read previous posts from the event (1, 2)

It has already become a tradition that in BarCamp-like events there is always someone from neweurasia, who represents the project. The forum “Digital Youth of Central Asia” is not an exception. Kyrgyz and Kazakh teams made a presentation about neweurasia and lobbied Tajik internet users to read and blog with neweurasia.

read previous posts from the event (1)

The forum “Digital Youth of Central Asia” is continuing. Participants are busy doing and attending different presentations. Participants from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan were very active in the beginning of the day and have already done their presentations on blogging, micro-blogging/video-blogging, PR and new media, and others.

Participants from Tajikistan are beginning their presentations. At the moment, we are in a big conference hall and an IT specialist from Dushanbe is presenting his software program that reads Tajik text, i.e. voices it. As he explains, his program is created not on “letter-reading” software, but on “syllable-reading” one.

At the moment, we have found and coded 3259 syllables that we found in 3800 pages of text… We have also discovered that 148 syllables make 75% of Tajik language,  418 syllables make 90% of the language, from 684 to 3259 syllables have only 5% share… This is also a very valuable data for linguists.

The program also reads texts in Russian, but with Tajik accent :)

The IT specialist also says that they have created a software program for tajik-russian and russian-tajik disctiories, and working on integration of voicing program with dictionaries.

Yet another BarCamp format event is taking place in Central Asia. Now, it is happening in a beautiful city Dushanbe, and is called “Digital Youth of Central Asia”.

The forum is organized by the Center for Information Communication Technologies, under support of the Tajik Branch of Open Society Institute/Assistance Foundation (OSI/AF-Tajikistan), the World Bank, and the last, but not the least, the Ministry of Education of Tajikistan.

The event is taking place at the Vefa business center in the heart of Dushanbe, and will last for two days – December 5-6. Participants are from different countries, but mainly from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and few people are from Uzbekistan. The main idea of the forum is to gather technically well-educated and active youth from different corners of Central Asia, and have them share ideas and experiences, create networks that will put the start for further mutual endeavors.

Majority of participants are from the host country. However, as the forum cannot host too many people, many Tajikistanis, especially those from remote regions, could not make it to the forum.  Nevertheless, there is a live video-conference going on with three regional centers of Tajikistan – Hudjan, Kulyab and Kurgan Tyube.

It is 10:40 at the moment. The opening sessions of organizers is finished, and participants are out for a coffee-break. BarCamp format presentations will start at 11:00 and will take place in 4 different rooms. According to the time and presentations table, I feel the day is going to be interesting, as there are many terrific-sounding presentations and video conferences.

Stay with us! We will keep you updating about the process of the forum.

First photos: