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Subject: [LRC Press Release] LRC organises special panel at 2006 International IATIS Conference in South Africa
2nd Conference of the
International Association for
Translation and Intercultural Studies
University
of the
12th-14th
July 2006
SPECIAL
PANEL CALL FOR PAPERS
THE
GLOBAL INITIATIVE FOR LOCAL COMPUTING
Chair:
Reinhard Schäler (Localisation Research Centre, LRC;
Panel
site: http://www.iatis.org/content/iatis2006/call/call-panelglobal.php
Conference
site: http://www.iatis.org/content/iatis2006/index.php
Localisation is generally
defined as the linguistic and cultural adaptation of digital content to the
requirements of foreign markets. Mainstream localisation efforts have so
far concentrated on languages and cultures rich enough (in monetary terms) to
provide a profitable market for localised products. Therefore, companies have
localised their products for the Danish market (with 3 million Danish speakers),
but not for the languages of Asia and
If it is true that access to
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is crucial for economic and
social development, then the lack of access must increase the already existing
divide between the rich and the poor. There is a strong argument that says that
all peoples of the world, regardless of culture or language, religion or
ethnicity or gender, geographic location or economic means, should benefit from
the use and application of ICT. The use of ICTs should take place in the
language and culture of those peoples’ choice, with no negative effects on that
language and culture and their continued existence. In the recent past, a number
of largely uncoordinated, commercial and non-commercial initiatives have been
established which aim to foster what could be called development localisation,
i.e. a strand of localisation which uses new and fresh criteria to decide
whether applications or digital content should be localised or not. Among those
are:
- Open Source Localisation Initiatives
- University-based Localisation Projects
and Research
- Initiatives by commercial developers
Now that there is a critical
mass of development localisation happening, it makes sense to pool together the
resources, to exchange knowledge and expertise, and to publicise and develop
these efforts through a broad, coordinated initiative. This initiative, the
Global Initiative for Local Computing (GILC), inspired by Pat Hall of the Open
University (UK), was launched at the annual conference of the Localisation
Research Centre (LRC) in
The organisers of this panel
invite papers which relate to or report on any one of the following
issues:
- Development of ICT systems able to work
in all major languages, with encodings and rendering engines for their writing
systems and freely available software and fonts to support their use;
- Activities of working groups which are
actively adding new languages to those for which computers have already been
enabled;
- Local human activities in all their
diversity, which are being supported by appropriate software and information
technologies.
These could cover, in
particular:
- Websites and databases maintained as a
source of knowledge about software localisation and associated technologies,
providing advice as needed via the web;
- Projects researching into fundamental
issues in technologies, social sciences, and translation studies related to the
digital divide;
- Projects developing technologies to help
endangered languages survive;
- Input into relevant standards
development, notably through agencies such as W3C, ISO, OASIS and the Unicode
consortium;
- Initiatives of major technology
providers addressing the digital divide;
- Activities of governments and their
agencies concerning policies and practices related to the digital divide;
- Collaboration among research and
educational institutions in projects and programmes aimed at overcoming the
digital divide;
- Relevant consultancy services;
- Training programmes around the world,
both as face-to-face courses and as e-learning courses.
This panel aims to
contribute to unlocking the enormous potential of localisation to create equal
access to ICT for billions of people currently excluded – and independent of
their culture or language, religion or ethnicity or gender, geographic location
or economic means.
SUBMISSION OF
ABSTRACTS
Abstracts (maximum 300
words, in English) for
30 minute papers (including 10 minutes' discussion time) can be sent either
by e-mail to reinhard.schaler@ul.ie.
Subject: IATIS GILC
Panel
or by post
to:
Reinhard
Schäler
Localisation Research Centre
(LRC)
CSIS
Tel: ++353 (0)61 202881
KEY DATES
extended
deadline for submitting
abstracts: November
30th
2005.
Notification of acceptance
of abstracts: January 15th 2006.
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