The Rise of Language Solutions!
In the platform where words link cultures and facilitate global dialogue, the demand for language solutions is on the rise. From translation and interpretation services to language learning platforms and localization strategies, this industry empowers individuals and organizations to connect, collaborate, and thrive in diverse environments. It is an industry that thrives on the power of words, the art of interpretation, and the science of technology.
In this growing industry of language solutions, one such company that stands out for addressing the pressing need for language solutions is Mastervoice. Since its inception, Mastervoice has carved a niche for itself as a total language solutions provider.
With a rich history spanning over two decades, the company has demonstrated market expertise in conference interpreting and language technology solutions for multilingual meetings. Mastervoice’s commitment to business ethics, loyalty, and reliability has earned it a reputation for upholding transparency in the international meetings industry.
Guided by the relentless pursuit of excellence by its CEO, Eric Bauwelinck, Mastervoice continues to navigate the evolving sector of language technology, embracing market trends while upholding the timeless value of human interpretation. As we chart a course towards the future, Mastervoice remains poised to redefine the boundaries of linguistic innovation, ensuring that every voice finds resonance in the complexities of global discourse.
Let’s explore Mastervoice’s journey towards shaping the language solutions industry:
The Evolution of a Language Technology Pioneer
Mastervoice was founded in 1998 and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2023. After almost ten years of work as a freelance conference interpreter for various corporate and institutional clients, Eric established Mastervoice in 1998. It was set up as a total language solutions provider with market expertise in conference interpreting and language technology solutions for multilingual meetings.
Upholding Ethics and Transparency in the Meetings Industry
Business ethics, loyalty, and reliability are essential values in the international meeting industry. This is reflected in the corporate values of Mastervoice by honoring their commitments in all their contracts and by demonstrating consistency in their quality management and recruitment policies for conference interpreters and audiovisual support operators.
Clients value transparency in agreements and contracts, and Mastervoice pays special attention to this in their communication with meeting organizers throughout the entire process, from requests for proposals to planning, coordination, document management, order management, and billing.
Enhancing International Dialogue through Interpretation
International exchanges are facilitated with a clear purpose in mind: to promote social dialogue, to improve relations, to create value, to enhance reputation and brand value, or to improve sustainable development. The value of hiring conference interpreters, as demonstrated by Mastervoice, is reflected in a higher degree of confidence in the international dialogue and a measurable increase in the engagement of meeting participants.
For on-site meetings with a high degree of interactivity and informal discussions during breaks, the role of interpreters is not restricted to interpreting only. Conference interpreters, like those at Mastervoice, contribute to cultural mediation by building mutual trust and improving relationships between international representatives.
The Role of Technology in Planning International Meetings
Customers expect full transparency in the organization and planning of an international meeting. They also want to be involved in the process of fine-tuning the interpreting and audiovisual requirements ahead of the event, especially in a hybrid meeting with applied language technology.
This is a standard that Mastervoice strives to meet. Compliance with international standards in the provision of conference systems with simultaneous interpreting is another key requirement to meet the expectations of international meeting planners and their customers. This is a commitment that Mastervoice takes seriously.
The Human Touch in Linguistic Interpretation
It is worth emphasizing that language is much more than a combination of words and sentences delivered in a certain structure. Every presentation and speech is a human expression of thoughts, ideas, and feelings on a topic of interest, with verbal and non-verbal expressions in each context, with a clear intention to leave a positive impact on audiences and stakeholders.
In this respect, it is essential that these cultural and linguistic connotations are reproduced for the target audience in their native language. The mere reproduction of words, meaning, and syntax, as is the case with machine interpreting, may not suffice to capture the original meaning and intention of the author or speaker.
It is the mission of every linguist at Mastervoice to fully understand the key intention and message of the original speaker and to faithfully reproduce this original message in its context with the intended style, intention, and objective to deliver this message to an audience.
Evaluating the Value of Interpretation
Eric sometimes suggests applying the acid test to measure the added value of interpretation in the context of international meetings. This means that a meeting with simultaneous interpreting is benchmarked against an English-only meeting for the same international audience with the same level of interaction and exchange between delegates. In this test, delegates are expected to participate in the dialogue to identify potential language barriers.
