On 5–7 October 2023, the FIT North America Regional Centre held a conference on educating the next generation of translators, terminologists, and interpreters, dubbed as the NextGen conference in Monterey, California. It focussed on bringing together educators and representatives of language service companies in Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
NextGen was an in-person-only event, which allowed for substantial face-to-face networking on the campus of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), where the conference was held.
The conference began with a ‘smudge’. The smudging ceremony was held outside the Irvine Auditorium by Elder Wayne Jackson, who then went inside and offered a prayer in his native language to bless the NextGen event. Later in the conference, he participated in the plenary on Indigenous language interpreters.
Alan Melby, Chair of FIT North America and NextGen conference organiser, read MIIS’s land acknowledgement to formally open the event.
Alison Rodriguez, President of FIT, and Jimmy Panetta, who represents California’s 19th Congressional District in the United States Congress and is co-chair of the America’s Languages Caucus, sent pre-recorded greetings.
The first evening, organisers provided restaurant gift certificates to attendees, but with a catch: diners had to form groups of at least five in which no more than two people already knew each other before arriving in Monterey. Although some would have preferred to eat with their friends, the innovative approach to networking was very effective at helping to foster new connections during the conference.
These gift certificates, and other aspects of the conference, were made possible by generous donations by the event’s sponsors, who demonstrated their belief in the future of the profession by contributing funds. The platinum sponsor was MasterWord, a language services company that believes, along with everyone else who came to NextGen, that there will indeed be another generation of language professionals, specifically translators and interpreters.
The second day of the conference consisted of five plenary sessions around networking breaks of at least 30 minutes. The first plenary was by Professor Miguel Jiménez-Crespo, Director of the Translation and Interpreting Program at Rutgers University.
For more information about the plenaries and the parallel sessions on the third day of the conference, see the conference webpage on the FIT North America website.
The NextGen organising committee thanks the presenters, attendees, and sponsors for a successful conference. We hope to see many publications based on NextGen presentations and increased collaboration among educators and language services companies in North America, resulting in a lasting impact.
Alan Melby, FIT North America