Abstract:
With the explosive growth of digital devices like mobile phones and digital-TV in India , availability of Indian languages in such digital platforms has become an important need to address the diverse multi-lingual nature of India. Indian language support starts with the basic implementation of text display support. This involves algorithms for composing and rendering the complex conjuncts and creation of clear and legible fonts for the target screen. Though display is fundamental, usage of text is primarily to type, search, sort and work with words, sentences and grammar of a language. The nature and properties of Indian scripts differ in many important ways from linear scripts like English. The two broad domains of Language computing are text and voice computing. The tutorial will attempt to provide an overview of the aspects essential for enabling and making Indian language support usable for text usage on digital devices like mobile phones and set-top-boxes.

The tutorial will cover the following topics
   1. Introduction to Indian language computing – script Encoding and Display    - 30 Mins
   2. Fonts    - 30 Mins
   3. Indian text typing – on mobiles    - 45 mins
         a. Transliteration from English
         b. Native usage
   4. Prediction          - 45 mins
         a. Word complete
         b. Predict as you go
         c. Easy English
   5. Dictionaries – Efficient storage and usage – 30 mins
         a. Word Lists
         b. Meaning Dictionaries

Biography:
S. K. Mohanty has over 25 years of experience in leading development of Digital Font Design, Multilingual Technology products, Graphic design, Visual communication and Calligraphy. Having graduated in Applied Art from Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai, he did post graduation in Visual Communication (M. Des) from Industrial Design Center from IIT, Mumbai. Mr. Mohanty founded and headed the font design and script and glyph standardization activities at C-DAC, Pune for 10 years. During this time, he has authored the ISFOC and ISCLAP standards for the print and multilingual pager needs respectively. Mr. Mohanty has carried out revolutionary developments of clear and legible font designs for the widest range of needs and platforms starting from the early 9 & 24 pin printers, low resolution monitors, pagers to TV (NTSC, PAL and HD). Fonts developed by Mr. Mohanty are available through multilingual products from C-DAC and have gained popularity in various industries like print media, TV channels, official communications and general hoardings in almost every part of the country. Mr. Mohanty has authored several national and international publications and has also been recognized through many National and International awards like the FIE foundation award, Ulka Advertising Research Fellowship in Art, Fellow at J. J. Institute of applied Art and design excellence award by EPSON, Japan, to name a few.

Vivekananda Pani has about 14 years of experience in Indian language computing. Having graduated in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering from College of Engg . And Technology, Bhubaneswar, Mr. Pani started working and led the language tools and technologies initiative at GIST, C-DAC. Here, he was involved along with the ministry of IT with the various standardization initiatives for script encoding and display for various Indian scripts. Mr. Pani architected the first IPTV based STB platform to support all Indian languages. He also started the efforts on Indian language technologies for Mobiles at the same time. He authored among the very first prediction, phonetic English typing and lyrics viewing tools supporting Indian languages for mobile phones. Having filed a few patents in the area, Mr. Pani has a passion for language computing with a focus on usability.