Showing posts with label ICT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ICT. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

A Cameroonian Keyboard?

Yes a Cameroonian keyboard!! Cameroon 's linguistic diversity can enable ICT awareness and ICT knowledge to be facilitated, enhanced, and promoted, within and without its boundaries. I will like to believe it is this fact that made German researchers think about the idea of a Cameroonian keyboard http://www.goethe.de/ins/cm/yao/wis/gko/deindex.htm?wt_sc=goingkompyuta.

How can different people belonging to different cultural backgrounds  communicate using ICT without any misunderstanding? Is this the right question to ask?

As you can see in the photo below the Cameroonian keyboard is either in Qwerty or in Azerty making this keyboard very practical to use.The special characters correspond  to the languages whose alphabet have been developed. In fact, Cameroon has about 247 languages one lingua franca (Cameroon Pidgin English) and two official languages (French and English) according to George Etchu authour of The Language Question in Cameroon.This is natural because there are about 250 ethnic groups in Cameroon and because of Cameroon's colonial legacy.Not all spoken languages in Cameroon have an alphabet.The language question in Cameroon is complex as it implies that if so many languages are present , effective communication might be/ought to be hindered.This creates a natural paradox in an information age and  knowledge society such as ours.


             Cameroonian Keyboard          



Albeit this , there is a fact which should be emphasized , language is  both an element and a vehicle of culture. This has several other implications and at various levels.Does the language question hinder ICT knowledge , ICT awareness, and ICT penetration in Africa? Is IT-culture likely to emerge in such a  multilingual context (Cameroon and Africa)? As you can notice the language question creates several paradoxes and  controversies.

The  physical reality of the Cameroonian keyboard can then be  understood and considered as a prototype of a linguistic and cultural and IT exchange platform between cultures and Culture.Unavoidably, because communicating and communication are crucial to human survival this keyboard will be of great use to ICT users world wide.


Summer Institute of Linguistic (SIL) Cameroon  highlights the necessity to focus on unwritten languages of which several are found in Cameroon http://www.silcam.org/folder010100/page.php. More over, SIL  believes that people who speak these languages often lives in geographic, social, and economic isolation.Language plays thus a crucial role in the social and cultural live of people. Human evolution is cultural. ICT and Kulture seeks to promote and enhance ICT knowlegde and ICT awareness to women and children preferentially through education using ICT. Is this another paradox? Is culture and cultures at stake ? How can ICT be used to promote cultures/Culture/kultur? ICT and Kulture is an idea...





Thursday, September 13, 2012

ICT and KULTURE


                                                                                    
Information and communications technologies (ICT) are an integral part of the information age which characterizes the third wave of human evolution in which we live. Our evolution seems to proceed from materialism (agricultural, industrial development) to spiritualism, kulture/kultur/culture/Culture (the information age and the virtual age). Rapid change is what specifically characterizes the information era. Since change, both present and future is unavoidable, it seems necessary to adopt a fundamentally different mental state. We have no more right to be ignorant of the changes that are occurring both microscopically and macroscopically so much blatant are they. It is imperative and crucial to be aware of these changes. Human evolution is therefore necessarily cultural and been the new wave of homo interneticus, that is “man using internet” we have to be aware.

This awareness promoted by the third wave of human evolution ensures and enables metacognitive processes (the ability to know what we know) to operate at various levels of our lives. One of the beauties of life is that we do not need to know all to live a happy life. Yet, the ignorance of some minute things is lethal. The influence of the information era on us is so pressing that we seem either brought to adapt, consequently live or remain at a larval developmental stage and so die. The fundamental problematic is that we as homo sapiens are constantly, and amazingly passing through the various developmental stages and at all ages of our lives. This implies a constant equilibrium and a constant surveillance of ourselves. We say this in the sense that we should act as singular and responsible beings. More than at any moment of our common history, the arms of time (past, present and future) are completely jumbled-up. This is what our change is all about. The future is now in everything we do, for if we want to live we ought to respect life.
This individuation (the process of becoming a singular and responsible being) cannot proceed without our fundamental Kultur and human culture. Beyond all phenomena we are unavoidably cultural beings, thus likely to change. ICT and Kulture is thus an idea of this complex interactions between ICT and culture/Culture.ICT and Kulture has as greatest challenge to adapt to rapid  technological evolutions.

Presentation of the first Cameroonian Keyboard at the Goethe Institue During the Barcamp

ICT and Kulture as an idea does not necessarily belong to an individual so much common our human history is.Because of History, which is a great teacher we cannot deny the roots of humanity, without the risk of entering into an identity crises or to the least a consciousness crises. Therefore the creation of ICT and Kulture developed from the meeting of/with different university students from different scientific and socioeconomic backgrounds with a common  passion for ICT.

ICT and Kulture aims  through its activities focused on ICT and culture (language, technology, arts) to promote the Idea of ICT and Kulture.

The objectives of ICT and Kulture are:


·               Inform, educate and communicate with respect to ICT innovations, ICT solution and ICT problems within the context of  African developing countries
  • Enhance productivity (that is how can an ICT orientated idea be used to increase well-being at all levels of human development? How can we move from theory to practice?)
  • Enhance and promote ICT knowledge and ICT awareness among women and children through education about a variety of issues but relating to women and children issues. For example Women and child abuse, women and children in human development and sustainable development etc
  • Promote and enhance cultural backgrounds
  • Promote the awareness of the human race through multicultural interaction at real, imaginary and symbolical levels 

We are aware of  global change and we understand that ICT and Kulture is liable to change.ICT and Kulture has a recent history but a long past. We are the sons and daughters of fathers and mothers who came to see the sun before us. They never could have imagined that life; humanity would be what we are experiencing now. Yet, through their hard work they laid the foundation for us. The question is if time ceased today at this very instant what will be our legacy? How would we show we were responsible? ICT and Kulture is an Idea…