WLMIIS: Fireside Chat with Early Career Localization Professionals

WLMIIS is proud to host a fireside chat with several successful localization professionals early in their careers! We’ll be discussing how they got started in the field, their career trajectory, and any questions you may have. Whether you’re looking to start your localization career or take a new path, you’ll want to come and hear about all the different paths available to you in localization.

Agenda:

• Introduction of Women in Localization & WLMIIS chapter

• Fireside Chat with Erica Varlese, Deanna Hartstack, Kimberly Zie, and Sílvia Pinheiro (check their bios below)

• Q&A

This event will be hosted and moderated by Marianna Guedez Forgiarini, one of the WLMIIS Events Managers.

Speakers’ bios:

• Erica Varlese is a Multilingual Community Organizer based in the New York area. She received her bachelor’s in Anthropology and French and has more than a decade of experience in the technology field. In her work at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, she is a full-time sponsored contributor to the WordPress open-source project, where she works most closely with the Polyglots team – the volunteer-led team responsible for translating all of the WordPress core software and related projects. She believes strongly in the power of open-source software and creating transparent, multilingual communities to empower others to share their voices online.
• Deanna Hartstack’s journey to localization started with her love of languages. While studying for her degrees in Japanese and Business Administration, she was fortunate to have the opportunity to study abroad in Japan for 5 months. Her time in university was also where she discovered her love of Project Management. Together, those interests helped her secure a role as a Project Manager at a translation and localization company called Dynamic Language. While working there, she helped manage a number of projects including translation, subtitles, and voiceover for local and also Fortune 500 companies. Her experience working with international vendors and project ownership helped her transition to the tech industry to her current role as a Project Manager for the AI and Machine Learning company, Appen. Here, she helps manage data annotation projects aimed to improve the user experience in a well-known social media site.
• Kimberly Zie graduated from the Translation and Localization Management program at MIIS in 2020. She currently works as a French Language Specialist at SoundHound, localizing voice AI products for the French market. She is a native of France and has been living in the U.S. for the past 4 years. Kim is based in San Francisco, CA.
• Sílvia Pinheiro (MIIS’20 TLM) works as a Localization Producer for a Fortune 100 tech company. Her passion for languages, cultures, and product quality assurance brought her to Localization. Her dream is to see localization become a “must department” which contributes to growth in every company where international business is conducted. In her free time, Silvia spends hours playing with Lego, walking outdoors, and (in normal times) traveling. She loves trying cuisines from around the world and exploring new flavors.

Registration

? This live event will be hosted on Zoom and will be recorded. It’s free to attend but you have to register through Eventbrite so we can email you the Zoom login details.

Membership & Benefits

The event is open to everyone but the recording will only be available to Women in Localization members.

??? Not a member yet? Sign up here!

Membership is completely free and provides…

• Access to member-only content, such as recorded events, webinars, and resources, our job board
• Discounts to events organized by our partner organizations
• Camaraderie, networking, and support from our members worldwide
• …and much more! 🙂

If you find this event interesting, consider sharing it with your friends and colleagues so they can register on Eventbrite. Everybody is welcome to attend the live event and join the wonderful W.L. community of 5,000+ localization professionals.

If you have any questions, please contact us at [email protected].

We hope you can join us!

Women in Localization MIIS chapter