Balkans Sea Fair 2026 — Three languages on a single screen

Our first event in Albania. Run from Milan, with the screen in Orikum.

Balkans Sea Fair is the nautical fair at Marina Orikum, on the Bay of Vlorë, with its Blue Economy Summit: the second edition took place from 16 to 18 October 2026. Converso® was Technical Partner — AI Live Translation — Subtitles for BSF Consulting, with AI interpreting and live translation: subtitles in English, Albanian and Italian on the same in-room screen, voice and text on the Converso® WebApp, supervision from the RSI Hub in Milan.

The Challenge

It was Converso®'s first time in Albania, at a summit about connecting the two shores of the Adriatic: ports, corridors, human capital. Our job was to connect the languages.

Three days of blue economy summit with Albanian, Italian and international speakers and guests: port authorities, trade associations, universities, institutions. An audience that changes from one panel to the next and shares no common language.

The client had set clear conditions:

• no receivers to hand out and no headsets to distribute
• the translation had to be visible to everyone with no action required: anyone walking in should only have to look at the screen
• no extra hardware beyond what was already planned for the room
• no permanent technical crew to host for three days: the service had to run with the local AV crew

On top of that, distance: the room was in Albania, Converso®'s control room in Milan.

The Solution

One screen, three bands. A monitor on a floor stand, dedicated to subtitles, was placed next to the projection screen. With the new version of the Converso® Teleprompter, the three languages scroll in parallel on the same screen, one above the other, each in its own band: English, Albanian, Italian. Anyone in the room finds their language at a glance, with nothing to choose and without losing the thread of the talk. The Teleprompter is a web page, and the monitor was a smart TV: it was enough to open the address in the TV's browser.

The floor reaches Milan through a browser. The AV crew sent the floor with Floor-In WebRTC, also a web page, from their own mixer. From there the Converso AI Engine produced the real-time transcription and the translations into the other two languages, whichever language the speaker at the microphone was using.

The WebApp for those who prefer to listen. The screen was the room's channel, open to everyone. In parallel, by scanning the QR code, anyone who wished could open the Converso® WebApp on their own smartphone and choose between subtitles and voice translation, with their own earphones, in English, in Italian and, from day one, in German. Two channels on the same stream: no app required to follow, and audio for those who asked for it.

Preparation on the content. Before the event the engine was prepared with Context Training on the summit material: programme, names of speakers and organisations, port and maritime terminology, acronyms of the corridors and institutions involved.

On site for the start, then fully remote. Donato Velardi, founder of Converso®, followed the opening of the first day in person, out of regard for the client and the country, and stayed in the room for the morning of the second. From the second afternoon and throughout the third day the service continued with nobody from Converso® in the room: the local AV crew at the mixer and the screen, the RSI Hub in Milan on supervision.

Remote supervision. From the RSI Hub in Milan a Converso® technician followed every session, checking the quality of the incoming signal and of the outgoing subtitles and acting on the causes of any degradation, in contact with the crew in the room.

The subtitle screen was a smart TV

A subtitle screen usually needs a computer behind it, a video cable, a technician to connect it and someone to make sure it does not go to sleep. In Orikum, none of that: a smart TV on a stand, a power socket, the room's Wi-Fi and the Teleprompter address typed into the TV's browser. The TV processes nothing: it displays a page, as it would any website.

Everything else lives in Milan. The three-band layout, the order of the languages, the text size, the event graphics shown on screen during breaks: all of it is set and changed from the RSI Hub, with nobody in the room touching the remote. That is also why, when the request for German came in, the TV stayed as it was and the extra language went to the WebApp: you do not touch the room while it is working.

For an event abroad this changes the logistics. There is no Converso® hardware to ship, clear through customs and bring back: the venue supplies the screen, like any other rental TV, and the room staff can do the setup. Three rooms means three TVs with three addresses. Two conditions, both ordinary: the TV needs a browser and an internet connection.

A fourth language, minutes before the start

Among the speakers was a German guest who speaks fluent English and Italian. He had not given languages a thought and only found out in the room, shortly before the opening, that a translation service was running. His request, half serious and half joking: "Then I want German too."

The monitor was already set up with the three languages of the programme and there was no time to redo the Teleprompter layout. One phone call to the RSI Hub in Milan, a quick update of the Context Training, a few clicks in the dashboard, and German was added to the Converso® WebApp, in voice and in subtitles: by scanning the QR code, he and anyone else could follow in German on their own smartphone, while the room kept reading the screen.

At the end of the day he came back with a colleague, also German, to say thank you and compliment the team. One more language, added with the event already under way, without touching anything in the room: zero-time scalability. With the AI engine, the cost of an additional language is not an interpreter to find and fly in; it is a voice to switch on.

A greeting without a microphone

The Minister of Tourism gave the summit an unscheduled greeting, off the cuff and without a microphone: his voice carried clearly to the back of the room. A natural choice for someone used to speaking in public, but one that leaves the floor empty: the Converso AI Engine works on the audio signal, and without a signal there is nothing to transcribe or translate.

The solution came from the room: a photographer who was present lent his DJI clip-on wireless microphone, attached to the minister's jacket and connected to the mixer. The minister spoke as he preferred, hands free and without amplification, and his voice still reached Milan. The subtitles in the three languages carried on without interruption.

It is the rule for every real-time translation service, human or AI: the microphone is not there to be heard, it is there to carry the voice to whoever is translating. A speaker who talks "without a microphone" for the room still needs one on them for the booth, or for the engine.

The Results

• three languages readable at the same time by the whole audience, on a single screen
• no receivers and no headsets to hand out: zero logistics in the room
• voice and text translation on the smartphone of anyone who wanted it, with the WebApp
• the subtitle screen was a smart TV with its own browser: no computer, no video cable, no hardware shipped from Italy
• on site for the start, then a day and a half fully remote with only the local AV crew and two web pages
• a fourth language switched on in the WebApp minutes before the start, with no intervention in the room

The same approach works for institutional and industry summits, trade fairs abroad with a reduced or no on-site crew, conferences with a multilingual audience in the room, events where headsets and receivers are not practical, venues that want one extra video source and nothing more.

Two shores

We went to Orikum in person out of regard for the client and the country, and came back with Albanian among the languages we handle in the room. The first results are already showing: after the summit, the first contacts with Albanian institutions and companies have begun. For us, the Adriatic is not a trip abroad. More to follow.