In the age of exponential growth we currently live in, innovation is ubiquitous. Startups are sprouting up everywhere, all with the idea that they have discovered the technology, platform, service, process or model that covers the hole in the market we didn’t know was there yet. Inspiring innovators, genuine game changers and deadly disruptors. 

In our industry we all consider ourselves creative people - and for good reason. We create new text, new tools, new processes and new models. And we are quite proud of what we do. Perhaps too proud sometimes. Too proud to look at our work objectively. To take a step back and look at what we’re really doing and how we are doing it especially. To discover new ways to and envision where the holes will be that need to be filled. To innovate. 

Because what does it mean to innovate? The Merriam-Webster dictionary says innovation can be defined simply as “a new idea, device or method”. A more thorough definition of innovation is “to make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.” And this is exactly what the competitors in the past TAUS Innovation Contests have done and still do.

Five years ago, in April 2012 at the TAUS Executive Forum in Tokyo, the first Innovation Award was handed out. The lucky first winners were Alan Chung from SDL and Dieu Tran from Cisco. In the years that followed, Microsoft, Lingo24, Smartling, Translators Without Borders, Google, NTT DoCoMo and ABBYY took home the awards. Then in 2015, at the TAUS Annual Conference in San Jose, CA we started with the first official Game Changers Innovation Contest. A thrilling experience for the presenters, who each have just six minutes to share the excitement about their innovations to try and convince the audience to vote for them. MateCat and Unbabel succeeded and won the awards. In the following year, Lilt and Boffin were announced victors among the twenty innovators that took the stage. See more about the TAUS Awards here.

We are now getting ready for another Annual Conference, back in San Jose where the first Innovation Contest was held, and we are in search of new innovators. Are you working on something unique? Have you found a hole in the market? We dare you to take the stage on October 30 and 31, during the Game Changers Innovation Contest in San Jose, CA, give a spectacular six-minute presentation on why your technology, perspective or idea is the most innovative and game changing and take home the next Game Changers Innovation award.

Rules of the Game

For the Rules of the Game, the call for proposals and more information, please click here: https://www.taus.net/events/conferences/taus-annual-conference-2017#innovation-contest