the localization industry, but also the whole world, very quickly. He aspires to get closer to the change and experience the change being a part of it.
Language Surveys – Bangladesh
Nassim Mzaourou
Interpreter/Translator (Arabic-English-French) | English Language Instructor | Content Writer
Nassim Mzaourou is a seasoned interpreter and translator with the linguistic combination of English, Arabic, and French, and a master's degree in interpreting and translation. With over six years of experience in language services, Nassim specializes in bridging linguistic divides with precision and cultural finesse. Passionate about fostering cross-cultural connections, Nassim is dedicated to delivering seamless communication in a globalized world.
Language Surveys – Morocco
Winnie Ngimor
Freelance Translator French<>English<>Swahili at Translated
Winnie Ngimor was born and raised in the Western part of Kenya, in Africa. She is a translator by profession and is also a writer, something she does during her free time. She considers her family to be most important to her. If she isn’t spending time with her friends and family, you can almost always find her reading.
Gianluca Nicoletti
Presidente presso Fondazione Cervelli Ribelli Onlus
Gianluca Nicoletti (Perugia, 1954) is a journalist, a writer, and a well-known voice on Italian radio for 40 years. He currently presents on Radio24 and is a columnist for La Stampa. He is the father of Tommy, who is 26 and has autism. Gian Luca works to spread knowledge and best practices around neurodivergence through the Fondazione Cervelli Ribelli, of which he is the president.
Il mio gemello è un figlio unico