The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS) and BWX (a Bureau Works company) are thrilled to announce a technology partnership geared toward localization education and innovation. The partnership seeks to push the boundaries of current localization translation management possibilities while tapping into the academic rigor and critical thinking brought by MIIS students and faculty.

MIIS Translation and Localization Management (TLM) students will explore how to push scenarios toward end-to-end automation enabled by BWX. The goal is to understand the implications and ramifications of automating key localization processes such as quoting, translator job placement, quality management, and enabling continuous localization. "I've never seen a comprehensive TMS that combines so many different yet obligatory functionality in a single framework. The BWX platform is broad and all-encompassing in a way that truly sets it apart," says TLM Program Chair and MIIS Professor Max Troyer.

Automation is a particularly controversial topic when it comes to localization. It touches on some of the pivotal questions regarding human agency as opposed to machines. 

"These are some of the most pertinent questions as we advance our tech towards automation. How much can we use technology to enhance our human attributes as opposed to using tech to dull our minds and senses," says Gabriel Fairman, Founder, and CEO of BWX.

The idea of the engagement is to promote the encounter between the young bright minds of MIIS students and cutting-edge localization technology to map out opportunities, weaknesses, strengths, and threats in the human-machine entanglement. What kinds of decisions must be taken by humans as opposed to business rules? "Tech often emerges as a reflection of human thought and how things are currently structured, but soon technology begins to propose new possibilities of re-structuring old paradigms with new logic," says Henrique Cabral, CTO of BWX.

As students explore the automation of core localization project management pillars such as quoting, translator assignment, quality management, and automation, the question that emerges is: what is the role of the human in all of this, and how does this redefine the future of project management? What are the skills and competencies required for localization project managers to be successful in tomorrow's world? As a trail-blazing institution, these are some of the questions that MIIS' academic corpus wrestles with in order to best prepare its students for the world that is to come.

About MIIS and Bureau Works: MIIS is the world's most prestigious academic translation and localization program, while BWX is a pioneer in localization technology and translation management systems.