IT and Computer Science Students doing their Engineering/Arts/Science Graduation courses can participate in a competition organized by KTS (Kani Thamizh Sangam) and Tamil Virtual University. It can be their final semester project but it should be in Tamil computing. The three best projects in 2006-07 will get cash prizes worth Rs.50,000. For details and application form, click here.
I feel the timing for this is very apt, as the commercial viability of Tamil Software projects is showing signs of finally picking up. OS vendors like Microsoft and Redhat are now supporting Tamil in many ways in their offerings. This week saw Tally (India’s Leading Package Software) announcing availability of vernacular editions of its accounting software. For Tamil computing enthusiasts like me and others in INFITT and KTS this is great news – many have been working hard for last two decades for things like this to start happening and take computers to the masses in Tamilnadu. Though other commercial company’s will follow suit, in order to accelerate this trend and innovate in this it is very important to get the young minds excited and I believe this competition will certainly do that. My wishes to the organizers and the students.
In this connection KTS and TVU have organized a one day workshop – Tamil Computing Technology on February 25 at Meenakshi Sundararajan Engineering College. Topics include Tamil fonts and encoding, government initiatives in e-governance, tools and technologies, Microsoft’s language applications, open source and job opportunities. Details can be had from http://www.kanithamizh.in/ or www.tamilvu.org. I have been invited to speak in the workshop panel on “Microsoft’s Language Applications” from 3:30PM to 4:15PM. See you there.