மலேஷியாவில் நடைபெற்ற INFITT மாநாடு

The Tamil IT 2013 came to a conclusion yesterday. What do they achieve by conducting this conference?

1. INFITT has been the major instrument (force) in bringing IT awareness in Tamil Diaspora for the past 13 years.

2. INFITT being an NGO and a voluntary force has cleverly manipulated different Government agencies/ministries in financing these conferences. Though, there is a membership fee in INFITT, that is a minuscule amount to conduct such gala functions.

3. INFITT has been extremely generous towards the paper presenters. There is hardly an occasion where it asked a paper presenter to pay the conference fee. It has shared its charity towards travel grants for the unable.

4. INFITT being an NGO has worked smoothly with various Governments, Universities and other organizations. UM for the first time cooperated with a NGO in conducting a conference in its campus. The VC’s remark clearly showed that UM enjoyed this partnership. The VC requested that the next conference should also be conducted at UM (in reality it goes to Pondichery, India) and as a bonus if the next ten conferences are successfully conducted there, UM would offer a honorary PhD degree to the President of INFITT! (interestingly three moving forces in INFITT (Arun Mahiznan, Muthu Nedumaran and Ilantamil were former UM students!)

5.

The Minister for Media and IT has donated RM 50,000 towards INFITT to survive further.

6. Government of Malaysia has given a total of RM 300,000 to this joint venture to meet the cost (The rumor is that the expense was double the amount received).

7. Mr.Mani M.Manivannan explained why Tamil in IT? A robot (like man) appeared on the stage on the opening ceremony. Manivannan explained that in the next decade if a Robot needs to assist this conference, it needs to understand Tamil. (meaning Machines should follow natural languages). On the last day, it was announced that UM will get a grant to do research on Robotics and natural language input in artificial intelligence.

8. Mr.Muthu Nedumaran has organized a session to invite South Asian speakers to explain the need for the revival of ancient scripts and languages in this region. A Balinesian has explained their effort in reviving Bahasa Bali an endangered native language of Bali. While UN encourages to support ‘Mother Tongue’ initiatives it is extremely important to upkeep the surviving ‘mother tongues’. I pointed out at the end to pay attention to Korean languages which seemingly related to Tamil (http://video-thf.blogspot.com/2011/02/tamil-korea-relationship.html).

9. I presented a paper to insist the need for digitizing the ancient manuscripts in palm leaves and old books in South Asia where the ancient wisdom was stored. Those media is at peril now. It is a MUST to safeguard that unknown Database before it disappears in front of our eyes due to our negligence. I encouraged participants to join hands with our foundation (www.tamilheritage.org) to achieve this. Join the Google groups MinTamil (http://groups.google.com/group/minTamil) and The Roots (http://groups.google.com/group/indic-roots) for further discussion on e-preservation. Listen to my podcast at www.facebook.com/infitt

10. I am glad to be associated with this Volunteer Tamil IT Force. I have been in INFITT scene from its inception. Tamil Heritage Foundation was formed in the first conference held in KL, Malaysia 12 years ago!

Kudos to INFITT

—
The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Albert Einstein

http://www.e-mozi.com the cyberhome of Dr.N.Kannan