Javier Sola was just "passing by" Cambodia, when the move made him take a dramatic u-turn in his life. It was there that he decided to stay on, Now, he believes he can help localise the language of the region which is home. He sketches the characters of the local language, to explain the challenges it faces before getting onto the computer desktop.

But this story starts out in another world.

This 43-year-old Chilean-born Spaniard was the director of the Spanish Internet Users' Association. For seven years, he had pushed for the development of the Internet in Spain. In that time, he had actively participated in the creation of ICANN, the Internet's central management body. He was chair of the working group that decided the creation of new Internet top-level domains (like .info, .biz and so on).

But in 2003, he quit his job. Says he: "We created a working group to see what had to be the future for the management of the Internet. Something which would be legally secure and yet affordable, and efficient. But then, the US intervened to say the Internet belonged to them."

Links:

• http://www.khmeros.info
• http://forum.org.kh
• Email javier at khmeros.info

Subsequently, Javier saw ICANN as becoming weak, with the levers of power in the hands of dominant countries. "I was not at all happy. I had helped to create this structure, and within a year, I got out," he says. By 2003, people lost interest in the Internet. It became a commodity. "So I lost interest and quit."

Life is, they say, what happens when you're making other plans. Javier had been scouting around the Far East, looking for a venue for an international conference. He thought that he would love to spend the next part of his life writing -- he had already done a small travel book on India. That's when he decided to visit Cambodia, a place he had never been to.

There, he met a Spanish bishop who ran a handicapped children's home. He ended up staying there for eight months. He loved the place "because it was a very happy place and there weren't too many computers around".

But things changed. Teaching the children computing was impossible. All PCs were in English, a language they didn't know. "I thought maybe I could do something here. What would it take to get computers working in the Khmer language?"

Then his search began. By 2003, he started looking at Open Source. "I decided my social goals, and, based on social goals, looked for software," he said.

What were these goals? Why localisation really?

Anticipated spin-offs were many. Reducing training time. Allowing people of a young age to strart with computers. Reaching out to rural areas with computers. Separating the skills of English and computing, so both not bundled.

("Someone who finishes high school in Cambodia is usually very poor. They need to find a job. If they can learn computers in two months, they can find a job and, then, probably learn English. If you bundle the two, they will take two years and probably find a job which doesn't need English.")

Also, the country was in an odd situation where the administration could not work in its own language, on computers. Says Javier: "When you transliterate the language into English characters, there are different ways of spelling. That causes a problem."

The Khmer script is an Indic-based script, based on Brahmi. But it is probably more complicated than some Indian scripts. Cambodia has some more vowels. It has several split 'matras' (vowel signs that Indian languages too have). It also has sub-script consonants like the Indian language of Kannada, but you could have two consonants on a single letter, says Javier.

So Javier and his team started writing project proposals, looking at the software needed, and sought to pick up the right multi-platform software tools they could work on.

"Our strategy is to release things in Windows-based programmes first. Our whole project looks at distribution and training. We needs support from the world of distribution and training; these people are very much used to Windows, afraid of anything that doesn't look like Windows," says he.

Javier explains the relevance of computerisation to Cambodian computing. "Civil servants don't know English. There are a lot of small computer training places in Cambodia. We want to retrain all these people. Ours is a two stage plan. First develop and distribute applications. Simultaneously develop Linux user interface, where it will work with the same."

How much has the team done so far?

Says Javier: "We have translated Internet tools, and we've translated Open Office. ThunderBird, FireFox, and Imp -- the last being a webmail programme, needed since many users don't have their own computers on which to download mail to. In terms of Open Office, we will be ready for distribution in April. Open Office is translated. We're working on the help-section, and hope to finish in a month."

What are their priority targets? Basic Internet applications, basic office applications, and training material and documentation. They also hope to introduce a training program that offers 'pyramidal' certification for those who learn sections of the course, as they keep getting familiarised with parts that lead up to the whole.

Currently, the project has six translators and one typographer. It hopes to scale up to a total of 14 persons -- including eight translators, and two installers going round the country of 13 million and 181,000 sq kilometres, installing the localised software in places where it matters. Three will be 'trainers of trainers'.

Large firms like Microsoft haven't yet come in to Cambodia with local solutions. "It hasn't come so far. Maybe the market is uninteresting. Maybe after seeing what we're doing, they will come. That too will make me happy, because they are social goals. It would help the Khmer language."

Javier says their project is "working really well".

They believe the best advangate of using Free/Libre and Open Source Software is language. "If Microsoft isn't supporting your language yet, you have infinite possibilities. If Microsoft is in your language, you have a requirement of localising. Otherwise you can't compete," he points out.

Localisation is more important when it comes to spreading FLOSS, compared to other advantages like the cost of the software, he believes. So, they went about creating a master plan to computerise the private sector and those beyond the government sector. "I think, at some point of time, we could become the first country that manages to get wider Linux utilisation (based largely on localisation)," he believes.

Javier has put his dreams on paper. He located the 70-year-old Nobert Klein, who ran the Open Forum of Cambodia, and was, like him, involved in the Internet in the mid-nineties.

Ironically, the hike in the Euro value helped that body to put aside some money received from funders and launch their localisation plans. Now they've approached APDIP (the UNDP's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme) with plans to create a manual on how-to do a localisation project.

From South Africa, they've learnt what should be avoided.

There, a major localisation project to translate free software into 11 national languages is being undertaken by Dwayne Bailey and team of http://translate.org.za "This is really an exciting project," adds Javier. (ENDS)