On the morning of May 7, 2026, the opening ceremony of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Immersion Programme was held in the Kai Xuan Hall at the Hongkou Campus of SISU. The ceremony was hosted by Professor Li Zhengren, Distinguished Professor of SISU and Senior Strategic Development Consultant for the Graduate Institute of Interpretation and Translation (GIIT). Professor Li has worked in the United Nations system for over 30 years, serving as the head of the Interpreting Department of the Conference Management Division at the United Nations Office in Geneva for ten years. He introduced the GIIT’s teaching and management team to the participants and, drawing on his experiences at the United Nations, encouraged the students to remain confident in the face of challenges posed by artificial intelligence to the language industry.
Professor Li humorously remarked that he was truly impressed by the courage of the students who still chose interpretation as their major, despite the current pessimistic outlook on the foreign language industry. He shared some figures with the students: at the United Nations Office at Geneva alone, over 7,000 meetings require simultaneous interpretation services each year, running almost non‑stop except for holidays. He drew particular attention to the fact that the United Nations has strict security and confidentiality requirements for simultaneous interpretation in meetings, a requirement that machines cannot satisfy to the same degree as human interpreters. No matter how powerful machines become, they are just tools, he stressed. Humans possess judgment, cultural understanding, and the ability to adapt. We are the agents, and we must become stronger than machines. Professor Li expressed his high hopes for all participants,encouraging them to train diligently andcontinuously strive to achieve breakthroughs.
Professor Cui Feng from NTU attended the ceremony and delivered a speech on behalf of Professor Guan Shipei, the Project Leader. He conveyed Professor Guan’s congratulations on the successful launch of the program and expressed gratitude to Dean Zhang Ailing, Professor Li Zhengren, and SISU’s GIIT team for their hard work. Professor Cui expressed his earnest expectations and best wishes for the students’ work over the next month, encouraging them to cherish this training opportunity and continuously improve themselves as they strive to build bridges between languages and cultures.
