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Home > Tamil Digital Renaissance > Tamil Internet 2000 > Pre Conference Information Releases
Singapore 22-24 July 2000
Tamil Inaiyam 2000 (the follow up to TamilNet'99) was originally scheduled to be held in Colombo on 13-14 March 2000. The circumstance that the Conference/Seminar was to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital city, whilst Sri Lanka's Genocidal War against the people of Tamil Eelam continues, had raised some concerns.
On 21 February 2000, it was officially announced that Tamil Inaiyam 2000 will be postponed for mid 2000 and will be held in Singapore. Tamil Inaiyam 2000, the Third International Conference on Tamil Internet will now be held in Singapore from 22-24 July 2000.
The website www.tamilinaiyam2000.org will serve as the official website for the conference. The conference is being organized by the Tamil Internet Steering Committee (TISC) of Singapore (with Mr. R. Ravindran, Member of Parliament, Singapore and Mr. Arun Mahizhnan, Deputy Director, Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore as Co-Chairs) in close collaboration with the IT Task Force of Tamil Nadu Government (with Prof. M. Anandakrishnan as the Head) and Official Languages Commission of Sri Lanka (Dr. Sivathasan, Director). A Detailed listing of technical presentations to be made at Tamil Internet 2000 is now available together with the Conference Programme.
Tamil Internet Steering Committee (TISC) Media Release 9 June 2000
Singapore to Host World's Largest Tamil Internet Symposium
Tamil Internet 2000 To Attract More Than 20,000 Visitors - to Focus On E-Business
The Tamil Internet Steering Committee (TISC), an organisation under the auspices of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), announced today that Singapore will play host to the world's largest conference and exhibition on Tamil Internet. Organized by the TISC, the Tamil Internet 2000 (TI 2000) will be held at the Singapore International Conventionand Exhibition Centre from July 22-24. The 3-day event, carrying the theme 'Directions to the Digital World', is expected to attract more than 20,000 visitors from all walks of life.
Singapore President S.R. Nathan and the First Lady will grace the Gala Dinner to be held on July 22. B.G. George Yeo, Minister Of Trade and Industry, will officiate at the opening of an IT Fair, which will be held in conjunction with this conference. The IT Fair opens on July 22 at 11am.
TISC chairman, Mr. R Ravindran, said: "We are proud to bring an event as outstanding as TI2000 to Singapore. TI2000 is the focal point for IT professionals and global businessmen keen in reaching the 65-million strong Tamil diaspora through the Internet. More importantly, Tamil Innayam 2000, is a mainstream international conference focussed on the globalisation of the
Internet through increased usage of popular Asian languages, including Tamil."
Mr. Ravindran, who is also MP for Bukit Timah GRC, added that the conference is also designed to heighten awareness of Singapore's role, being a leading regional e-hub with a large concentration of Indians, as a catalyst in the development of the Tamil Internet Economy. IDA's support for the event is testament to this commitment.
Dr. Kaizad Heerjee, Assistant Chief Executive, Online Development, IDA, said, "We are extremely pleased and delighted to be hosting the largest conference and exhibition on Tamil Internet in Singapore. As Singapore emerges to be a key player in the new economy, one of our key thrusts is to ensure that every citizen is net-savvy and enjoys the benefits of an e-lifestyle. This conference will therefore not just position Singapore as a key Tamil Internet Hub, but will also go a long way in helping the Tamil community to be net-savvy through the development of local multilingual content and promoting the use of e-commerce."
Tamil Innayam 2000 is divided into three distinct activities - the conference, the e-business and the community hubs. These hubs are designed to reach out to specific groups of visitors, each offering a unique value proposition. While the conference hub will focus on the presentation and discussion of international papers, the e-business and community hubs will spice up the
event with a host of attractive activities including meetings between business leaders and special Internet programmes for both senior citizens and children. A high-level panel will also discuss the evolution of Asian languages on the Net.
Earlier, the Conference Organising committee announced that Tamil Internet 2000 will have three components. It declared:
"The past Tamil Internet conferences focused mainly on academic and technical deliberations, given the urgent need to arrive at some international standards and codes. Even as this urgency continues unabated, however, with the increasing need for the spread of the Internet usage among the lay public, a special effort has to be made to use the conference as a promotional vehicle. To that end, this conference has provided for a Community Hub. Similarly, the "dot.com"ing of all businesses, regardless of size or shape, is rapidly pushing the private sector into e-commerce and this conference has developed an E-Business Hub to cater to their needs. Thus, Tamil Internet 2000 conference now has three distinct components:
- the Conference Hub,
- the eBusiness Hub and
- the Community Hub
Dr. K. Kalyanasundaram, Chair Conference Hub Sub Committee announced on 6 April 2000 some details of the agenda of the Conference Hub.
