We are proud to present a series of hands-on, industry-led workshops delivered by leading experts in localization, digital narratives, AI-driven communication, game development, personalized learning, and advanced eye-tracking and EEG technologies. Designed to equip participants with practical skills and forward-looking perspectives, these workshops offer a unique opportunity to engage with the latest innovations at the intersection of translation, technology, and creative media.
Mr. Hamdan Al-Ali
PhD Candidate in Natural Language Processing at Mohamed Bin Zayed University for Artificial Intelligence
Co-founder, CEO of Potion AI and Game Developer
Workshop description:
This session shares a personal journey through game development, from an early hobby to Ph.D. research and a startup. It reflects on how games can support healthcare, education and social awareness, and offers insights on where and how to start in this field.
Mr. Zaher Srour
Partnerships Director in the Education and Higher Education Sector
Coursera – Middle East, Africa, and Turkey
Workshop description:
Exploring how AI-powered technology transforms literary studies—through personalized learning, interactive dialogue, and immersive role-play—fostering students’ critical thinking, skills acquisition, and readiness for the future workforce.
Unity Certified Instructor | VR/AR Developer, Unity, Abu Dhabi
How can a static image (e.g., a historical map, a classical painting, or a manuscript) become a gateway to a multi-layered narrative? This hands-on workshop introduces scholars to the “Interactive Image” framework. Using the Unity engine’s UI and Event systems, participants will transform high-resolution visuals into interactive environments. Attendees will learn to create “hotspots” that, when clicked, reveal hidden translations, archival audio, or detailed scholarly annotations. No prior coding experience is required; the focus is on using Unity as a curatorial tool for digital storytelling.
Workshop Title: Seeing Language in Action: Eye Tracking Methods for Linguistics and
Translation Research
Mr. Scott Hodgins
Director of Strategy and Business Development, Consort XPR
Scott has over 15 years of experience working with eye-tracking and behavioral research technologies across academia, healthcare, UX, and human performance. He has collaborated extensively with universities and research institutions across the UK, Europe, and the GCC, supporting experimental design, lab setup, and applied research using eye tracking and related biometric methods.
Mr. Camille Matta 
Managing Director, Consort World
Camille specialises in translating advanced research technologies into scalable academic and applied research programmes, with a strong focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and capacity building.
This hands-on workshop introduces eye tracking as a powerful empirical method for linguistics, translation studies, and language research. Participants will explore how eye-movement data reveals cognitive processes underlying reading, comprehension, translation decision-making, and bilingual language processing. Using state-of-the-art eye-tracking technology, the session bridges theory and practice by demonstrating how gaze data can be applied to research questions in translation quality, cognitive load, discourse processing, and multimodal meaning making. Real examples from academic and applied research will be discussed, with a focus on experimental design, data interpretation, and integration with qualitative linguistic analysis. The workshop is designed for faculty members, researchers, and postgraduate students interested in digital humanities, experimental linguistics, and evidence-based translation studies.
The conference, "Reimagining Translation and Literary Studies in the Age of Digital Humanities, AI, and Gamified Narratives,"
will be held at the CRESCENT BUILDING on the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU)
campus in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
narratives in games, comics, and virtual realities
and the future of multilingual communication