The future of translation technology through the eyes of a student

Kilgray has been running an academic program for some time now. We are actually near to its 5th anniversary.
In addition to free educational licenses, college budget-friendly student prices and numerous training resources, we always wanted to give more as we are fully committed to supporting the education of translators and other professionals working in the translation industry. In fact, most of, if not all of Kilgray's board members have given university lectures to various audiences of students during this years so it is somehow ’hard coded’ in the company’s virtual heart.

This year we knew we needed to organize something new and refreshing so we came up with the idea of the student essay contest in which we asked students ideas about the future of the translation industry. One could say that translation students are not the most adequate group to answer such question but we felt the opposite. They aren’t affected by the daily work routines of translation companies, the requirements of demanding clients or the extended caffeine intake before a tight deadline, so they can show us a different angle. After closing the contest and reading through the entries, I can say that we were dead right as the color palette and the creativity of the essays were surprising, even for us. Choosing the winners was really a tough job for our jury and I think we have all learnt from the imagination of the students.

The grand prize winner of the contest is Urša Klinc. She is an aspiring translator currently pursuing a joint master's degree in Translation at the University of Ljubljana and the University of Graz. Her main professional interests include technical translation, terminology management and computer-assisted translation. She speaks Slovenian, English and German. Her essay discusses the needs of modern translators in a rapidly evolving market and how CAT tools have yet to rise to this challenge, and suggests specific solutions to some of the most pressing problems. The jury unanimously thought that her essay well deserves the first place.

Among the other prizes she also won the opportunity to discuss her ideas and ask tricky questions from a team of our experts. We are really interested to see if she can corner those guys.