The Conference Hub will feature the presentation of academic and technical papers as well as panel discussions and poster displays. It will focus on arriving at some international codes, standards and agreements to advance the development of Tamil Internet and Information Technology (IT) in general. In addition, there will be a number of papers that will address issues at the cutting edge of technology that will critically affect the future. The conference will also pave the way for the setting up of a global Tamil technology community called the International Forum for Information Technology in Tamil (INFITT).
For more information, please contact: Dr K Kalyanasundaram, Chair, Conference Hub Subcommittee. Email:
The eBusiness Hub has been designed to attract private sector participants who are interested in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) related business opportunities as well as Tamil Internet. The conference will cater to a considerable number of business leaders from India and other parts of the world who wish to explore mutual interests during the Singapore meeting. To facilitate this process, there will be a Trade Fair which will exhibit hardware and software in different aspects of ICT. There will also be exclusive arrangements for networking among business participants and designated booths for quiet business discussions.
A special feature of the eBusiness Hub is the Job Fair which will bring together hundreds of potential employees and employers from around the world, first through the web and then in person at the conference. A web-based registry of employee and employer interests is being set up and will become operational in late May. At the conference venue, there will be special areas for registered participants' personal meetings and consultations. Singapore alone has about 20,000 Indian ICT professionals and both the government and private sector employers are seeking thousands more of foreign experts.
For more information, please contact: Mr Mohan Das, Chair, E-Business Hub Subcommittee. Email:
The Community Hub has been incorporated into this conference to allow thousands of ordinary members of the public to see and appreciate the marvels of ICT. Displays of ICT-related hardware and software will showcase some of the latest in technological developments. Technologies that use Tamil and many other languages will be on display for the public to get a hands-on feel of these innovations. Many Indian civic organisations, which have been providing computer and Internet training for the community, will set up demonstration and registration counters to sign up would-be participants for their programmes. There will also be specially created infotainment programmes to spread the message of the new ICT era.
For more information, please contact: Major S Thanaseelan, Chair, Community Hub Subcommittee. Email:
Dr. K. Kalyanasundaram or
Lausanne, Switzerland announced on 6 April 2000:
Following is a short line of various topics that will be taken up for discussion and further action at this TI2000 conference:
Area I - Language & Education
- A standard reference source for computer-related terms (a Glossary) in Tamil for use in softwares and on Internet
- Online Dictionaries /Lexicon/Thesauras ?
- Computer-aided Teaching of Tamil in classrooms & online ( materials, tools, databases, delivery mode)
- Tamil Virtual University & A network of online and virtual campuses for Tamil across the globe
- Digital Archives of Tamil Literary works, doctoral dissertations, ... (data storage formats, international catalog, copyright issues, collaboration amongst existing and planned initiatives)
Area II: Technology(Tamil usage at Personal level and on Internet)
- Multimedia Tools: OCR, voice recognition, speech synthesis, natural language, processing,....
- Tamil Search Engines
- Interface tools/APIs for information flow across platforms and across different encodings
- Information processing and exchange on mobile computer platforms - Java based tools for online Spell checker, dictionary,... (interactive usage of Tamil online/on Internet)
- Softwares for automated translation of Tamil texts to other languages and vice versa
Area III: Technical Standards and Agreements
- Character and Glyph encoding standards (>50 -> 2 or 3 -> Unicode ?)
- Unicode Tamil Segment - pros and cons for possible revision
- A Standard for Transliterated (& transcription mode) of romanized Tamil
- Tamil Script refrom (ukara & Ukara varisai)
-Transcription of foreign sounds in Tamil script (incl. alternates to granthas)
- Domain Name registration in Tamil
Area IV: Ecommerce
- Information processing of larger Databases in Tamil (include Interface tools/APIs for input querries and output in different encodings (& languages?)
- dedicated software for Tamil businesses (billing, finance management, warehousing, dispatch, order tracking,..)
- industry trends
Area V: Organization
- National and regional Steering Groups devoted to Tamil Computing
- Launch of An International Forum for Information Technology in Tamil (INFITT)
- Tamilnet conferences - suggestions on content, calender, venue, ....
A strong appeal is being made here to all those interested in the above topics to participate at the forthcoming TI2000 conference. It will be an excellent opportunity for direct input in the form of paper or poster presentations, participation in the technical discussions and learn (& have hands on demos) on the growing number of softwares for Tamil computing etc.
In view of the changed venue and the date, the deadline for submission of contributions (paper presentations orally and/or posters) is being extended to 15 May 2000.
Those interested may choose a "topic" and present their views on the current status and offer suggestions for further course of action relating to the chosen topic. You can send in your intentions (with details) to participate in the Technical discussions to me via email (in case of problems to ) from now on with a copy to and .
