Whenever people meet, communication is a challenge. It is often an enormous challenge when deafblindness is involved.
That is why the conference (including the pre-conference) has a large team of of IS interpreters, some of whom are working onsite and some online.
This covers the traditional conference programme, but reaches its limits during interactive workshops involving several concurrent discussions, small working groups and pair work. The same limits apply to social events and informal socialising, such as during breaks and meals.
The limitations of automated captioning are similar.
Of course, the conference (including the pre-conference) is unable to provide tactile interpreting or personal interpreting tailored to individual needs.
English will be the working language. However, the venue offers the possibility to use the AI resource ‘Wordly’ on your own device for captions, translated captions or spoken translation. ‘Wordly’ offers a wide range of languages, but of course not all of them.
So please bring your own device(s) and also your earphones if you’d like to use ‘Wordly’ for spoken translation. The conference will provide charging points. You’ll have more flexibility if you bring your own power bank as well.
Despite all these resources, we will still have to contend with communication issues. However, we are confident that, together, we will always find a way to make it work – even if it’s like a winding mountain track, such as the one in the photo.