The Hindu : Software developers plan meet on Tamil language computing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 23, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Software developers plan meet on Tamil language computing

By K. Ramachandran

CHENNAI, FEB. 22. Kanithamizh Sangam (Association for Tamil Computing), a non-profit technical organisation formed by Tamil software developers, will organise a meet on Indian language computing next month for engineering college students and teachers.

`Kaniam 2004' will organise a seminar and projects guided by experts, including from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras and Anna University, who will explain the fundamentals of language computing, the recent developments and its future trends.

``The seminar will also make a presentation on possible research and development (R and D) opportunities in the emerging areas,'' says the sangam president, Manoj Annadurai.

At the end of the two-day seminar-cum-workshop (planned for March 26 and 27 at Anna University here), students will be asked to form teams and choose R and D areas. In consultation with guides assigned to them, they will finalise a project in a chosen or desired area of computing.

``After 12 months, the teams should submit a technical paper along with a demonstration at Kaniam 2005 (next year). The best project will be awarded a prize money of Rs. 1 lakh,'' says Mr. Annadurai.

It will be a unique event for major corporates involved in language computing to interact with a captive audience (at least three or four students will come from each college, as also a teacher), he adds.

About a dozen companies make Tamil computing tools, such as optical character recognition software, machine translators, multilingual office suite and Tamil enterprise software.

Quoting from an industry survey report on the local language software market in India, he says the market today is developing with a revenue of $11 million. But it has the potential to grow six times in just one or two years.

``In India, one reason for the low penetration of the personal computer is that it is perceived as a tool which understands only English. But if software tools are in the local language, even small traders and offices are prepared to buy and load them in their personal computer. They see its power to provide precise and faster information for making everyday decisions. There can be at least three million new and potential customers for language software, as there is a high scope for technical changes.''

The sangam is looking for financial support for the event, which hopes to attract students from at least 200 colleges.

In Malayalam, the Free Software Foundation India has taken some initiative. So too has the Kannada Ganaka Parishad, which is spreading language computing at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. Hindi, Marathi and Bengali IT campaigners plan to share solutions with developers.

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