The Localization Institute is excited to offer several interactive seminars and round tables as part of the upcoming Global Toolbox Day at LocWorld53 in Malmö, Sweden on Tuesday June 3 2025. These sessions will each take place at the Clarion Hotel & Congress Malmö Live. As a co-organizer of LocWorld Conference, the Localization Institute offers these seminars and round tables as separate, stand-alone events. Registration for LocWorld Malmö is not required to attend a Global Toolbox session. Please fill out the first page registration site, then go to tab 2 to finish. If you would like to register for the main conference of LocWorld53, please visit the LocWorld website.
Please Note: Global Toolbox sessions have size limits that cannot be exceeded – register now to reserve your seat!
Full Day Sessions – Lunch Included
Multilingual AI Roundtable
Tuesday, June 3 from 9:00am – 5:00pm
Registration Fee: €750 + 25% VAT – full day price (lunch included).
Your registration for this session includes lunch
10% discount for 3 or more students from the same company – please contact jill@
Event description: Transition in localization – From Automation to Agentic AI
The emergence of AI Agents has disrupted the localization industry, redefining its scope on the macro level, as well as in the details of daily operations. Developing into sophisticated systems with the capability to make autonomous decisions, these agents are becoming active participants in localization workflows. Within this context, it is crucial for localizers to clarify what AI Agents can and cannot do. With careful stewardship, well-designed applications of AI agents have the potential to become invaluable human allies, to foster innovation, as well as improve efficiency and productivity. The seventh Multilingual AI roundtable will focus on key components of this transition, such as AI-driven workflow orchestration, Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)-based MT with Large Language Models (LLMs) , as well as possible applications and unique challenges of working with LLM agents.
Topics to be discussed:
- RAG-based MT with LLMs
- AI-driven Content Orchestration System
- Intelligent Multilingual Information Retrieval
- Auto Localization Quality Assurance (LQA) and Quality Estimation (QE)
- Steering Agentic AI: Human role and human-computer collaboration
- Knowledge graphs and AI data management
- Applications and risks of AI Agents
By joining this round table, you will:
- Understand what AI Agents can and cannot do
- Gather insights to apply and manage AI Agents at the enterprise level
- Design innovated localization workflow with AI Agents as an active participant
- Discuss industry best practices to manage both people and AI Agents
- Consider future trends in the AI space
- Develop valuable connections with industry peers
This round table is for:
- Decision-makers who aim to leverage AI on both strategic and operational levels
- Buyers who want to implement Multilingual AI
- Project Managers tasked with implementing an MT/AI solution
- Vendors who want to leverage MT/AI to meet their clients’ needs
- IT professionals involved in MT/AI implementation
- Content Managers responsible for global content
Pre-roundtable webinar
This roundtable will provide a webinar to address potential technological knowledge gaps to help participants prepare for the in-person roundtable discussions.
Roundtable morning session
- Time: 9am-12pm, including one coffee break (30 minutes)
- Format: in-person discussions, use cases, and interactive business game
- Modules
- Module 1: From automation to agentic AI: An overview
- Module 2: Quality in agentic AI: Automatic QA tools
- Module 3: Agentic AI localization workflows and multi-agent collaboration
Lunch break – 12:30 – 1:30 pm
Roundtable afternoon session
- Time: 1:30 – 5 pm, including one coffee break (30 minutes)
- Format: in-person discussions, use cases, and interactive business game
- Modules:
- Module 3: RAG-based MT with LLMs
- Module 4: Steering Agentic AI: Human role and human-computer collaboration
- Module 3: Applications and risks of AI Agents
Roundtable moderator/organizer:
Peng Wang, The Localization Institute
Advisory board members (speakers):
- Olga Beregovaya, Smartling
- Alon Lavie, Phrase/CMU
Speakers:
- Marina Sánchez Torrón, Smartling
- Dr. Arle Lommel, CSA Research
- Bruno Bitter, Blackbird.io
Please note:
The Round Table’s success depends on people being willing to share information and experiences freely. To encourage that, the sessions are not recorded or republished and no formal minutes or records are kept. Attendees are free to keep their own notes.
