Flitto Highlights: Salon de Flitto 2023
Industry professionals across the country gather for the networking seminar of the year.
On a snowy Wednesday last December 20, Flitto hosted Salon de Flitto, the annual year-end networking seminar for translators and language professionals.
This year marked the seminar’s second year with the theme: Age of Coexistence. The seminar was another wonderful blast filled with a warm atmosphere and vibrant attendees. We’re excited to share with you the details of what happened this year.
What kind of event is Salon de Flitto?
Salon de Flitto is an event motivated by a simple question: It’s not too hard to find formal, academic seminars for translators and linguists out there, but why are networking events so hard to find?
As the leading translation and translation tech company of South Korea, Team Flitto set out to plan one ourselves.
By the end of each year, Salon de Flitto aims to provide language professionals with an opportunity to expand their professional circles and share the latest insights and trends in the industry.
When it comes to offering information, Flitto is proud to work with some of the most talented in-house linguists to share their industry experiences. In addition to this, we invite guest speakers with deep niche experiences were invited to provide diverse insights.
Salon de Flitto 2023: The Age of Coexistence
This year’s Salon de Flitto 2023 explored the theme of the “Age of Coexistence.”
The year marked a period witnessing some of the most significant leaps in technology, including but not limited to the explosive popularization of ChatGPT. The rapid technological developments have compelled professionals across various industries to find ways to coexist with these innovations.
The necessity for adjustment within this rapidly changing atmosphere also extended to those in the field of translation. While skilled human professionals are undoubtedly irreplaceable, the swift pace of change presented a challenge they must confront.
At Flitto, we recognized that this anxiety could be caused by the fear of missing out. The scope of “skills” that translators must possess has expanded. There are new trends to keep up with, and more aspects to stay updated on.
But any technological development necessitates skilled humans who can wield it. The role of translators will be more critical than ever in this era of development, and the “age of coexistence” with technologies is ripe with burgeoning opportunities.
In line with this theme, let’s delve into the key highlights in Salon de Flitto 2023: The Age of Coexistence.
Seminar Part 1: Finding Opportunities
The first part of the seminar focused on the technological incorporation within translation.
Flitto CEO Simon Lee opened the event with a keynote on the impact of the year 2023 on the translation landscape, highlighting the new opportunities it unlocked.
Following that, Ms. Cecile Suh, an industry professional with 23 years of experience in Korean-to-English interpretation and translation, shared her profound insights into the changing trends of translation and interpretation.
During the next session, Ms. Samipak Wissuta, a Korean-to-Thai translator, shed light on the field of parallel corpora building. Parallel corpora building is a significant project type in the field of translation, as it serves as an important data for both the field of linguistics and AI technology.
Next two sessions featured Flitto’s very own in-house linguists, Ms. Lucy and Mr. Armand, who offered insights into the latest trends in technological translation.
Ms. Lucy is an irreplaceable figure when it comes to Flitto’s large-scale translation projects that utilize machine translation. She demonstrated how the demand for machine translation post-editing or MTPE projects is on a steady rise, and shared tips on how to work on them efficiently.
Mr. Armand has been directly involved in the field of translation prompt engineering since the rise of generative AI, having also published an extensive article on the Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) website. During his session, he listed several practical tips that translators can apply directly in their next projects.
Networking Break
Many attendees (and Team Flitto!) looked greatly forward to the networking session of this event. The break offered a chance for attendees to network and get to know each other better alongside a nice bottle of wine set across tables.
Mini demo for Flitto Live Translation
The networking break also included a demo session of the Flitto Live Translation solution, currently in its beta version.
Live Translation is a real-time translation solution that utilizes state-of-the-art speech recognition (ASR) and machine translation engines. The service features a chat room where speech is translated in real time with speech bubbles. It can be used in various scenarios involving one or more speakers and a large crowd, such as in a conference setting, or a live performance.
Attendees at the event were some of the first people to see the groundbreaking technology in action. A few minutes were set aside for visitors to try out the application and communicate on it.
Seminar Part 2: Freelance Translators Discuss Coexistence
Continuing with a glass of wine in hand, the next part of the seminar featured three of Flitto Localization’s very own freelance translator collaborators. The three speakers came from diverse areas of expertise, including IT, engineering, and manufacturing.
This latter half of the seminar particularly seemed to resonate with the audience, which mostly consisted of freelance translators and industry officials.
Ms. Sunyoung Jae is a freelance Korean-to-French translator and interpreter who cites meeting clients in diverse fields as the highlight of her work. She shared with the audience her experience working alongside a wide range of industries, from electrical engineering to professional wine associations.
Korean-to-Chinese translator Byung-kwon Jung has collaborated with Flitto on a number of significant projects in the chemical and automotive industry. His humorous session dealt with the skills and attitudes required to become a leading translator in the industry.
Freelancers are also called “solopreneurs” for a reason; and financial management is one of the essential skills to have. Trilingual translator Ms. Jihyun Shin recently purchased her first property through meticulous income management. The audience was all ears as she shared the A-to-Z of her know-how during her session.
Wrapping up…
Despite the cold weather, the venue was full of life and warmth. Translation, as well as translation technology, is an interdisciplinary field that requires a seamless blend of linguistic proficiency, cultural sensitivity, and technological expertise.
We were grateful to have hosted this year’s event with many professionals around the country showing an enthusiastic response to join us. While we had to keep the invitation list short due to space limits, we look forward to meeting everyone in our upcoming events.
Flitto is looking forward to bringing more opportunities to keep you updated with the latest trends in the language industry. Stay tuned!
