Aion & Webex: Online Conferencing and Simultaneous Interpreting

Cisco Webex took notice. They featured Aion in their global blog as a case study in how simultaneous interpretation and online conferencing can work seamlessly together — even for large-scale, multilingual events with participants and interpreters connecting from different locations simultaneously.

The full Webex story follows below, as published on the Webex blog by Shawna Anthony, May 12, 2022:

Collaboration, Customer Experience, Customer Stories

How Webex by Cisco helped Aion bring world leaders together

When world leaders come together, it’s important that communication is clear, precise and accurate. Aion is a small company based out of Croatia that excels at just that. In fact, their company motto is: “We understand you. Perfectly.” They provide real-time interpretation services for critical meetings and events—everything from business transactions to high-stake discussions between government leaders. simultaneous interpretation

“Interpreting means you are interpreting simultaneously with the speaker. You translate into another language, as the speaker is speaking”.

– Nada Buric, Director at Aion

A typical in-person meeting or event might work something like this: international leaders gather. There are at least two interpreters who work 20 minutes each, to keep freshness and focus. But when the pandemic hit, everything moved online and the logistics became challenging—especially if the event or meeting included seven or eight different languages at once. It’s one thing to get global leaders together on a video conference. But how do you also incorporate the interpreters working remotely, without the meeting devolving into a cacophony of voices speaking on top of each other?

Aion knew they needed a creative tech solution to overcome these difficulties. The company searched for a meeting solution that was reliable and secure. They also wanted an internal video conferencing tool that was easy to use and improved employee engagement.

Making simultaneous interpretation easy with Webex

“Webex was the obvious choice, and it’s still the superior platform,” Buric says. “It is what we needed for security and confidentiality.”

In addition to Webex Meetings providing industry-leading security, Aion also noted how easy it is to join a video conference as well as a feature called simultaneous interpretation. Webex Meetings with simultaneous interpretation enabled Aion interpreters to easily work remotely and continue to provide the same level of service without missing a beat. “Webex is an established brand, easy to use, familiar to all, and simultaneous interpretation on top of all of its other features makes it just perfect for our industry,” says Buric.

They’ve found simultaneous interpretation in Webex valuable for both virtual and hybrid meetings and events.

“We held a hybrid event which had interpreters working from home and a mix of virtual and onsite participants were listening to interpretation,” Buric says. “That has now become a small niche that was not anticipated and Webex has been a catalyst in making it all work.”

As Aion leverages Webex, they think of each meeting or event as having two groups of stakeholders. First, they must make sure that attendees, or the audience, enjoy a seamless experience, and that the interpretation is exact. Secondly, they must think about the actual interpreters. What functionalities and equipment do they need to execute precisely during a live event?

On both of these fronts, Webex delivers.

“Our interpreters need quick and easy meeting join functionality. With Webex, I can enable simultaneous interpretation when scheduling a meeting. From there I can create an unlimited number of interpretation channels, and assign interpreters to each channel. Our interpreters can simply join and unmute themselves to start interpreting, it is all perfect,” Buric explains.

It’s also easy for the global leaders attending the meeting to get connected with the right interpreter.

“There could be a scenario where ten different languages are being spoken over the course of a meeting or event. With Webex, attendees can select the audio interpretation channel for the language they want to listen in on,” Buric says.

Standout Cisco support

With simultaneous interpretation through Webex working well for small virtual events, Aion was faced with another question: Could the system scale for large events?

“We didn’t have experience with events of a thousand people. From setup aid to the reassurance of the Webex platform’s capabilities and security, I was pleasantly surprised that Cisco provided such a high level of support. We loved the assistance, and it was crucial in making large events a success,” says Buric.

Webex continues to evolve and meet the dynamic needs of meetings and events of all kinds. Buric says functionalities like simultaneous interpretation and interpretation relay are differentiators that set Webex apart from other collaboration platforms.

Read the original article on the Webex blog: https://blog.webex.com/video-conferencing/aion/