From 27 April to 2 May 2018, Dubai celebrated a milestone in international events by hosting the 69th FIABCI World Congress. For the first time, this annual event was held at the Dubai World Trade Center, UAE’s largest complex for events and exhibitions. FIABCI 2018 was organized by the International Real Estate Federation, the only real estate association who acts as a consultative, non-governmental organization for the United Nations.
The theme of the event, “Happy Cities”, was based on four pillars: planning, governance and policy, citizen engagement, and new marketplaces and their intrinsic relationship with the real estate community. These subjects were thoroughly discussed at meetings, panel discussions, and workshops that attracted over 1,000 professionals from around 60 countries.
The purpose of the event was twofold; on the one hand, allowing the international real estate community to discuss the theme of happy cities in order to improve the quality of life in the cities of the future, and on the other hand, strengthening Dubai’s position as an attractive investment destination by displaying its real estate strategy and its pivotal role in driving global economic development.
Langpros’ Key Role at FIABCI Dubai 2018
We were chosen by the event organizers to perform simultaneous interpreting services from 29 April to 2 May. We selected eight highly qualified and experienced simultaneous interpreters who are specialized in the real estate sector, some of whom, such as one of the German interpreters, were flown in from Europe specifically for this event. They interpreted speeches English to Spanish, English to French, English to Russian and English to German in real time.
Simultaneous interpreting is time-saving since, unlike consecutive interpreting, it does not force a speaker to stop in order to allow an interpreter to translate the speech into another language. This type of interpreting requires specific equipment, fundamentally booths and headsets. For FIABCI 2018, we were in charge of providing the whole interpretation equipment, namely booths for eight interpreters and headsets for 500 auditors.
We feel privileged to have participated in this world-class event and we hope that our job will help Dubai to become “the happiest city in the world”.