Meet the Acclaro Interns: Yiwei Wu

In our “Meet the Acclaro Interns” series, we introduce you to undergraduate and graduate students who held intern positions with us during the summer of 2023.

Yiwei Wu was born and raised in northern China and currently lives in Monterey, California. In college, she became interested in hip-hop dance and choreography and participated in a musical, “In the Heights” as a dancer. These days, you can often find her attending Zumba classes at the Monterey Sports Center.

Yiwei’s Acclaro internship

During her internship, Yiwei worked as a localization project manager tasked with launching orders, keeping track of project progress and facilitating communication with linguists for localization initiatives spanning 12 languages. Using her data analysis skills, Yiwei introduced further automation into various project management processes to optimize localization  workflows.

Here’s what a typical day looked like for Yiwei while interning at Acclaro: First, she would check in with her team and then review her to-do list and calendar to plan her day. She then starts working on her daily tasks, such as checking communications from linguists, logging their cancellation and extension requests, and creating client orders.

During some mornings, she has a cross-functional training session to improve her knowledge of other teams. After lunch, Yiwei has a daily sync meeting with her manager to discuss feedback, share work progress and blockers, as well as share ideas to improve efficiency.

In the afternoon, she continues with her action items and further researches ways to automate and streamline the localization process. She then implements some of her automation ideas and catalogs the updates for future reference. She also develops training materials and leads training sessions for the team. At the end of the day, Yiwei compiles a fresh to-do list in preparation for the following day.

Yiwei’s undergraduate and graduate studies

Yiwei earned a B.A. in English from Nanjing University in China. During college, she worked as a marketing localization specialist at a technology company and as a technical translator at a language service provider (LSP).

With a passion for translation that emerged from hands-on experience in the localization industry, Yiwei received a M.A. in Translation and Localization Management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS). She is eager to start a career as a localization specialist, dedicated to bringing products and services to the global market.

Explaining localization to a family member

When asked how she’d explain localization to a family member, Yiwei provided this answer:

“Localization is making something feel right at home, even if it comes from far away. It is a process of adapting a product or service, such as a website, video game, or cloud computing service to fit perfectly with the language, culture, and preferences of the target users. Ideally, it can make a product speak your language and show things that make sense to you.”

Yiwei’s take on the Acclaro intern experience

During her internship, Yiwei learned how to manage multiple tasks and prioritize them. She also learned how to communicate with team members about her bandwidth. Yiwei appreciated that  Acclaro is a people-centered company that focuses on employee well-being.

According to Yiwei, “Acclaro also recognizes the importance of providing the necessary resources and training for employees to excel in their roles and gain insight from cross-functional teams.”

Her favorite part of the internship was the constant encouragement to learn new things and step out of her comfort zone. “I feel truly grateful that both my managers and coworkers could trust me and allow me to conduct research and experiments to discover effective solutions. This atmosphere of trust and empowerment has significantly contributed to my growth and learning experience,” says Yiwei.