Attendee Minimum: 12
Attendee Maximum: 30
Dr. Peng Wang has taught, researched and practiced translation and localization on three continents. She is the convener for EDUinLOC, the chair of the automation/AI track for LocWorld conferences and a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa. Previously, she was the CAT Tools Coordinator at the University of Maryland.
Dr. Wang has rich research experience on NLP AI, having worked as a linguistic researcher at the Corpus Research Lab at Northern Arizona University, a domain expert for data mining projects at the University of Maryland and an honorary research fellow on automatic discourse analysis tools at the University of Liverpool. Her current research and practice focus on human learning vs. machine learning, machine translation, terminology and multilingual corpus analysis.
Dr. Wang has published about 30 articles and two books. She is an expert in approaching technology in the context of culture and humanities. She embraces linguistic and cultural diversity in her classrooms, with students aged from 18 to over 70, in over 10 language combinations, coming from UAE, China, Italy, Spain, Germany, Morocco, Colombia, Mexico, and Haiti, to name just a few.
Olga Beregovaya – Vice President of AI and Machine Translation – Smartling. Olga Beregovaya has over 20 years of experience in Language Technology, NLP, Machine Learning, Global Content Transformation and AI Data development and is passionate about growing businesses through driving change and innovation. Olga started her career in language technology building lexicons and rules for Rule-based machine translation, gradually expanding her expertise into other broader applications of NLP and Machine Learning to enterprise translation workflows. Olga has also served as President of AMTA, currently serves as a Board member of Women in Localization and as an Advisor for Engineering Leadership at California State University, Chico. Olga received her MA, Linguistics/Germanic Studies at UC- Berkeley and MA/BA in Linguistics from St. Petersburg State University.
Alon Lavie is the VP of AI Research at Phrase, where he leads the development of the company’s AI strategy and manages its AI research team in Pittsburgh and Prague. Concurrently, Alon is an adjunct Consulting Professor at the Language Technologies Institute at CMU, where he has been a member of the faculty for 26 years. Prior to joining Phrase, he was the VP of Language Technologies at Unbabel. Prior to Unbabel, Alon was a senior manager at Amazon, where he led and managed the Amazon Machine Translation R&D group in Pittsburgh. Prior to that, Alon was the co-founder, President and CTO of “Safaba Translation Solutions”, an enterprise MT solutions technology startup, acquired by Amazon. Alon is a well-known expert in MT and translation evaluation, and spearheaded the development of the METEOR and COMET metrics. Other research interests and activities include MT adaptation approaches with and without human feedback, translation Quality Estimation, and methods for multi-engine MT system combination.
Alon served as the President of the International Association for Machine Translation (IAMT) (2013-2015). Prior to that, he was president of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas (AMTA) (2008-2012), and was General Chair of the AMTA 2010 and 2012 conferences. He is also a member of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), where he was president of SIGParse – ACL’s special interest group on parsing (2008-2013). In August 2021, at the 18th biennial Machine Translation Summit conference, Alon was honored to be awarded with the 2021 Makoto Nagao IAMT Award of Honour for his contributions to the field of Machine Translation.
Marina Sánchez Torrón – Linguistic Engineer – Smartling. Marina Sánchez Torrón is a Linguistic Engineer at Smartling with over 20 years of experience in the language industry, having previously worked as a translator, a computational linguist, and a language analyst. She holds a Ph.D. in Translation Studies from The University of Auckland. Her expertise and research interests revolve around translation quality, UX and AI.
Dr. Arle Lommel – Senior Analyst – CSA Research. Arle Lommel has played a key role in the localization industry since 1998, starting with his standards work for the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) and GALA. Prior to joining CSA Research in 2016, he was a senior consultant at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)’s Berlin language technology lab, where he worked on European Union- and German government-funded projects in MT. He focused on developing quality frameworks for MT, including the Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM), which is now widely deployed for linguistic quality assessment (LQA) and serves as the basis for the TAUS Dynamic Quality Framework’s (DQF) error typology. At CSA Research, he focuses on the economic value of language, AI, and language quality.
