Re: Update from Casablanca

[Abdulaziz Al-Arfaj <aalarfaj at gmail dot com>]

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 09:13:21 -0800 (PST), Nadim Shaikli
<shaikli at yahoo dot com> wrote:
> Hrmmm...  No comments about content and/or Arabeyes in general ?  When
> you have some free time, do please write down some ideas and reflections
> on what can be done better and what should be included and expanded on
> in the presentation and handouts.
...

No, almost no comments about content, but lots about Arabeyes in
general. I saw that there were very few people who knew about Arabeyes
(I posed this question to the audience before I started the
presentation. Very few hands were raised). I asked around to find out
why, and I think its mainly a language barrier. English is our
language of choice and its what were most comfortable with, but
unfortunately its not very widely understood here. Thats mainly why
not many in the western Arab world did not get to see us in action.

Having said that, once they knew about us people were extremely
impressed and excited about the fact that such an orginization exists.
I gave several interviews where I gave people the low-down about us.
Lots of people kept asking me what they needed to do in order to join
us or what skill level they needed. I assured them over and over that
we have no pre-conditions for participation and that EVERYONE is
welcome no contribute no matter how little.

Today, I dragged the laptop down to the Technopark (quite an
impressive establishment) where I rolled out Arabbix. I fired up OOo
and wrote the name every font we have in that font. It drew more Oohs
and Aahs than I had hoped for. Too bad it didnt have BiCon...

Throughout the day I talked to as many people as I could. Gentlemen,
we have a wealth of incredible talent here just waiting to be tapped
into. Dozens of people expressed a willingness to join and help,
however I think most of those declarations were made in the excitment
of the moment. BUT, I have a few names here with me who seemed very
serious. I will give a detailing of this list of names at a later time
when I am able. I will just say right now that the bonuses we can look
forward to include a very robust OCR program for Arabic, a font
enthusiast/future-expert, a very hopeful applicant for our Sys admin
position, and a volunteer who wanted to contribute to the wordlist.
(this list is not exhaustive)

I also spoke at length with a representative from the ministry of
higher education who said he will try to put me in touch with some
language experts.

At the end of the day came the awards ceremony, and the last thing I
expected was that we would win something. Of the 4 awards given, one
went to RMS, one to Tarik Fdil, one to Mohammed Kibdani, and the
fourth, the Best Free Project award, went to Arabeyes. I accepted the
trophy presented to me by RMS himself, and thanked the organizers in
the name of all of us. I have the trophy here with me. Its quite
pretty. Should I keep it or send it to someone so we can start our own
awards curio cabinet?

Speaking of RMS, I tried to open up the Unicode issue with him, but
alas, I could not get him excited enough about our cause. I am very
sorry to say that Unicode is one issue where I could not gain a lot of
ground here. Lets hope those linguists can help us. But as for RMS, I
asked him if he was planning any other stops in the Arab world in the
future. He mentioned Syria and Dubai. He said he would be more than
willing to accept any invitation sent to him.

I am quite pleased all in all really. I never thought there would be
this many people (I mean DOZENS) who just wanted to shake my hand and
have their picture taken with me, and this was all _before_ we got the
award. I also got an invitation for Arabeyes to attend a similiar even
which will be held in Morocco sometime in the undecided future. If it
becomes a reality it will be a nice follow up for us, and lets hope
that by then we will have actual men-on-the-ground in Morocco.

I also have to say I am quite impressed by how orgainzed this event
was. I spoke with the organizers about what it took... I will tell you
this, it is VERY possible for Arabeyes to hold an event like this
annually or bi-annually if we wanted to. It doesnt take that much
resources really, just a lot of work. We should discuss this in depth
once I get back to .lb.

I think thats enough updates for today. Im tired. Doesnt anybody have
any questions for me?

BTW I took several dozen pictures myself, and others took pictures for
me and promised to email them. It will be quite a photo album...

Thats all from me for today. Salam,

Abdulaziz,