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November 2015

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[FOSDEM] Call for Participation: Coding for Language Communities devroom @FOSDEM2016
by Peter Bouda 02 Nov '15

02 Nov '15

FOSDEM 2016 - Coding for Language Communities devroom CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Sunday, January 31, 2016, Brussels, Belgium There are currently around 7.000 languages spoken all over the world, but in many communities there has been astrong tendency to learn and use only major languages such as English, German, French, etc., especially in electronic communication. This is partly caused by the lack of hardware (e.g. keyboards) and software (for transliteration, text completion, etc.) for under-resourced languages, which constrain the natural usage of people's own language in many tasks. The grassroots initiative "Coding for Language Communities" involvesongoing research and development to turn that process in exactly the other direction: every successful technology can be used to teach, revitalize and therefore boost the use of regional languages. This technology should also assist the renewal of local languages and cultures by allowing people to actively teach, learn, extend, and spread their language in their community. Our aim is to give people the ability to use their mother tongue in everyday electronic communication, no matter where they are or what language they speak. The initiative "Coding for Language Communites" aims to bring together three groups: 1) Speakers of languages that are currently not supported by language technologies and that want to use their language on electronic devices; 2) Students of linguistics and language-related disciplines interested in learning about software development; 3) Software developers and students of computational sciences that are interested in supporting under-resourced languages by technological means. We think that free software is a requirement for free communication in any language. Our goal is to empower communities to build their own language processing tools based on free software projects. Therefore, we welcome proposals for talks about, but not limited to, the following topics: * Free software and open source projects that develop NLP tools * Open speech interfaces for computers and mobile devices * Open AI projects that process natural language * Multi-lingual input methods * Translation of free software and open source projects * Development of technical terminology for under-resourced languages * Open Data, data collection and multi-lingual corpora * Language diversity in free software and open source Talks should be 30-40 minutes in length, plus 10-15 minutes time for Q&A.Paper submission is handled via the Pentabarf tool at the FOSDEM website[1]. The deadline for proposals is December 11th, 2015. Make sure to include the following in your proposal: * title of your talk * abstract * your full name * your short bio * a picture of yourself(optional) * duration of your talk * links to code / slides / material for the talk (optional) The devroom will take place on Sunday of January 31, 2016 at ULB Solbosch Campus in Brussels, Belgium [2].Presenting at FOSDEM implies giving permission to be recorded. The recordings will be published under the same licence as all FOSDEM content (CC-BY). Any question or doubts? Please use our mailing list[3] or join our Telegram chat channel[4]. About FOSDEM FOSDEM is a two-day event organised by volunteers to promote the widespread use of free and open source software. Taking place in the beautiful city of Brussels (Belgium), FOSDEM is widely recognised as the best such conference in Europe. FOSDEM covers a wide spectrum of free and open source software projects, and offers a platform for people to collaborate. To this end, FOSDEM has set up developer rooms (devrooms) with network/internet connectivity and projectors where teams can meet and showcase their projects. Devrooms are a place for teams to discuss, hack and publicly present latest directions, lightning talks, news and discussions. Besides developer rooms, FOSDEM also offers main tracks, lightning talks, certification exams and project stands. Every year, FOSDEM hosts more than 5000 developers at the ULB Solbosch campus. Participation and attendance is totally free, though the organisers gratefully accept donations and sponsorship. No registration necessary. Important dates 2015-11-02CfP 2015-12-11 CfP deadline 2015-12-18 Devroom schedule published, speakers notified 2016-01-31 Coding for Language Communities devroom takes place Links: [1] https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM16 [2] https://fosdem.org/2016/practical/transportation/ [3] https://lists.fosdem.org/listinfo/clc-devroom [4] https://telegram.me/codinglc

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