Earning a Say: Women Who Have Shaped Technical Communication, Localization, and Language Technology

  • Podium
  • Karriere, Kompetenzen & Weiterbildung
  •  Noelani Walker-Koser

    Noelani Walker-Koser

    • NEW Language Solutions
  •  Sharon Burton

    Sharon Burton

    • Anthrobytes Media
  • Dr Adriane Rinsche

    Dr Adriane Rinsche

    • Davos Verlag at Innovation Center Davos

Inhalt

In this partner presentation, Noelani Walker-Koser brings together Sharon Burton and Dr. Adriane Rinsche for a guided conversation inspired by a shared interest in women’s career paths, resilience, and contribution across technical communication, localization, and language technology. Sharon Burton’s Women in Technical Communication: From Typewriters to Touchscreens: A History by the Women Who Did the Work and Dr. Adriane Rinsche’s forthcoming Venturing into the Digital Age: Career. Love. Motherhood. tell different stories, yet reveal striking parallels: non-linear careers, lives shaped by courage and reinvention, and professions transformed by technology. The two books also highlight how these stories keep language, communication, and human experience visible in fields often described mainly through technology, tools, and processes. This session explores what their journeys say about earning a voice, adapting to change, and helping pave the way for the next generation.

Das lernen Sie

Women who have shaped our fields show that language, communication, and human experience matter as much as technology—and invite us to learn from one another.

Vorkenntnisse

No prior knowledge is required. The session welcomes anyone interested in technical communication, localization, language technology, career development, and the role of women in shaping these fields.

Referent:innen

 Noelani Walker-Koser

Noelani Walker-Koser

  • NEW Language Solutions
Biografie

Noelani Walker-Koser ist Spezialistin für Terminologie und kontrollierte Sprache, Beraterin für Sprachlösungen und technische Redakteurin mit 40 Jahren Erfahrung in Übersetzung, technischer Dokumentation, Terminologiemanagement, Lokalisierung und Sprachdienstleistungen. Sie war als Tool- und Prozessverantwortliche für Terminologie und kontrollierte Sprache tätig und unterstützt heute Organisationen durch NEW Language Solutions mit Fokus auf sprachliche Ressourcen, mehrsprachige Inhalte, kontrollierte Sprache und KI-taugliche Inhalte. Im Mittelpunkt ihrer Arbeit steht die Unterstützung von Organisationen beim Aufbau der Terminologie, der Unternehmenssprache, des Kontexts und der semantischen Strukturen, die sie für klare Kommunikation und wiederverwendbare Wissensmodelle benötigen. Sie betrachtet Unternehmenssprache als wesentlich dafür, dass KI die Sprache des Unternehmens spricht, dass sich Mitarbeitende mit dem Unternehmen und seiner Kultur identifizieren und dass Kunden die Organisation an ihrer Sprache wiedererkennen. Darüber hinaus arbeitet sie eng mit Anbietern von Sprachtechnologie zusammen, um Software, Dokumentation und Benutzererfahrung zu verbessern. Noelani ist Mitglied im Deutschen Terminologie-Tag (DTT), bei tekom/tcworld, Women in Localization und GALA (Globalization and Localization Association).

Noelani Walker-Koser is a terminology and controlled language specialist, language solutions consultant, and technical language editor with 40 years of experience in translation, technical documentation, terminology management, localization, and language services. She has worked as a tool and process owner for terminology and controlled language and now supports organizations through NEW Language Solutions, focusing on governed language assets, multilingual content, controlled language, and AI-ready content. Her work centers on helping organizations build the terminology, corporate language, context, and semantic structures needed for clear communication and reusable knowledge models. She sees corporate language as essential for AI to speak the company’s language, for employees to identify with the organization and its culture, and for customers to recognize the organization through its language. She also works closely with language technology companies to improve software, documentation, and user experience. Noelani is a member of Deutscher Terminologie-Tag (DTT), tekom/tcworld, Women in Localization, and GALA (Globalization and Localization Association).

 Sharon Burton

Sharon Burton

  • Anthrobytes Media
Biografie

Sharon Burton helps people and organizations make sense of complex stuff through smart content strategy. By day, she works as a content strategist, helping businesses design content that actually works—for the company and for the humans using it. By night, she teaches “baby engineers” at the University of California, Riverside, showing them how to communicate like pros.

Armed with a graduate degree in cultural anthropology, Sharon has spent her career exploring how people find, use, and trust information—and how better content design can transform the user experience and the business bottom line. She’s taught more than 8,000 people in corporate and university settings, proving that good communication is as much a system as it is a science.

She’s the co-author of Engineering Words (XML Press, 2025) and the editor of Women in Technical Communication: From Typewriters to Touchscreens (XML Press, 2026), a living history of women shaping technology through words.

When she’s not untangling messy content ecosystems, Sharon can be found sewing, knitting, cooking, baking bread, growing things, riding her bike (or a motorcycle), and occasionally trying to lift something heavy at the gym.

Dr Adriane Rinsche

Dr Adriane Rinsche

  • Davos Verlag at Innovation Center Davos
Biografie

Dr. Adriane Rinsche hat in Computerlinguistik promoviert und ist seit Jahrzehnten in den Bereichen mehrsprachige Dokumentation, Softwarelokalisierung, Sprachtechnologie, Forschung und Unternehmertum tätig. Sie gründete und leitete Unternehmen in London und Köln, darunter das Language Technology Centre, und veröffentlichte Beiträge zu den Themen Lokalisierungsprojektmanagement, Workflow und Automatisierung von Geschäftsprozessen in der Sprachindustrie. In ihrem voraussichtlich im September 2026 erscheinenden Buch „Aufbruch in die digitale Welt: Karriere. Liebe. Mutterschaft.“ berichtet sie über einen beruflichen und persönlichen Lebensweg, der von Mut, Neuerfindung und Wandel geprägt ist. Ihre beiden anderen Bücher, „Mit dem Frachter in die Freiheit: Abenteuer in Brasilien“ und „Schwarze Schafe in Chile“, zeigen, dass Neugier, Lernen und neue kreative Wege weit über eine einzelne Karriere hinausweisen können.

Dr. Adriane Rinsche has a PhD in Computational Linguistics and has worked for decades across multilingual documentation, software localization, language technology, research, and entrepreneurship. She founded and led companies in London and Cologne, including the Language Technology Centre, and published on localization project management, workflow, and business process automation in the language industry. Her forthcoming book, to be published in September 2026, Venturing into the Digital Age: Career. Love. Motherhood., reflects on a professional and personal journey shaped by courage, reinvention, and change. Her recent books, Freightship to Freedom: Adventures in Brazil and Black Sheep in Chile, show that curiosity, learning, and new creative directions can continue well beyond one career.