Ms. Jeannette Stewart is a strategic globalization leader helping mainstream brands achieve global growth, business revitalization, and transformation. She founded Translation Commons, a nonprofit community of language professionals working on digital inclusion as a partner of UNESCO’s International Decade of Indigenous Languages. Both organizations champion the preservation and use of indigenous languages globally by creating keyboards, events, and resources for communities whose scripts are not yet digitized. Ms. Stewart was appointed to a UNESCO (12 member) Expert Committee to oversee the creation and update of the World Atlas of Languages, an online UNESCO platform that reflects the dynamism and depths of global linguistic diversity. She is the former CEO of CommuniCare, a life-science translation company. She also worked on the Genome Project and prototyping the online Unified Submission Process for the European Medicine Agency. She has founded, served on the board of directors, moderated, and volunteered in various educational and health charities.

Since January 2025, Mr. Guilherme Canela is the Director of the Division for Digital Inclusion and Policies and Digital Transformation, and Secretary of the Information for All Programme (IFAP) at UNESCO. As Chief of the Section for Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists for 5 years (2020-2025), he was responsible for World Press Freedom Day, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, and the Guidelines for the Governance of Digital Platforms. From 2012 to 2020, he was the Communication and Information Regional Adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean at UNESCO Montevideo Office, performing as Regional Coordinator of the UNESCO Initiative for the Promotion of Democracy and Freedom of Expression in judicial systems in Latin America. He was also the Secretary of the Regional Committee of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean, and focal point of the Organization for issues related to the safety of journalists. He is co-author of 10 books on human rights, the rights of children, and the development of democracies. With Solano Nascimento, Mr. Canela is the co-author of Access to information and public policies social control. Mr. Canela has also actively participated in the discussion and implementation of Access laws in several countries.

Dr. Alison is Former President, International Federation of Translators (FIT). A linguist and translator in legal/human rights and technical fields, she has diverse experience in strategy, policy and promotion of the arts. She is known for her strong advocacy of multilingualism, multilateralism, and cultural and linguistic diversity, particularly indigenous language revitalisation. She also has an interest in the ethics of AI, and in promoting International Translation Day, each 30 September, as the premier day to celebrate the work of translators, interpreters and terminologists around the world.

Dr. Hanem El-Farahaty is a Professor of Arabic Language, Translation, and Interpreting at the University of Leeds and Deputy Director of Postgraduate Research for the School of Languages, Cultures, and Societies. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, with expertise in Arabic-English legal translation, comparative corpus linguistics, human rights, and inclusive legal language. She authored Arabic-English-Arabic Legal Translation (2015) and co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Arabic Translation (2019), and reviews for publishers including Routledge, Cambridge University Press, and Edinburgh University Press. Since 2017, she has developed the open-access Leeds Legal Corpora of Arabic countries’ constitutions, supporting legal translators, researchers, and students with authentic Arabic-English legal texts.

Ms. Dorothy Gordon is an internationally recognised leader in technology and sustainable development, specialising in EdTech, language technologies, digital inclusion, and emerging technologies. A former Chair of UNESCO’s Information for All Programme (IFAP) and Board Member of UNESCO-IITE, she advises the 5Rights Foundation, Yidan Prize Foundation, World Summit Awards, Linux Professional Institute, Chatham House, and Yoti. Her current work focuses on child rights online, AI, digital and information literacy in Indigenous languages, and inclusive, rights-based digital transformation. She is also a sought-after international speaker and advocate for the Open Movement, Creative Commons, and UNESCO’s ROAM Principles.

A pioneer of CRM at Oracle and co-founder of the People-Centered Internet with Vint Cerf, Ms. Mei Lin Fung now focuses on AI governance and digital public infrastructure. She brings to this conversation four decades of building people-centered technology systems and a lifelong interest in what gets lost when knowledge is not recorded.

Dr. Rao was awarded Honorius Causa from Krasnoder State University, Russia and an Honorary Professor Medal from Kazan State University, Russia. His research interests include Linguistics, Translation Studies, Foreign Language teaching, Digital Learning and Higher Education in India with special focus on Internationalization of Higher Education. He has more than 60 International and National Publications and edited ten books (eight International and two National). Dr. Rao also serves on numerous International and National Committees and Editorial Boards of academic journals.

Dr. R. Siva Prasad is a retired Professor of Anthropology and former Honorary Professor at the Center for Digital Learning, Training and Resources (CDLTR), University of Hyderabad. With more than 40 years of teaching and research experience, he has guided research students across diverse fields and remains actively involved in UNESCO-IFAP programmes as a member of its Information Ethics Working Group (IEWG). His current interests include AI ethics and issues concerning marginal and indigenous communities, particularly indigenous knowledge systems, languages, education, and conflict management.

