 The whole world has now entered the age of information. The survival and development of each individual and community depend on the ability to adapt and change oneself according to the rapid changes and developments of the international community which is united as one global village, today. It is at this juncture that ICT becomes a concept of supreme importance to each and every one of us, the instinctive members of the modern knowledge-based society.
Although many have well understood the importance of ICT and feel a dire necessity of being benefited by this modern phenomenon, one of the main barriers they face is the issue of language. Internet is presented to the world in the language of a majority: English. Yet, still the majority of theworld population is non-English speakers who are at an unfavourable end when it comes to the deployment of ICT tools.
LAKapps is a project initiated in July 2007 with the hope of facilitating the use of internet within the Sri Lankan society, through local languages, i.e. Sinhala and Tamil.
Apart from developing localized applications, providing necessary support; training and manuals for the effective usage of these applications was also a specific goal of the project. As the Project Advisor, Prof. Gihan Dias says, "Our main purpose was to facilitate the interaction of Sri Lankans through the Internet, for instance, the use of e-mail, chat and forums in at least one local language since the majority's not competent in English. We also wanted to provide user-friendly tools for creating web content in local languages."
The recognition of the potential of internetbased learning and information sharing is not new to Sri Lanka.
However, what is new is the step taken to overcome the barrier of language met by many Sri Lankans along the path of seeking knowledge through the internet. LAKapps is a satisfying solution to those Sri Lankans who prefer to use IT tools in their mother tongues. LAKapps introduces Firfox for web browsing, Thunderbird and webmail for Email and Joomla for website creation in both Sinhala and Tamil Languages.
Thus, LAKapps provides a person who is not competent in English with the opportunity to explore the benefits of the internet in Sinhala/Tamil. For example, if one wants to find out more about the project sites of LAKapps, s/he can first go to the LAKapps home page on www.lakapps.lk and click on the link, "Sinhala".Once you go in you find the link "Wyapruthi adavi".
There you find the names of the sites and the names of people who are in charge of the sites under the LAKapps project.
LAKapps was the thriving result of a joint venture of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) of the University of Moratuwa (UOM), the Arthur C. Clarke Institute (ACCIMT) and the Lanka Internet Networking group (LKiNG).As a result of the committed effort as a team, the LAKapps team members have been able to achieve 100% successful completion of the targets within the agreed
time frame.
With on-site training in seven locations around the island (Sevanagala, Nenasala-Monaragala, Nenasala-Kothmale community Radio-Kandy, Bandaragama MV-Kaluthara, Dharmapala MV-Kottawa, St. Sylvester's College- kandy and Ramanathan Hindu ladies College-Colombo) the LAKapps project has been able to train nearly 150 adults and 300 students in the effective usage of IT applications in their mother tongues. According to the Project Team Leader, Dr. Sanath Jayasena, "Training and support are the keys to successful deployment of the project. LAKapps team members are based in universities around the country, and have hands on experience to provide on-site support." Thus, the co-ordinators specially trained to support the users of the localized applications at each site are expected to maintain the software continually.
Feedback from both the students and adults has proved the immense success of the LAKapps project.
Fortified by this positive response, the initiators have already taken steps to expand the project nationwide. RAP (Replication Assistance Programme) is one such project to replicate the LAKapps project in Tamil which is already initiated mainly in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. Through widening the usage of IT applications in local languages, the Sri Lankans are provided with a window to access the most modern technologies of the world. The day will not be too far for every Sri Lankan individual to be proactive members of the information age, in which 'knowledge is power'.
Sujeewa Tennekoon,
LAKapps Team
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