New software to take IT to Indian masses

Not knowing English would no longer be a handicap to learn computers, thanks to a software developed by an Indian institution and an Israeli company which supports all of India's recognised languages.

'Lekhika 2007' - a software application, developed by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) under India's IT ministry, and Israel's FTK Technologies, covers ten scripts and 3000 characters.

The application is expected to enable masses in India, who do not know English, to gain IT skills in their own language thanks to its user-friendly, comprehensive, cost-efficient format.

"Due to the fact that English literacy in India is a mere 10 per cent, such a solution will cater to the remaining 90 per cent population and can prove to be an effective tool in driving IT literacy programmes in India", Harel Cohen, CEO of FTK Technologies, said.

Cohen attributed the search for such a solution to a meeting with Professor Ashok K Jhunjhunwala of IIT Madras, who put this challenge in front of his company to serve almost 900 million people in India who do not know English.

The innovative data entry solution for Indian languages is based on image-processing technology where a camera enables the user to use a virtual keyboard, which itself continuously adjusts to help the user type his words quickly.

The demonstration of the system at the office of the Israeli company showed that people could adapt to the system very quickly.