The meeting organizer can use a survey to measure the satisfaction of participants as well as the expected results and objectives. If the meeting with simultaneous interpreting produces better results, it has proven its added value over a meeting without simultaneous interpreting. This may sound like a predictable outcome, but much depends on the required level of interactivity for the meeting participants.
View-and-listen-only webinars may be sufficient to understand the overall content of a presentation or speech without the need for high-level interpretation. In this scenario, machine interpretation could be considered an effective solution.
In the case of a high-level meeting where human interests are at stake, human interpreting can prove its worth over English-only or machine interpreting by providing confidence and reliability in meetings where financial, political, economic, diplomatic, or public interests are at stake.
The Rise of Automated Simultaneous Interpreting
AI is slowly but surely making its mark on the language industry. Neural machine translation and automated speech technology have been around for a while with the need for human post-editing, but the introduction of automated, simultaneous interpreting has caught the interpreting market by surprise in 2023 and 2024.
AI offers instant language access in the form of automated subtitling or machine interpreting, but it is essential to go through the meeting requirements, expectations, and objectives to make an educated choice between human interpreting and automated interpreting.
Commitment to Excellence
Mastervoice sees corporate social responsibility as a key enabler for expanding its capacity to recruit qualified conference interpreters. Their business processes are compliant with international industry standards and best practices, with no less than five industry certifications: ISO 23155:2022 for conference interpreting services, ISO 18841:2018 for interpreting services, ISO 17100 for translation services, ISO 18587:2017 for post-editing of machine translation, and certification to the global industry standard ISO 9001:2015 for simultaneous interpreting, translation services, and applied language technology to support their commitment to offering reliable language solutions.
Good governance at Mastervoice includes equal opportunities in the selection, recruitment, qualification, and assignment of interpreting jobs without discrimination.
Continuous Improvement
Clients communicate their specific needs and key deliverables to Mastervoice’s account management well in advance of the meeting date. Meeting requirements are registered in their interpreter management system as project tasks, which are closely monitored and followed up by a dedicated project coordinator. All assignments are validated by account management in the order management workflow, and a team coordinator is assigned to coordinate on-site meetings.
After each meeting, Mastervoice reaches out to the client for an evaluation and, if necessary, suggestions for improvement. This is part of their standard quality management system for the purpose of continuous improvement.
Foundations of Successful Client Relationships
Eric advises organizations seeking effective language-interpreting solutions for their global operations to reach out to their prospects and clients to discuss their specific needs and requirements. This helps in fine-tuning the organization and meeting planning. He emphasizes the importance of providing professional advice and offering transparency on the full supply chain. His approach is to eliminate concerns and potential risks ahead of the meeting so that clients can focus on their meeting and stakeholders: speakers, guests, participants, and audiences.
In his view, the language industry is a people-based business that requires frequent interaction with clients and suppliers to build sustainable relationships. Automation is great, but there is no equivalent value for the human factor in client-facing exchanges.
Embracing Market Trends in Language Technology
Mastervoice participates in industry leadership councils, advisory boards, and academic research teams to stay abreast of market trends in the field of applied language technology, AI, and market trends in professional interpreting.
In the early days of remote simultaneous interpreting platforms, Mastervoice partnered with the world’s leading providers of interpreter delivery platforms and video conferencing solutions to deliver high-end language technology solutions.
Mastervoice spent hundreds of hours testing interpreting applications with their team of project coordinators, conference interpreters, and videoconferencing platform providers. This experience has led to valuable insights and expertise in remote interpreting and language technology, giving them an edge as experts in remote simultaneous interpreting compliant with industry standards and best practices.
The Future of Interpreting
The biggest challenge today is to identify the difference between use cases for automated interpreting and human interpreting within the current AI hype. When the AI storm dies down, there will be a need for human validation and authentication of the original, and the language industry will be no exception.
There are use cases where AI and machine interpreting will provide a viable solution depending on the needs and expectations of the end users. At the same time, there will be clear scenarios where human interpretation is preferred to validate the original speech.
Finally, there will be a vast gray area between use cases for AI and human interpreting, with opportunities for language service providers to advise, assist, and support clients in making the best choices in applied language technology as language experts and professional end users of these new platforms and solutions.
Mastervoice does not share the pessimistic view of the substitution of human interpreting with AI interpreting, especially where human interests are at stake and where it remains essential to have the original message reliably interpreted and validated by a real human interpreter and not by a machine.
