Fwd: Tamil Inaiyam 2000 - call for papers and discussions

[Prasad Velusamy]

From: "K. Kalyanasundaram" <kalyan at softhome.net>
Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 09:40:17 +0200

TAMIL INAIYAM 2000
International Conference on Tamil Information Processing and
   Resources on the Internet
  to be held in Singapore during 22-24 July 2000

Tamilnet conferences are annual forums for all those interested
in "Tamil Information Processing and Resources on the Internet".
The first one in this series, Tamilnet97 organized by National
Univ. of Singapore was held in Singapore during 17-18 May 1997.
The second one, Taminet99, organized by IT Task Force of the
Tamilnadu Govt, was held in Chennai during 7-8 Feb. 1999.

Tamil Inaiyam 2000, the Third International Conference on Tamil
Internet (which was to be held in Colombo on March 13th and 14th)
is now scheduled to be held in Singapore from 22 to 24 JULY 2000.
The website <www.tamilinaiyam2000.org> will serve as the official
website for the conference. Please visit this website regularly
to learn more details on the conference, online registration etc.

The conference is being organized by the Tamil Internet Steering
Committee (TISC) of Singapore (with Mr. R. Ravindran, Member of
Parliament, Singapore and Mr. Arun Mahizhnan, Dy. Director, Inst.
of Policy Studies, Singapore as Co-Chairs) in close collaboration
with the IT Task Force of Tamilnadu Govt (with Prof. M.
Anandakrishnan as the Head) and Official Languages Commission of
Sri Lanka (Dr.Sivathasan, Director). I have agreed to the request
of these folks to serve as a Co-Chair (with Dr. Desai Narasimhalu
ofSingapore) for the Technical Programme Sub-committee.

Following is a short line of various topics that will be taken
up for discussion and further action at this TI2000 conference.

Area I   -  Language & Education

-- A standard reference source for computer-related  terms (a Glossary)
   in Tamil for use in  softwares and on Internet
--  Online Dictionaries /Lexicon/Thesauras ?
-- Computer-aided Teaching of Tamil in classrooms & online
   ( materials, tools, databases, delivery mode)
--  Tamil Virtual University & A network of online and virtual
    campuses for Tamil across the  globe
--  Digital Archives of Tamil Literary works, doctoral dissertations,
    ... (data storage formats, international catalog, copyright issues,
     collaboration amongst existing and planned initiatives)

Area II:  Technology
          (Tamil usage at Personal level and on Internet)

--  Multimedia Tools: OCR, voice recognition, speech synthesis,
    natural language processing,....
--  Tamil Search Engines
--  Interface tools/APIs for information flow across platforms
     and across different encodings
--  Information processing and exchange on mobile computer platforms
--  Java based tools for online Spell checker, dictionary,...
     (interactive usage of Tamil online/on  Internet)
--  Softwares for automated translation of Tamil texts to other
     languages and vice versa


Area III:  Technical Standards and Agreements

--  Character and Glyph encoding standards (>50 -> 2 or 3 -> Unicode ?)
--  Unicode Tamil Segment - pros and cons for possible revision
--  A Standard for Transliterated (& transcription mode) of romanized
       Tamil
--  Tamil Script refrom (ukara & Ukara varisai)
--  Transcription of foreign sounds in Tamil script (incl. alternates
     to granthas)
--  Domain Name registration in Tamil

Area IV:  Ecommerce

-- Information processing of larger Databases in Tamil (include
    Interface tools/APIs for input querries and output in
    different encodings (& languages?)
--  dedicated softwares for Tamil businesses (billing, finance
    management, warehousing, dispatch, order tracking,..)
--  industry trends

  Area V:  Organization

--  National and regional Steering Groups devoted to Tamil Computing
--  Launch of An International Forum for Info. Technology in Tamil (INFITT)
--  Tamilnet conferences  - suggestions on content, calender, venue, ....

A strong appeal is being made here to all those interested in the
above topics to participate at the forthcoming TI2000 conference.
It will be an excellent opportunity for direct input in the form
of paper or poster presentations, participations in the technical
discussions and learn (& have hands on Demos)  on the growing
number of softwares for Tamil computing etc.

In view of the changed venue and the date, the DEADLINE FOR
SUBMISSION OF CONTRIBUTIONS (paper presentations orally and/or
posters) IS BEING EXTENDED TO 15 May 2000.

Those interested may choose a "topic" and present their views on
the  current status and offer suggestions for further course of
action  relating to the chosen topic. You can send in your intentions
(with  details) to participate in the Technical discussions to me
via email <kalyan at softhome.net> (in case of problems to
kalyan at dcsun1.epfl.ch) from now on with a copy to
<arun_mahizhnan at ips.org.sg> and <ananda at eth.net>.  Details on
the list of speakers at various  sessions and on poster presentations
will beannounced in the second half of May 2000.

Please distribute the above information widely and post to Tamil
academic mailing lists that you subscribe to.

K. Kalyanasundaram
<kalyan at softhome.net> or <kalyan at dcsun1.epfl.ch>
Lausanne, Switzerland




______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com