FIT world congresses are our flagship event: an unrivalled opportunity to bring all areas of the profession into the same room – not only metaphorically, but literally face to face in the same room! Along with riveting keynotes and roundtables bringing together academic and practitioner presentations, FIT congresses offer the chance to meet and connect with like-minded colleagues and reconnect with those we met in previous years. Although every congress is important, our next one will be unmissable as we embrace the elephant in the room: artificial intelligence and our professional agency in how it is applied to translation, interpreting, and terminology in the future.
On that note, I’m very happy to announce that, under the theme:
Mastering the machine: shaping an intelligent future,
the XXIII FIT World Congress will be held on 4–6 September 2025, in Geneva, Switzerland.
This congress will be unlike any other. The 2025 FIT Congress will be organised not by a member association, but by FIT itself, at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). One of FIT’s long-standing external partners, WIPO are a specialised agency of the United Nations leading the development of global intellectual property promoting innovation and creativity. They are a natural partner for our first FIT Congress on the shores of Lake Geneva, at the foot of the Alps.
We know this choice of venue may bring mixed feelings, especially for those who voted for Costa Rica. While the latter is an ideal destination for a FIT congress, even our congress can be touched by world events and their impacts, and lengthy discussions between FIT and the elected host ANTIO resulted in a mutual and regrettable decision to change the location.
In this issue, we congratulate all our member associations on their recent and upcoming conferences, which, like ours, are valuable opportunities to learn and grow. AI has understandably featured prominently, but not only that: we are finding ways to increase collaboration, highlight our contributions, and encourage young people to see the potential of our professions. A great deal of FIT visibility happens in our Regional Centres, and you can read how their events are building community. I would also like to congratulate the Asociación Cubana de Traductores e Intérpretes (ACTI) on their 35th anniversary, the Asociación Panameña de Traductores e Intérpretes on their 40th, and the Bulgarian Translators Union (BTU) on their 50th anniversaries. Well done!
International Translation Day (ITD) is around the corner, and we have released our new poster to celebrate this year’s theme: Translation, an art worth protecting. Members can download it from the FIT website to promote our special day of celebration, 30 September, and their own ITD celebrations. We look forward to celebrating with you again this year, so join us for our ITD webinar, to be held on 27 September 2024. More details will be available soon.
We also hope you will join us at the FIT Congress 2025 in Geneva. I look forward to catching up there!
We hope you enjoy this issue.
Alison Rodriguez, president@fit-ift.org