Bruno Bitter – Co-founder and CEO – Blackbird.io. Bruno Bitter is the co-founder and CEO of Blackbird.io, a ContentOps platform for multilingual workflow orchestration and process automation. A Canadian-Hungarian dual citizen and serial entrepreneur, he previously founded and led an award-winning digital marketing agency, pioneering innovative brand experiences. He also co-founded a text-to-animation AI startup, advancing AI-driven content creation, and served as CMO and COO at memoQ Translation Technologies from 2017 to 2020.
In 2023, Bruno won the Process Innovation Challenge at LocWorld49 in Malmö in recognition of his contributions to analytics-driven decision automation. Passionate about AI, automation, and business process optimization, he is a frequent speaker at global conferences, sharing insights on technology’s role in transforming ContentOps and AI-driven workflows.
Bruno is an alumnus of MIT, Utrecht University, ELTE, and The Berlin School of Creative Leadership. He currently lives in Budapest with his wife and two children.
TermClub: GenAI and Terminology Augmented Generation
Tuesday, June 3 from 9:00am – 5:00pm
Registration Fee: €750 + 25% VAT – full day price (lunch included).
Your registration for this session includes lunch
10% discount for 3 or more students from the same company – please contact jill@
Event description:
Generative AI and LLMs are on the innovation roadmap of all companies where content matters. For language departments and terminologists there is enormous potential to contribute to these developments, raising the awareness and value of existing linguistic resources such as terminology databases.
The goal of this hands-on workshop is to discover how to set up and optimize termbases specifically for AI tasks. We will build sandbox applications that actively use terminology to address your specific AI challenges. These can include uses cases such as content generation, translation, or terminology verification, as well as specific use cases that you bring to the workshop.
What you will take away from this workshop is:
- An understanding of how to use terminology to optimize GenAI output
- Concrete input on how to optimize or build terminology data for AI use cases
- Technological insights into AI models, RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation), TAG (Terminology Augmented Generation) and terminology APIs
Target audience: Language departments, terminologists, and AI enthusiasts who want to understand how to use terminologies to optimize AI outputs.
Experience Level: Participants should have had contact with AI tools and terminologies, but they do not need to be experts in either.
Session Organizers:
- Klaus Fleischmann, Kaleidoscope
- Christian Lang, Kaleidoscope
The ideal group size is between 6 and 12 people.
Klaus Fleischmann – Founder and CEO – Kaleidoscope. Klaus studied translation, conference interpretation and technical communication in Austria and California. In 1996, he founded Kaleidoscope, a language technology company, and is also CEO of Eurocom Translation Services, a translation company. Klaus served on the GALA Board of Directors for 4 year and is currently on the board of Termnet and ELIA. He also speaks regularly at conferences, universities and events about such exciting topics like terminology, the global process management or linguistic quality management. In is private life, Klaus is an outdoor enthusiast and prefers to hike or climb a rainy mountain to relaxing on a sunny beach. If there is time left, Klaus likes to play the electric guitar or Saxophone.
Christian Lang – Technical Consultant – Kaleidoscope. Christian Lang has a wide range of experience and interests in the field of languages, as demonstrated by his studies in Japanese and translation. His initial involvement with terminology management was as a freelance translator for the European Patent Office. It has since become one of his areas of expertise, as has research in the field of NLP on topics such as machine translation, automatic term extraction, and concept maps.
Connect with Christian on LinkedIn.
Special Half Day Sessions
Discount for LocWorld Attendees
Localization101
Tuesday, June 3 from 9:00am – 12:30pm
Registration Fee: €125 (+ 25% VAT) if registered for both days of LocWorld, €250 (+ 25% VAT) if not.
Please contact jill@localizationinstitute.com for your discount code if you are registered for both days.
Lunch is NOT included with this event.
Event description:
Just starting out in the localization industry?
Want to know what it is all about?
