Title: Amplify the voices of vulnerable and marginalized groups through Community Radio in Bangladesh
Source: Blog of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
Date (published): 28/11/2011
Date (accessed): 15/12/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Rural people of Bangladesh entered into an era of community broadcasting to amplify the voices of vulnerable and marginalized groups through 14 community radio stations around the country. Community Radio provides the local community access to information and through exchange of information, leads them towards empowerment. Empowerment is the process to link them to their rights, good governance and development process.

Community Radio stations are going to full transmission in Bangladesh.14 stations are pioneering to be on-air, aiming to ensure empowerment and right to information for the rural community. Community Radio Padma 89.20, Rajshahi district and Community Radio Nalta 89.20 of Satkhira district has started full transmission.
…
It can be mentioned that these Radio Stations will broadcast programs, mostly in local dialect within the people living around 17 kilometers of a Station. The Programs will cover social, economic, cultural and environmental issues.
...
Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC) is promoting the advocacy with the government in relations to community radio with other organizations since its emergence in 2000 to open-up the Community Radio in Bangladesh to address critical social issues at community level, such as poverty, social exclusion, empowerment of marginalized rural groups and catalyze democratic process in decision making and ongoing development efforts.

As a result, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh acknowledged the importance of community radio and announced the Community Radio Installation, Broadcast & Operation Policy. Bangladesh is the 2nd country in South Asia in formulating policy for Community Radio."

Title: Amplifying Somali Voices Using SMS and a Live Map: #SomaliaSpeaks
Source: The Ushahidi Blog
Publisher: Ushahidi.com
Date (published): 08/12/2011
Date (accessed): 08/12/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"Somalia has been steadily slipping from global media attention over the past few months. The large scale crisis is no longer making headline news, which means that advocacy and lobbying groups are finding it increasingly difficult to place pressure on policymakers and humanitarian organizations to scale their intervention in the Horn of Africa. I recently discussed this issue with Al-jazeera’s Social Media Team whilst in Doha and pitched a project to them which has just gone live this hour.

The joint project combines the efforts of multiple partners including Al-Jazeera, Ushahidi, Souktel, Crowdflower, the African Diaspora Institute and the wider Somali Diaspora. The basis of my pitch to Al-jazeera was to let ordinary Somalis speak for themselves by using SMS to crowdsource their opinions on the unfolding crisis. My colleagues at Al-jazeera liked the idea and their editorial team proposed the following question:

Al Jazeera wants to know: how has the conflict of the last few months affected your life? Please include the name of your hometown in your response. Thank you!

So I reached out to my good friend Jacob Korenblum at Souktel. He and I had been discussing different ways we might combine our respective technologies to help in Somalia. Souktel has been working in Somalia and providing various SMS based solutions to several organizations. Jacob had previously mentioned that his team had a 50,000+ member SMS subscriber list. This proved to be key. Earlier this week, the Souktel team sent out the above question in Somali to about 5,000 of their subscribers. An effort was made to try and select geographically disbursed areas.

We’ve since received well over 2,000 text message replies and counting. In order to translate and geolocate these messages, I got in touch my colleagues Vaughn Hester and Lukas Biewald at Crowdflower in San Francisco. Crowdflower uses micro-tasking solutions to process and structure data flows. They were very keen to help and thanks to their support my Ushahidi colleagues Rob Baker and Linda Kamau were able to customize this Crowdflower plugin to translate, categorize and geo-locate incoming text messages..."

Title: YouTube launches in IsiZulu and Afrikaans for South Africa. That’s now 51 languages
Author: Paul Sawers
Source: Africa
Publisher: The Next Web
Date (published): 03/11/2011
Date (accessed): 20/11/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"n November 2010, YouTube announced it was adding African vernaculars Kiswahili and Amharic to its repertoire of languages. And today, it announced that it’s throwing another two African tongues into the mix – IsiZulu and Afrikaans.

