[UA-discuss] Experts, organisations come together to build Indian language Internet

[Ram Mohan]

>From today’s newspaper update in India, where I am for a couple of days.
Could not let the opportunity slip to speak a bit about Universal
Acceptance.



-Ram



https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/technology/experts-organisations-come-together-to-build-indian-language-internet-2570653.html

Stakeholders across the board are coming together to help build Indian
language capability on the Internet, a complex problem in India given the
diverse languages and scripts.

The UASG (Universal Acceptance Steering Group) is a multi-stakeholder group
under the aegis of the “telephone directory” of the Internet-- Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

It consists of members from more than 120 companies including Apple,
GoDaddy, Google, Microsoft, governments and community groups.

The work that UASG is doing will ensure, for example, that an email address
in the Hindi script is identified as an email domain, and the receiver is
able to see the emails sent from this address.

“The biggest challenge is in reaching the decision makers,” said Ram Mohan,
Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Afilias, one of the
world's most well-known technology service providers for Internet domains.

Explaining why universal acceptance is important, Mohan said an investment
in the local languages is about making sure that all applications,
operating systems, chat applications and social media applications are able
to recognise what a new domain name is.

Mohan noted it is particularly important as even if one types out an email
address in the Hindi script it is identified as an email address and
automatically underlined in blue. Similarly, if one is typing it in
Microsoft word, it should automatically become a link. Mohan is also a
Board member at ICANN.

Last year, a study by Analysys Mason found that online revenue opportunity
in enabling local languages was a $9.8 billion growth opportunity.

Go get around the issue of reaching decision makers, Afilias has partnered
with the Internet and Mobile Association of India and the National Internet
Exchange of India.

“We worked with Google and Gmail has completed their programme. It
completely accepts internationalised email now. We are also in the middle
of working with Microsoft to have Outlook also support Indic languages,”
said Mohan.

Over the past couple of years, there has been an increased focus on
voice-based technology for search and other products. Big technology
companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, all have their voice assistants.

There is also talk of domain names losing their relevance in the world of
curated content when people seldom type out entire web addresses.

“I have so much hope in the future of voice in Internet technology. It will
solve stuff on the input side,” said Mohan.

For instance, if you tell Cortana or Siri or Alexa to send an email to an
address with letters in Hindi, it may not understand this is an email
address. If you say ram at mohan.com, it will know. UASG is looking at sorting
out these issues.



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Ram Mohan
Executive Vice President & CTO
Afilias <http://www.afilias.info/> Ireland|Canada|USA|India|Australia|China
(o) +1.215.706.5700 x103  (m) +1.215.431.0958  (f) +1.215.706.5701
rmohan at afilias.info | Skype: gliderpilot30 | Twitter @rmohan123
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