[Indic-computing-users] Indic Computing Charter

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http://www.dqindia.com/content/top_stories/102110901.asp

I was going through the Dataquest article and came across the box item on the MAIT Consortium on Innovation and Language Technology (COIL Tech). The charter seems similar (or at least has significant overlaps) with what we are doing. 

This brings me to the next point: we are currently formalizing Indic Computing as a non-profit organization and it would be good to hear this group's opinions on what the charter of Indic Computing should be. Any thoughts on this and on how we can collaborate with MAIT?

Venky


The MAIT Consortium on Innovation and Language Technology (COIL Tech) 
Founded in: 2001 (September) 
Active members: Wipro Infotech, Wipro e-peripherals, TVS Electronics, Lipi Data Systems, Modular Infotech, NIC, C-DAC, NC, Apple Soft, ER&DCI Cyberscope Multimedia, Summit IT, Web Dunia, Blue Cell Technologies, Kannada Ganaka parishat, Anu Graphic Systems, Seacom Solutions ETH research Labs, Softview Computers, Microsoft, IBM, HP Labs.

Core Function: Co-ordinating various activities with IT Industry players and the TDIL (Technology development in Indian Languages)Department of the Ministry of Communications and IT.

The consortium is working with various state governments to make standards compulsory for software development companies in each state. "The Ministry of IT will eventually announce Unicode as the standard to be used in India and this decision will percolate to the state governments," explains MAIT executive director Vinnie Mehta.

CoilTech eventually hopes to graduate to an organization that will incubate young companies and provide IT tools to the developer community free of charge and encourage them to build Indian language software.

"The consortium also expects to be able to export multi-lingual software technologies to other third world countries within the next three to five years," says Mehta. CoilTech has developed standards for font layouts in Devnagari, Gujarati, Malayalam and Punjabi.