Tifinagh alphabet
54 Afrigen locales included in CLDR 1.8
Published: 17 Mar 2010
The Afrigen team is proud to announce that 54 African locales have been submitted to Unicode, and included in the CLDR 1.8 release. Out of the 54 locales, 41 was completely new to CLDR, while 13 was improvements of existing locales.This bulk submission of locales has greatly improved the footprint of African languages in CLDR, that hosted only 10+ in the previous release (most of them created by LocaleGEN, the predecessor of Afrigen). The next step for these African locales is submission to OpenOffice.org.
If you want to see a beautiful script that finally has made it to CLDR, have a look at Tachelhit, a Berber language spoken by 300,000 people in Morocco written in Tifinagh. The Tifinagh script is used by around 20 million people in Morocco for writing Berber languages including Tarifite, Tamazighe, and Tachelhite [source: www.unicode.org].
If your local language is not included in CLDR and you are willing to spend a few hours creating a locale, please contact us!
UTF8 expansion in the web!
Four years creating OpenOffice.org and Unicode locales
Published: 28 Jan 2010
What started as a small programming project it has now became the reference software to create locales for OpenOffice.org and Unicode. Our first tool (localegen) has generated 170 locales in four years. Around 25% of them has made them all the way into OpenOffice.org and Unicode's Locale Repository.
Locales come from all other the world, latest additions include: Uyghur, Maithili, Urdu, Maltese, Sardinian, Asturian and an Arabic-based locale for Oman.
During 2009, we rewrote localegen to facilitate the creation of 100 African locales. Today, Afrigen is the major effort in the world to submit African locales to Unicode!.
As you can imagine, tools need to be adapted with time and managing so many languages, scripts and features still takes considerable time of our research and development. In 2010, we are looking for a sponsor to continue our work, we plan to include more advance features in our tools (support for collation, community grading of locales, discussion forums, etc). Interested? Drop us a line!
We want to thank the IDRC for supporting us and our partner in the 100 African Locales Initiative, Kamusi Project International , as part of ANLoc. Thanks to the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden for hosting our development platform. Specially, we want to thank all contributors that have made Localegen and Afrigen a success!. We love to see (our) software used!
Two mobiles registered a openbts base station
Low cost open GSM base station for developing countries
Published: 24 Aug 2009
What did you do during your summer holidays? I was building my own GSM network!
I have been waiting almost 20 years to make this phone call!. Back in the 90's when I started my engineering studies and discovered GNU/Linux, dreamed with a system that could do what I have right now on my table :). The first attempt was in 2001 when I was completing my PhD at KTH in Sweden. During those years a group of researchers in the Laboratory started to explore the possibility of replacing as much of the GSM architecture (BSC, MSC) for open source software. Although we had a commercial GSM container with plenty of noisy equipment, the project got stuck trying to find documentation for the GSM internal interfaces.
In December 2008, I attended a conference about Mobile Service in Developing Regions. I was very surprised not to see anyone addressing the need of opening the GSM infrastructure (hardware and software). Christmas period was a good time for new projects so I decided to get in touch with the openbts project and try to build their base station. Assembling all the necessary hardware took a bit of time! David Burguess from openbts has been really helpful with hardware purchases!.
Yes! It does work, and that first phone call felt like a different one :D. The base station uses a piece of hardware known as USRP. The USRP is a radio communication system where components that have typically been implemented in hardware are now implemented using software in a PC.
We are looking for sponsors for a deployment in a developing region! Interested? Drop us a line!
Swahili Firefox Language Pack Add-on!
Swahili Language is now a Firefox add-on!
Published: 10 Jul 2009
After several months of hard work, the Swahili Language Pack for Firefox 3.5 is finally available online! The software is the result of the community effort of the Tanzanian Linux user Group (tzLUG). The software is available to download at:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12788/
If you want to install the add-on follow these steps:
- Download the latest Firefox 3.5.* from here.
- After installing the Firefox English version for your operative system, install the Swahili add-on available here .
