Four days of wearing a headset, staying focused and absorbing a whole new vocabulary: from 22 to 25 September 2026, I was working as an interpreter at security essen, including the Digital Networking Security Conference, the Security Experts Forum and the Day of Banks and Savings Banks. The topics were as diverse as the security industry itself: cyberattacks, penetration testing, data theft and artificial intelligence, the protection of critical infrastructure as well as the

On September 10, 2026, I had the pleasure of moderating three Pitch Battle sessions in English at Future Tech Fest in Düsseldorf, and co-hosting the Grand Final on the Main Stage alongside German TV host and presenter Amiaz Habtu. Future Tech Fest is Germany’s leading B2B startup expo and conference, bringing together around 5,000 people, including startups, investors, companies and international speakers. The event provides national and international tech startups with a pla

On 27 August, I had the privilege of providing interpreting services at gamescom, the world’s largest event for computer and video games and the most important business platform for the international games industry. I was particularly pleased to work at the opening of the gamescom congress at the Confex centre at koelnmesse. The gamescom congress is the world’s leading conference on the potential of games in a digitalised world, with connections reaching far beyond the digita

For 25 years, Zollverein has held UNESCO World Heritage status, and this milestone was celebrated in style on UNESCO Wold Heritage Day on June 7, with the opening of the new World Heritage Forum in Essen. For me, however, Zollverein is much more than a World Heritage Site. It has also been the setting for some of the most memorable assignments of my professional life over the past two decades. Over the years, I have had the pleasure of: • providing interpretation at the exhib

Interpreting is teamwork! And that‘s exactly why there are always at least two conference interpreters working in a booth, taking turns to avoid fatigue during this strenuous task. We‘re co-pilots, if you will. But my last couple of assignments were a true team effort in every sense of the word. One assignment, for instance, was all about GenAI and collaboration in a diverse international team. As one of the German team members was deaf, we collaborated with sign language int

Last week, I attended the AI in Translation Summit to explore Artifical Intelligence from a professional, ethical and business standpoint, along with 2,500+ language professionals from all over the globe. For 3 days, we learnend and discussed about tools and techniques, mindset and growth, as well as ethics and confidentiality when working with AI. All this input has left me highly inspired and motivated to navigate the exciting developments in Large Language Models and chatb

With collective bargaining negotiations for the German public sector in full swing, town hall meetings are now being held with the...