The Hindu : Front Page : Do a project in Tamil computing, win cash prizes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 15, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

Do a project in Tamil computing, win cash prizes

K. Ramachandran

Rs. 50,000 on offer for best three efforts

CHENNAI: Students of information technology or computer science/computer applications in engineering and arts and science colleges now have a chance to win cash prizes for their mandatory final year project.

There is a caveat though: the project should be in Tamil computing.

The three best projects in 2006-07 will get cash prizes worth Rs. 50,000, according to an announcement by the Kani Thamizh Sangam, an association of Tamil computing enthusiasts, and Tamil Virtual University.

With global IT majors looking to localise content and developing local language computing, such projects could lead to entrepreneurship opportunities too, KTS president M. Anto Peter said.

Workshop

On February 25, the Sangam is organising a workshop at Meenakshi Sundararajan Engineering College here on topics such as Tamil fonts and encoding, government initiatives in e-governance, tools and technologies, Microsoft's language applications, open source and job opportunities.

The deliberations will be focussed on the tools and interfaces available for Tamil language computing and localisation of a computer language to reduce the digital divide.

To provide guidance

The workshop will seek to encourage students to take up projects in Tamil software development. KTS members will provide guidance.

Only students who register will be allowed to take part in the workshop.

Details can be had from the websites www.kanithamizh.in or www.tamilvu.org or telephone number 94440 75051.

Following the workshop, the Sangam plans to hold another meet for students with orientation towards language computing. The student teams can announce their individual projects there.

Last year, a similar project helped in achieving awareness on the prospects and job opportunities in language computing, Mr. Anto Peter said.

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