- Finally, you need to enable the Swahili locale. Install the following add-on Locale Switcher and enable Swahili by selecting it from the Tools - Language Menu
In a hurry? If you want to find both components quickly we have prepared a add-on collection here
Presenting the Fantsuam
Local knowledge, local materials, local skills, local language, global network!
Published: 29 Apr 2009
During the UNESCO's workshop in Dhaka, we got the chance to give a presentation about some of the challenges and lessons learned in our work in Africa and Latin America. Using ICT in/for education is not only about bringing computers or Internet to the students in rural areas. Connectivity without a clear strategy and a sustainability plan is good for pilots but not to guarantee any replication.
When introducing ICT in education, there are many other aspects that needs to be taken into consideration: training methodology and curricula, access to reliable energy, localization of tools and content, added value services as voice,...
The reality of Bangladesh is overwhelming, the numbers talk: 1,000 people per square kilometer (20 in Sweden), women literacy rate 22% (99.8% in Cuba), >87.000 primary level institutions, 145 million people...
The ICT National Policy is a good piece of work that includes the promotion and use of cost-effective, open source and open architecture solutions and the promotion of Bangla language.
Mr. Nurul Islam Nahid,
Minister of Education
ICT in education in Bangladesh
Published: 27 Apr 2009
As part of the BanglaOS project supported by the Spanish Cooperation Agency, IT46 is attending a Capacity Building Workshop on Using ICT in Education and formulating the ICT master plan for Bangladesh.
PRESSRELEASE: Nation moves one step towards digital Bangladesh - ICT in education in master plan soon
Bangladesh is moving one step ahead in making digital Bangladesh – master plan for ICT in education is going to be prepared soon. The government, stakeholders and development partners began a journey of formulating the ICT in Education Master Plan of Bangladesh through the first step- the Capacity Building Workshop on Using the ICT in Education Toolkit for Policymakers, Planners and Practitioners, started on 27th and will finish on 30 April 2009.
ডিজিট্যাল বাংলাদেশের পথে আরেক ধাপ শীঘ্রই তৈরি হচ্ছে শিক্ষায় তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি ব্যবহারের কর্মপরিকল্পনা বর্তমান সরকারের বহুল প্রতিশ্রুত ডিজিট্যাল বাংলাদেশেরে পক্ষে আরেকধাপ এগুলো বাংলাদেশ। শিক্ষাক্ষেত্রে তথ্যপ্রযুক্তির ব্যবহারের কর্মপরিকল্পনা তৈরি করতে যাচ্ছে সরকার। এ লক্ষ্যে শুরু হয়েছে চারদিন ব্যাপী প্রশিক্ষণ কর্মশালা – ঢাকাস্থ ব্যানবেইস কার্যালয়ে। ইউনেস্কো, ইউএনডিপি এবং স্পেনের উন্নয়ন সংস্থার সহযোগিতায় আয়োজিত এই কর্মশালায় অংশ নিচ্ছেন ৩০ জনেরও বেশি সরকারী ও বেসরকারী সংস্থার নীতিনির্ধারক ও পরিকল্পনাবিদ এতে অংশ নিচ্ছেন। শিক্ষায় তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি ব্যবহারের জন্য সক্ষমতা বাড়াতে এবং পরবর্তীতে বাংলাদেশের জন্য একটি কর্মপরিকল্পনা প্রণয়নে কাজ করার জন্য সক্ষমতা বৃদ্ধিই এই কর্মশালার উদ্দ্যেশ। বর্তমান সরকার গত জানুয়ারিতে ক্ষমতায় আসার সময় একটি প্রতিশ্রুতি ছিল তথ্যপ্রযুক্তিতে দেশের ব্যাপক জনগোষ্ঠীকে প্রশিক্ষিত করে বাংলাদেশকে ডিজিট্যাল বাংলাদেশ হিসেবে গড়ে তোলা। বর্তমান সরকার ইতোমধ্যে আগের শিক্ষানীতিসমূহ পর্যালোচনার ভিত্তিতে দ্রুততম সময়ের মধ্যে নূতন একটি শিক্ষানীতি প্রণয়নের কাজে হাত দিয়েছে। শিক্ষায় তথ্যপ্রযুক্তিকে সমন্বয়ের এই সময়োপযোগী উদ্যোগ শিক্ষাকে একুশশতকের উপযোগী করে তুলবে নি:সন্দেহে।
Fantsuam 150 feet central tower
Fantsuam's tower collapses during heavy rain storm
Published: 24 Apr 2009
IT46 has been working Fantsuam Foundation (Kafanchan, Nigeria) in the establishment of Zittnet, the first rural community wireless ISP in Nigeria since 2006.
