The Hindu : Software developers plan meet

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 25, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Software developers plan meet

By K. Ramachandran

CHENNAI, FEB. 24. Kanithamizh Sangam (Association for Tamil Computing), a non-profit organisation formed by Tamil software developers, will organise next month a meet on Indian language computing 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 future trends. `There will also be 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), students will be asked to form teams and choose research areas. In consultation with guides, 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 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 as also a teacher will come from each college), he says.

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 revenue of $11 million. But it has the potential to grow six times in one or two years. 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 an 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.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu