A Fireside Chat With No Script: Real-Time JA-EN Translation at the Early-Stage Deep Tech Forum

A Fireside Chat With No Script: Real-Time JA-EN Translation at the Early-Stage Deep Tech Forum

Robotics and quantum founders from overseas, and a room of Japanese investors, researchers, and policymakers. The talks and the open Q&A ran in two languages, and VoicePing translated between them live, as people spoke.

The forum: early-stage deep tech, one evening at TIB

Deep tech, from humanoid robotics to quantum and other technologies still moving from the lab toward real companies, tends to be spread across countries and languages. The founders, investors, and researchers often are not in the same place, and they do not always share a language. For an event like this, a big part of the work is making sure everyone can follow the same conversation.

On May 27, 2026, that conversation happened at Tokyo Innovation Base (TIB) in Marunouchi, at the Early-Stage Deep Tech Forum [Robotics, Quantum & Emerging Technologies]. The forum ran from 17:30 to 20:00, hosted by Deloitte Tohmatsu and MFV Partners, with Morning Pitch Asia. The evening included a keynote, presentation, fireside chat, live Q&A, and networking.

The fireside chat, with VoicePing’s live Japanese-English translation on the room’s screen next to it.

Two screens in the room: slides on one, VoicePing’s live translation on the other.

The challenge: a conversation with no script

The speakers were there to talk across a language line. Karthee Madasamy, Managing Partner at MFV Partners, moderated. On stage were Damion Shelton, Co-founder and Chair of Agility Robotics, and Yoichiro Hirano, Founder and CEO of Asteria: a US robotics founder and a Japanese software founder, in front of a mostly Japanese audience.

Even a prepared talk is hard to translate here. Deep-tech vocabulary is dense, and the terms that matter most, such as a specific robotics term, a funding structure, or a type of hardware, are the ones a general translation tool is most likely to get wrong.

The harder part was the fireside chat and Q&A. That part is unscripted. The moderator follows a thread, a founder answers, someone asks a question in Japanese, and the answer comes back in English. Nobody knows which language is next, and there is no time to switch a setting by hand each turn.

VoicePing’s solution: set up before the doors opened

VoicePing translated the room between Japanese and English, in both directions, so a Japanese question and an English answer each showed up on screen in the other language as they were spoken. VoicePing supports 48 languages; here, the two that mattered were English and Japanese.

The technical vocabulary work started before the event. Using the forum’s own materials, VoicePing built a custom English/Japanese glossary for the night, so terms specific to robotics, quantum, and early-stage investing were already loaded before the first speaker started.

On the night, VoicePing took audio from the venue’s mixer over LAN, and the live translation was shown across the room’s screens: left, center, and right. People could follow the translation next to the slides from wherever they were sitting.

A talk shown in both languages on the room’s screen, right as it was spoken.

What made it work: the unscripted part

The fireside chat and the Q&A were where the setup mattered most. Because translation ran continuously in both directions, the back-and-forth did not need anyone managing it. A Japanese question could be answered in English and show up in Japanese on screen without a person touching a control.

It worked both ways on the day. The overseas speakers talked in English and the room followed in Japanese; when questions came back from the audience in Japanese, they went the other way. The glossary quietly did its part underneath: the specialized terms came through as terms, not guesses.

The unscripted Q&A: the hardest case for live translation, and the reason for the setup.

The result

The room got what a cross-border forum is for: a real conversation across the language line. What an overseas robotics founder and a global investor had to say reached a Japanese audience in real time, and Japanese questions went back the other way without the evening stopping to wait for translation.

The forum as the room saw it: the slides and live translation side by side.

Why it matters

Deep tech moves faster when the right people can actually talk to each other, and at this stage they are rarely all in one country or one language. An evening like this is about closing that gap: putting a US robotics founder, a Japanese software founder, and a room of Japanese investors and researchers into the same conversation.

That only works if the language does not get in the way. The hardest place is exactly where it matters most: the unscripted fireside chat and open Q&A on dense technical topics. When translation is quick and accurate enough to fade into the background, people stop thinking about the language and start focusing on the technology.

At a glance

Planning a bilingual forum, panel, or fireside chat?

VoicePing brings real-time translation into keynotes, panels, fireside chats, and live Q&A, including the unscripted moments where the language keeps changing.

• Both directions, no switching: a Japanese question and an English answer both land on screen without someone flipping a control mid-conversation.
• Tuned to your subject: a custom glossary built from your event’s own materials helps specialized terms come through as terms, not guesses.
• On the room’s screens: live translation can run next to the slides, so wherever people are sitting, they can follow.

Learn more about VoicePing for events.

This article describes VoicePing’s real-time translation support for the Early-Stage Deep Tech Forum at Tokyo Innovation Base. Event details are drawn from the public event listing and on-site materials. No attendee is identified.