Ian Parsons & Mthokozisi Dlalisa – Afrikaans & IsiZulu specialists, Google South Africa, said in the blog post:

"For many Africans online, the Internet is something created by other people which we simply consume. We see this with many African languages that have a dominant presence offline (on radio, TV, newspapers), yet are underrepresented on the web today. Seeing your language appear on global services like Google Search, YouTube, or Gmail can help change that. Suddenly, you become part of the conversation.""

Title: Creating Indigenous Language Content with Universal Design In Early Literacy
Author Editor: Isabelle Dunston
Source: Educational Technology Debate
Date (published): 12/09/2011
Date (accessed): 21/09/2011
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"iLearn4Free Inc is a 501C3 non-profit, whose mission is to bridge the digital language divide and support cultural sustainability by creating digital educational applications in multiple languages for early literacy.

Current situation:
Despite the fact that 94% of the world’s children are not native English speakers, there is a shocking absence of digital educational tools for early literacy in languages other than English.
There is now overwhelming evidence that children benefit from receiving early education in their own language, known as mother tongue learning, as learning to read in a language they do not speak can be very discouraging.

Mother tongue learning also has many social benefits. In multilingual societies, all communities feel equally respected if their language is used in schools, and learning in their mother tongue fosters a child’s capacity to express cultural identity.

iLearn4Free believes all children should have access to digital learning games in their mother tongue, as digital learning is an engaging and efficient way for them to learn and remain motivated.

A Multicultural Approach:
To meet our objective, our main challenge was to create an application that is adaptable to—and accessible by—a multitude of languages and cultures, while keeping costs at a minimum to enable a sustainable deployment."

Title: How the UN Foundation Plans to Meet Its Goals With the Help of Social Media
Author: Zachary Sniderman
Source: Mashable
Date (published): 16/09/2011
Date (accessed): 18/09/2011
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
"The United Nations (UN) and its philanthropic arm, the United Nations Foundation, have been on a headlong sprint to change the world by 2015. That year marks the deadline of the Millennium Development Goals, a set of far reaching and ambitious humanitarian challenges that include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and providing universal primary education.

They are lofty goals for sure, but ones that the two organizations are committed to achieving. One of their secret weapons has been social media and digital tools, from the UN Foundation’s newly launched mobile app to a history of digital communication and online advocacy.

Mashable caught up with Aaron Sherinian, vice president for communications and PR for the UN Foundation, to talk about the future of social good. "

Title: Voice Search in Underrepresented Languages
Authors: Pedro J. Moreno, Johan Schalkwyk
Source:Google Research Blog
Date (published):09/11/2010
Date (accessed):12/11/2010
Type of information:blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
„Today we’re introducing Voice Search support for Zulu and Afrikaans, as well as South African-accented English. The addition of Zulu in particular represents our first effort in building Voice Search for underrepresented languages.

We define underrepresented languages as those which, while spoken by millions, have little presence in electronic and physical media, e.g., webpages, newspapers and magazines. Underrepresented languages have also often received little attention from the speech research community. Their phonetics, grammar, acoustics, etc., haven’t been extensively studied, making the development of ASR (automatic speech recognition) voice search systems challenging.

We believe that the speech research community needs to start working on many of these underrepresented languages to advance progress and build speech recognition, translation and other Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies. The development of NLP technologies in these languages is critical for enabling information access for everybody. Indeed, these technologies have the potential to break language barriers.”
via https://twitter.com/#!/RitseOnline

