Anikó & Kelsey speak at ELIA Together 2024
23 February 2024 – The European Language Association (ELIA) held their annual “Together” conference in chilly Riga, Latvia this year. The event aims to bring “together freelance language professionals and language service companies for constructive dialogue and mutual growth.”
Under this year’s theme of “Perfect Harmony”, which focused on collaboration in the industry, we (co-founders Anikó Pető-Mordovski and Kelsey Frick) presented a talk titled “Building the community you want to be part of" that reflected on our experiences and what led us to #TeamTranslator.
The talk focused on the power of community and the benefits of connecting with colleagues, taking attendees through practical steps for how to start building their own community and the impact it can have on a career, along with advice they learnt from their personal experiences volunteering and building professional relationships in the industry.
Speaking on their motivations for putting the talk together and founding #TeamTranslator, Kelsey said on LinkedIn:
“When we were in the beginning phases of talking about what eventually became #TeamTranslator, we started out with the idea that something was fundamentally missing from the freelance translation community – supportive and judgement-free spaces where you could actually learn things from other people in the industry.
That was the kind of space that we knew we wanted, and we had a good feeling others wanted it too.”
Anikó also reflected on why they felt #TeamTranslator was different from existing groups:
“There are so many online translation communities out there but we felt there wasn’t anything close to what we envisioned: where we can acknowledge challenges but can work together to come up with actual solutions – without either being overly pessimistic or toxically postive.”
If you’re interested in joining a positive and supportive community made for freelance translation professionals by freelance translation professionals, go to our joining form to sign up for free.