Cultural and linguistic diversity
Four APC-Africa-Women Network members are attending the Highway Africa 2006 conference in Grahamstown. The conference started yesterday, September 11 2006, with a diverse group of journalists from the continent. This morning, we have participated in the plenary sessions that were quite interesting. During the sessions on the state of media in Africa this morning, a speaker raised issues African media face, which I found particularly important.
Unlike its parent-organisation, the New Delhi-based Sarai.net is young, full of ideas and peppy. Not that the institution it grew out of is not full of ideas; but it has an old-world air about it, while Sarai fits in with the trendy, cyber-generation in an unusual way. APCNews met with Ravikant from Sarai.net to discuss localisation issues.
India is making noticeable progress in the field of ‘Open Access’, a growing global trend which could help it get out of the trap which blocks researchers from here reading what other Indians have published.Yet, a lot more still remains to be done, say experts working in the area. "Nearly a hundred journals have already taken the Open Access route," says Chennai (South India)-based ...
An Indo-Pakistan encounter, in war or cricket, leaves behind tonnes of bitterness and rivalry. But, in information and communication technology, the main regret facing techies from both sides of the troubled South Asian sub-continent, is why they can’t work more effectively together, to tackle the common problems their people face.
Many telecentres are located in Mapuche communities, particularly Pehuenches, and are administered by associations that group these indigenous peoples: Melipeuco, Lonquimay y Villarrica. Until recently, these communities were completely cut-off from ways to access and unable to use these technologies.
Where the Government in Pakistan, Intellectual Property Organization, Federal Investigation Authorities and the Business Software Alliance BSA are initiating a crackdown on Software Piracy in Pakistan, there is hardly any awareness of piracy and its implications within society apart from members of the IT Industry. It is crucial to the basic Human Rights of the citizens of Pakistan that they fi...
Here’s an early initiative to flow out of the APC South Asia Consultation: BytesForAll has just launched a new mailing list, specifically focused on Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS, or FOSS). Details of the group are below. We invite all interested to join.
It is assumed that everyone who buys a cheap illegally-copied ("pirated") copy of music or software CD would actually buy the costly ‘official’ version. Links have been made by piracy and terrorism, which are actually quite ludicrous. ‘Intellectual property’ is used as a term, instead of ‘creative expression’. When something is called property, we are steal...
"Whatever is the state of localisation in India, the government is definitely responsible for framing the policies. We have dreams of software superpowerdom, yet basic tools are not in place. They have spent crores (tens of millions by Government of India organisations) CDAC and TDIL, and that too all in the name of undertaking work in Indic computing and benefitting the people," says Ravikant...
A bunch of us WAM-ers learned how to create a 5 minute radio news piece in just 50 minutes this morning! Sonali Kolhhatkar, host and producer of Uprising, whisked us through the anatomy of a radio news feature and how you put one together.

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