Today, we received the bad news that the central communication tower from Fantsuam was taken down by a strong wind the past Tuesday 21st April around 15.15 PM.
Ochuko Oneberhie from Fantsuam reported that during a heavy rain storm, the wind bent the tower from the top. In the course of its fall one of the legs was uprooted from the ground with the foundation. Several buildings including the old network operation center, a Cisco Laboratory and a neighboring building has been seriously damaged. No human casualty or injury was involved.
This is the second biggest natural disaster that Zittnet has suffered in a few months. In August 2008, a lighting direct strike destroyed a big part of their power and wireless infrastructure. Our best energy to Fantsuam and Zittnet in this difficult time and we hope that we can mobilize the very well deserved support that you need now!.
2004 - 2009
We are five years old!
Published: 30 Mar 2009
We started IT46 five years ago with the aim to bring new technologies to the developing world. Making the world a better place has been an engaging activity so far and there is still lots of work to do. We had been traveling to enough dusty places to understand that the world is really broken and needs lots of patch work. Starting from the scratch does not seem an option!
Back in 2004, we were not sure how long this company was going to stay alive. We were not sure if it was going to be possible to keep our visions and still make a living. After five years of work, we are happy to say that we still love our work and specially the people we have met. Our vision has not changed: knowledge transfer, technology for change
During the last weeks in the cold Sweden, we have worked in our new website. Rearranging the site has been a task that took more time than expected, it has been a bit of house and mental cleaning (rounding corners and organizing material)... trying to merge together the 2GB of content that we have produced in five years has not been a simple task! The site contains 6000 files and 640 pdf documents!
In this new release of the website you can find an integrated training curricula under Our Work » Knowledge Transfer. There, you can find over 700+ pages of content in seven thematic areas licensed under Creative Commons. Copy them and let us know!
We have also compiled some of our software in an unified SVN server and integrated our news section under one single RSS
If you want to have a quick look to our work in the last years, check the About us » Reference Projects section or our About us » Annual Reports. The search option in the website should help you find all the content. You can search using our selected keywords and the search engine will provide you also a simple link that you can share with others or add to your website. Give it a try!
We hope to be around for another five years! Until then, copy, adapt and improve. Gracias, Tack, Asante, Thanks!
Community One North Conference, 2009
Umoja Project in CommunityONE North Conference
Published: 17 Mar 2009
The 15th of April, IT46 will present the Umoja Project in Sun's Community One North Conference, Oslo, Norway. The Umoja Project aims to create a longer term community of developers and users of open source software in Swahili language. The presentation will address the technical and social challenges of building open source communities in developing regions.
During the last five years IT46 has worked in several localization initiatives that includes the very first release of OpenOffice.org in Swahili (2005) or the inclusion of several African locales in Unicode standards.
The Umoja Project @ CommunityOne is the result of the collaboration of the Tanzanian LUG (tzLUG), FreeCode and SUN Microsystems.
Umoja Firefox 3.1
Firefox in Swahili - A community effort (II)
Published: 3 Mar 2009
A few months ago, IT46 joined a community effort to build Firefox 3.1 in Swahili language. The effort comes from the Tanzanian Linux User Group, a grass-root organization that wants to promote open source and software in Swahili language.
Today, we have completed the first full build of the software that contains 93% of the total strings. Screenshoots of the software are available here. There is still some work pending regarding acceleration keys and reviewing the glossary for consistency among translators, but the software should be ready for public testing in less than one month.
Congrats to Paul, Jonathan M, Bibiana, Eric, Sebastian, Emanuel, Aziz and Jonathan N. for the good work!