Join us for this session to make sense of all the buzzwords you will hear, like:
- Internationalization, localization, transcreation
- Linguistic assets, content, repositories
- MT, TM, AI, LLM, XLIFF, TBX, and TMX
- Workflow management and APIs
- TMS, BMS, Crowdsourcing
Ideal participants are new hires in the localization industry, recent graduates in translation studies, or current employees recently tasked with managing translation or localization activities.
Takeaways. You will:
- Understand the basic concepts
- Be aware of potential problems
- Sense the importance of the mission
Session Organizers:
- Richard Sikes, memoQ
- Angelika Zerfass, Zaac
Attendee Minimum: 12
Attendee Maximum: 30
Attendee Experience: Beginner
As an added benefit, participants in the Localization 101 morning session will be well prepared with the vocabulary and breadth of understanding to optimally benefit from the afternoon Global Strategy Playbook Workshop. Together, these two sessions will take participants from zero to hero in one information-filled day.
Richard Sikes – Senior Consultant, Business Services – memoQ. Richard has been immersed in technical translation and localization for nearly 35 years. He is passionate about linguistic technologies of all kinds and spends much of his time facilitating deployment of technology solutions. He began his career interpreting for touring theatre companies in Europe, then transitioned to management of localization teams at software companies. He has focussed on technology since 2005. His articles have been published 17 times in MultiLingual magazine. He has written a variety of blog posts and he contributed a chapter to the textbook “The Art of the Possible: Translation and Localization Project Management.” Richard is well known as an organizer, speaker, and moderator at translation industry events.
Angelika Zerfass – Technical Training and Support – Zaac. Angelika has been involved in training, technical support and consultancy for translation technologies for over 20 years. She began her career with a degree in translation, but moved into the technology side of the localization business very quickly, becoming one of the first localization engineers of her time.
Her main interests are the more tricky parts of translation tools, like file filters, XML, regular expressions and finding workarounds for everything that the tools can’t do directly.
She has been a frequent speaker at several industry-related conferences and events over the years.
Global Strategy Playbook Workshop
Tuesday, June 3 from 1:30am – 5:00pm
Registration Fee: €125 (+25% VAT) if you are registered for both days of LocWorld53, €250 (+25% VAT) if you are not.
Please contact jill@localizationinstitute.com for your discount code if you are registered for both days.
This session has a catered break, but lunch is not included with this session.
Have you wondered how to convince your management that your globalization or localization function contributes strategic value to the company? Maybe you’re a localization manager on the buyer side, executing more and more productively as you adopt better tools and processes. But still, you’re seen as a mere service in your organization, rather than as a strategic partner? How can you change that perception? Well, there’s a (free) book on the subject, written by a group of successful industry managers, directors, and vice presidents who have met and overcome this challenge.
We are offering a workshop with several of the authors to discuss key topics from the book.
- What does it mean to adopt a strategic approach to localization?
- We’re all supposed to be data driven now. But what data? How to get it? How to analyze it and develop appropriate plans?
- Technology continues to evolve at what sometimes seems an alarming pace. You may need a structure to help you evaluate the many possibilities.
- We have multiple stakeholders at different levels of importance and influence. How should we categorize and act on those relationships?
Attendees from both the buyer and provider sides of the industry are welcome, since the lessons from the playbook are relevant to anyone managing the many facets of localization.
One of the authors will outline a case study from the book and launch a general discussion based on specific, related questions, enlivened by the experience of the group. We plan to touch on three or four of the chapters in the book in this workshop.
Authors:
- Karen Combe, Former Vice President of Localization at PTC
To download A Globalization Strategy Playbook: go to Github – https://github.com/GILT-Forum/Globalization-Strategy-Playbook/releases/tag/1.0
Format: Workshop
Karen Combe. Karen recently retired from her position as Vice President of Localization at PTC, where she was responsible for product localization as well as for localization support for PTCU, Technical Support, and Marketing. She has been a member of the GILT Leaders Forum, a community of peers in the localization industry, since its inception. In 2022, Karen contributed as an expert from the GILT Leaders Forum and as a co-author of “The Globalization Strategy Playbook”.