Mr. Tex Texin is an industry thought leader in software globalization services, contributing to internationalization standards and open source software while advising several globalization non-profits. He is an advisor to Translation Commons, where he architects the Language Digitization Initiative, bringing the languages of indigenous communities to digital systems. Through his consulting company, XenCraft, Mr. Texin helps companies create global products and expand into new regional markets. A popular speaker at conferences worldwide, he is also the owner and author of the instructional I18nGuy.com site.

Mr. Yadaiah Gangadevi is a dedicated social worker and educationalist who has been active in community-led learning initiatives since the early 1990s. He initially developed teaching materials for out-of-school children at the MV Foundation in Hyderabad before co-founding Koyathore Bata in 2001 to support Koya youth education and language preservation across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Through Koyathore Bata, he has pioneered bridge courses using Koya-language learning materials, helping over 3,000 Adivasi youth complete their schooling. In partnership with SAMATA-India, he has led efforts specifically focused on the revival of Koya oral literature—training a new generation of writers and poets who have composed over 400 poems. He also helped develop Koya rhymes and poetry, culminating in three published Koya collections, and authored a published book of Telugu rhymes and poems.

Dr. Hammal Al Bulushi is a faculty member in the Department of English Language & Translation at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. His research focuses on phonetics, phonology, and language documentation, with a special interest in preserving endangered Modern South Arabian languages. His doctoral work used instrumental phonetic methods to document Ḥarsūsī, contributing to the preservation of Oman’s linguistic heritage.

Dhan Man Gurung serves as the Chairperson of Tamu Hyula Chhoj Dhi Gurung Rastriya Parishad, the national umbrella organization for Gurung Indigenous peoples in Nepal. He championed the preservation and advancement of the Gurung language and Khema script, notably leading the effort to digitize the Gurung writing system into Unicode in partnership with Translation Commons.

Prof (Ms) Carmen Valero-Garcés is Professor of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Alcalá, Madrid (Spain). She created and coordinates the Research Group in Translation and Interpreting in Public Services (FITISPos) and the indexed journal FITISPos International Journal. She is also a member of the Ecocriticism Research Group (GIECO) and the Institute of Police Sciences (IUICP). Her main interests are intercultural communication, with a special focus on migration and lesser-used languages.

Dr. Xianhong Hu is a Programme Specialist at UNESCO’s Communication and Information Sector. Since 2021, she has served as Secretary to UNESCO’s Information for All Programme (IFAP), coordinating international cooperation on information accessibility, multilingualism, information literacy, information preservation, information ethics and information for development. She contributes to UNESCO’s work on multilingualism and Universal Access to Information and to the implementation of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL). From 2013 to 2021, she led the development and implementation of UNESCO’s Internet Universality ROAM-X Indicators, a framework for assessing national Internet environments based on human rights, openness, accessibility and multistakeholder participation. She has also contributed to UNESCO’s engagement with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and works on issues related to digital governance, artificial intelligence and inclusive digital transformation.

Ms. Elin Emilsson Ingvarsdóttir is a full-time professor at Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN) in Mexico City, where she works in the areas of languages and teacher development and is affiliated with CEAL at UPN. She has also worked as a Spanish teacher at CEPE, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Her academic work draws on linguistic anthropology, discourse analysis and applied linguistics, with particular interest in language, culture, identity and education.

Navya Tuteja is a 17-year-old student founder and disability advocate working at the intersection of accessibility, language, and responsible AI. She founded Empower InvisAbilities, a youth-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has reached more than 10,000 people across four continents, and built Raaha, an AI platform helping neurodivergent job seekers understand whether a workplace fits how they work. While developing Legible, a free tool that explains education rights in plain language with citations, she developed “traceable accessibility,” a framework for making AI-generated information easier to understand without losing the sources, conditions, and context people need to act on it.

Mr. Sjur Nørstebø Moshagen has more than 30 years of experience in language technology and more than 20 years of work with Sámi languages. He is a core developer of GiellaLT, an open-source language technology infrastructure developed at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. GiellaLT provides tools and resources supporting language technology development for more than 150 languages, including many Indigenous and minority languages.

Ms. Verf Lena Egardt is a musician, author and advocate for Elfdalian (Älvdalska), working to preserve and strengthen the language through music, literature and cultural activities. Her work includes Oðerwais and the song “Du raiter upp mig,” as well as musical collaborations including Systerpolskan and Tråy Trai. She has also contributed to bringing Elfdalian to younger audiences, including work connected with the Elfdalian dubbing of Pelle Svanslös. In 2022, she published three children’s books in Älvdalska, continuing her work to make the language visible and accessible to new generations.