Delivered by Dr. Nader Al-Hamad
CEO of Kingston Business Academy’s Representative Office for the Middle East and North Africa
The Speech
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear colleagues,
Distinguished guests,
I am very pleased to be with you today, representing Kingston Business Academy.
I would like to begin by expressing my sincere appreciation to the Torjoman Al-Arab Association for Translation and Training, and to all those who have contributed to organizing this important conference.
The title of the conference caught my attention from the very beginning:
“Translation at the Crossroads.”
Let me begin with a question that we have probably heard many times:
Will artificial intelligence replace the translator?
But I believe this is not the most important question.
The more important question is:
What kind of translators do we need in the age of artificial intelligence?
Because machines can translate words.
They can produce text at remarkable speed.
But translation is not simply about words.
Translation is meaning.
Translation is context.
Translation is culture.
Translation is identity.
And translation is responsibility.
And this is where I believe the role of the translator does not end.
It may actually begin again.
We do not need translators who compete with machines in speed.
The machine will win the race for speed.
But we need translators who know:
When to use the machine,
how to use it,
when to review it,
when to correct it,
and when to say:
“No, this result is not appropriate.”
Because:
The machine may produce the text, but the human being remains responsible for the decision.
And this is where education and training come in.
The translator of the future will not simply need to know two languages.
We need a professional who brings together:
Language, culture, technology, critical thinking, ethics, and practice.
For us at Kingston, this is at the heart of training for the next stage.
We do not want to train people simply to use today’s tools.
We want to help them become capable of learning and adapting to tomorrow’s tools.
There is also a point that I consider particularly important for us in the Arab world.
Yes, we want technology.
And yes, we want artificial intelligence.
But we do not want to enter the future and emerge from it having lost our language, our culture, or our identity.
We want to use technology without losing the human being.
We want to benefit from artificial intelligence without giving up critical thinking.
And we want to accelerate translation without losing the spirit of the text.
Therefore, perhaps we are not standing at a crossroads between the human being and the machine.
Rather, we are standing at a crossroads between:
An old way of preparing translators…
and
A new way of preparing human beings for the future.
And I believe this is the responsibility of educational and training institutions today.
Not to ask only:
“What should we teach?”
But also:
“How do we prepare people for a world that is constantly changing?”
At Kingston, we believe that the real investment in the future begins with the human being;
the human being who uses technology…
without losing their humanity,
their language,
their identity,
or their professional responsibility.
And I would like to conclude with a sentence that I believe summarizes our vision:
Machines can help us become faster…
but it is the human being who decides where we go.
Thank you very much.