Previously, Karen was Senior Vice President at International Language Engineering, where she managed Client Services, Sales and Marketing. Karen holds a B.A in Linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley and a post-graduate degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She served in the Peace Corps in Senegal and in International Voluntary Services in Algeria.
In addition, Karen worked for 8 years on a ranch in northwestern Colorado training horses and looking after a large herd of cattle.
Special Half Day Sessions
Discount for Unicode Members
A Friendly Introduction to Software Internationalization (i18n) and Unicode Technologies
Tuesday, June 3 from 9:00am – 11:30am
Registration Fee:
Unicode Members – €250 (+25% VAT) for each Unicode session, €450 (+25% VAT) to attend both Unicode sessions (for a single attendee)
Non-Members – €300 (+25% VAT) for each Unicode session, €550 (+25% VAT) to attend both Unicode sessions (for a single attendee)
Please contact jill@localizationinstitute.com from your company email address for your discount code if eligible
Event Description:
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Two dynamic 40-minute lectures packed with actionable insights.
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Easy-to-follow concepts and best practices to help you confidently collaborate with developers.
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A friendly introduction to the Unicode standard and its essential tools.
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A dedicated Q&A and discussion to dive deeper into your questions.
Ideal For: Localization Program & Project Managers (15-40 attendees)
Ready to expand your horizons? Reserve your spot today and take the first step toward mastering software i18n!
Joel Sahleen – Internationalization Engineering Team Lead – Spotify. Joel Sahleen manages the Internationalization Engineering team at Spotify, and is the volunteer lead for the Unicode Education Initiative. Trained as a classical Chinese linguist and a cross-cultural ethical theorist, for the last decade and a half, he has been working in the field of software internationalization and localization as an engineer, an architect, a team lead and a manager. A regular speaker at both internationalization and localization conferences, he is passionate about the technical, practical and ethical aspects of developing software for a global audience.
Practical Software Internationalization (i18n) with Unicode Technologies
Tuesday, June 3 from 1:30pm – 4:00pm
Registration Fee:
Unicode Members – €250 (+25% VAT) for each Unicode session, €450 (+25% VAT) to attend both Unicode sessions (for a single attendee)
Non-Members – €300 (+25% VAT) for each Unicode session, €550 (+25% VAT) to attend both Unicode sessions (for a single attendee)
Please contact jill@localizationinstitute.com from your company email address for your discount code if eligible
Event Description:
Take your internationalization (i18n) knowledge to the next level with this practical, hands-on session focused on applying Unicode i18n technologies. Whether you’re continuing from Session 1 or joining as a standalone attendee, this session is perfect for localization specialists looking to guide developers in implementing effective i18n solutions.
What to expect:
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Learn how to help developers create multilingual user interfaces (UI) and format system messages.
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Understand how to localize values like dates, times, numbers, and currencies to suit diverse regions.
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Gain confidence in pointing developers to the right tools and guiding them through the implementation process.
Why You Should Attend:
Localization is about more than just translating words—it’s about creating seamless, culturally relevant experiences. This session breaks down the practical side of i18n and gives you the tools to turn concepts into action.
Whether you’re tackling a global project or simply want to enhance your skill set, this session equips you with the knowledge to make an impact.
Ideal For: Localization Program & Project Managers (15-40 attendees)
Ready to get practical? Sign up today and learn how to bring software i18n to life with confidence!
Joel Sahleen – Internationalization Engineering Team Lead – Spotify. Joel Sahleen manages the Internationalization Engineering team at Spotify, and is the volunteer lead for the Unicode Education Initiative. Trained as a classical Chinese linguist and a cross-cultural ethical theorist, for the last decade and a half, he has been working in the field of software internationalization and localization as an engineer, an architect, a team lead and a manager. A regular speaker at both internationalization and localization conferences, he is passionate about the technical, practical and ethical aspects of developing software for a global audience.
