More Tanzanians and other Kiswahili speakers will now have access to Information and Communication Technology use in language familiar to them.
After Microsoft developed Windows 7 local language Interface pack to enable them to communicate and make service delivery easier.
Speaking to Microsoft Corporation team developers at the launch on Tuesday, President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete said that it was a great honour for Tanzanians and Kiswahili speakers in general to have their mother tongue used as an information dissemination tool in different countries and societies.
He said the Kiswahili Windows Version 7 will be provided to education institutions in the country through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) dubbed ‘Tanzania 21 Project’, which USAID and Microsoft will be part of it.
“Using this technology Kiswahili language will help school children access computers in their own language, raise the comfort level instantly because they would learn faster, develop skills quicker and have the much needed familiarity with computers when they leave school,” the President said.
“As President, I profoundly appreciate your spirited efforts to promote and consolidate Kiswahili through computer system, help people to transform information in the language that is familiar to them as well as transform social and economic issues that affect the lives of people around the world,” he said.
Microsoft will help Kiswahili to grow and become very popular in many parts of the world, he said, noting that at the moment about 150 million people in East African Community patner states and more than 150 million others in the world speak the language.
Tanzania will continue to collaborate with Microsoft in various projects such as Tanzania beyond Tomorrow, University of Dodoma as well as create a conducive environment so that these efforts can bring changes to the Tanzanian people.
To meet this initiative, Tanzania has already installed transreceiver base towers to be used to transfer this technology in various parts of the country at a cheaper price, he said.
Also Tanzania will set aside a budget for this system to accelerate in this programme as well as transfer this technology to reach more than 3,000 schools in 2015 so that one teacher can teach chemistry or other subjects all over the country through the computer system.
“Presently 14 regions comprising 59 districts have been connected to the ICT, while the remaining will be connected at the end of this year. Our target is to reach all districts in the country,” he said.
For his part, General Manager of East and Southern Africa Microsoft Corporation Louis Onyango Otieno, said his firm has decided to create Kiswahili programmes in Microsoft after observing that there are many speakers of the language, while 90 per cent of computer users can access or choose Kiswahili language to communicate and transfer data.
He said Tuesday’s launch is a real and tangible demonstration of Microsoft’s commitment to bridge the digital divide in Tanzania and provide more opportunities for local and developers to create localised applications.
“For local innovations to flourish there is need for the government to protect intellectual property rights by curbing the growing counterfeit and piracy trade locally,” he said.
He also put a request to the Tanzania Government to enforce laws that protect intellectual property and thus support the local IT ecosystem and Tanzanian software developers.
According to Otieno, recent findings of Business Software Alliance (BSA) 2010 Global Software Piracy study which evaluates the state of software piracy around the world found that Tanzania as well as other countries in the East and Southern Africa region had a very high piracy rate of 83 per cent.
To curb the growing counterfeit and piracy trade, Microsoft and the Tanzania Fair Competition Commission are due to enter a MoU to work together on an initiative geared towards reducing software piracy in the country, he said.
As for the software developers’ community, he said at the moment, the tools are available, and that they are invited to create additional applications in Kiswahili.
For developers eager to use it, presently a spellchecker has already been created locally and the potential also exists to create software applications for business, government and home users-whatever the market needs, he added.
Currently Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office are available in 15 written and spoken languages in Africa that includes Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, English, French, Hausa, Igbo, Isixhosa, Isizulu, Kiswahili, Portuguese, Sesotho SA leboa, Setswana (Tswana), Spanish and Yoruba.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN (TANZANIA)
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