Title: Local Voices Enhance Knowledge Uptake: Sharing Local Content in Local Voices
Authors: David John Grimshaw, Lawrence D Gudza
Pages: 12 pp.
ISSN: 1681-4835
Source: The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, (2010) 40, 3
Publisher: www.ejisdc.org
Date (published): 26/02/2010
Date (accessed): 03/05/2010
Type of information: peer-reviewed article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
New ICTs can provide new opportunities for knowledge sharing and uptake, but may also reinforce existing power hierarchies and exclusionary practices. This paper explores ways in which the balance of power may be redressed via the use of local voices producing local content in a way which respects local choices and where the intervention is shown to enhance livelihoods.
Practical Action has put people first for over forty years. How can people truly be put first when introducing a new information and communications technology such as “podcasting”? A brief review of the background to a podcasting project in Zimbabwe, leads on to a discussion of the development problems being addressed, the choice of technology, the outcomes evaluated and a discussion of implications for policy and practice.
Many ICT projects face the challenge of sharing information with people who have little experience of ICTs, low levels of literacy, little time or money, and highly contextualized knowledge and language requirements. Observations in Peru (Talyarkhan et al 2005) became the inspiration for innovative work in Zimbabwe which provides the main evidence discussed in this paper in relation to creating enhanced livelihood opportunities for people living in remote rural areas.
The paper discusses the proposition that the use of technologies accessible via voice and local languages support knowledge sharing and minimize impact on power relations in the community. A framework is suggested which shows how the balance of power relates to both the choice of media and the choice of technology. The final section of the paper explores the policy and practice implications of the findings and concludes that hand held voice devices can make a substantial contribution to improved livelihoods in remote rural areas.

Title: Mexico’s oldest Native radio station wins UNESCO award
Author: Rick Kearns
Source: Indian Country Today
Date (published): 13/04/2010
Date (accessed): 03/05/2010
Type of information: article
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
VERACRUZ, Mexico – For more than 40 years, Mexico’s oldest indigenous radio station has helped its listeners through many hardships, including repression and years of official neglect, and recently, the station’s work has been recognized by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

La Voz de los Campesinos won an international communications award for its interactive programming, featuring community messages and shows on local arts, customs, education and human rights that are translated into three indigenous languages.

La Voz de los Campesinos, XHFCE 105.5 FM or The Peasants’ Voice radio station from the eastern state of Verzacruz, Mexico was one of two recipients in the world that won UNESCO’s Prize for Rural Communication.

Title: The Polyglot Internet
Author: Ethan Zuckerman
Source: My Heart's In Accra
Date (published): 30/10/2008
Date (accessed): 18/12/2009
Type of information: blog post
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
Prepared for the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet by Ethan Zuckerman, October 30, 2008

The first wave of the Internet revolution changed expectations about the availability of information. Information that was stored in libraries, locked in government vaults or available only to subscribers was suddenly accessible to anyone with an internet connection. A second wave has changed expectations about who creates information online. Tens of millions of people are contributing content to the modern Internet, publishing photos, videos and blogposts to a global audience.
...
For the the Internet to fulfill its most ambitious promises, we need to recognize translation as one of the core challenges to an open, shared and collectively governed internet. Many of us share a vision of the Internet as a place where the good ideas of any person in any country can influence thought and opinion around the world. This vision can only be realized if we accept the challenge of a polyglot internet and build tools and systems to bridge and translate between the hundreds of languages represented online.

Title: One beast, many tongues
Editor: Ryan Egan (producer)
Source: Future Tense
Publisher: Radio Australia, Radio National
Date (published): 10/12/2009
Date (accessed): 12/12/2009
Type of information: episode (radio)
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML, and audiofiles)
Abstract:
Life was so much easier when the Internet was dominated by English. But now there are all those pesky 'foreign' languages popping up all over the place. Sure it might mean a more democratic way of gathering and disseminating information, but it's a real challenge (and at times a headache) for those involved in translation.
"Radio National's Future Tense has an episode called "One Beast Many Tongues" about a Multilingual Internet.
Covers interesting territory, including the Open Translation Tools 2009 conference, Google translate, http://www.babelwith.me/ (free chat with translation on the fly!) and the growing non-English size of the net."
(via http://twitter.com/kvashee and http://twitter.com/trnsltntech )