e-learning

There is a need for people all over the world to be able to use their own language when using computers or accessing information on the Internet. Still, today many languages lack access to basic computational linguistic resources (such as lexica, part-of-speech taggers, parsers, corpora or treebanks) that would make it possible to satisfy this need. Instead, this has proven to be a major bottleneck when it comes to promoting the use of computers and the Internet in the language. It is difficult to develop new linguistic resources without access to already existing ones. In this project we investigate how well existing linguistic knowledge can be transferred between languages with a minimum of human involvement and develop tools and techniques that can support such knowledge transfer. We to do this by working with the case of Amharic, the official working language of the Ethiopian government and spoken by approximately 20 million people.

The primary goal for the project is to develop techniques and methods that can be used to efficiently develop computational linguistic resources for new languages. This will also result in specific linguistic tools and corpora being developed for Amharic. A secondary goal is to establish a network of interested parties and institutions that can contribute to a standardised and unified approach to the development and a proper future utilisation of these resources in an open environment.

The center will have the following goals

• encourage the development and sharing of open learning/distance education knowledge, resources and technologies
• help developing nations improve access to quality education and training through the use of e-learning technologies.
• recognize KNOWLEDGE as key to cultural, social and economic development, The E- Learning Center will be  assisting
  Higher Learning Institutions, schools and colleges to take full
  advantage of open, distance and technology-mediated learning strategies
  to provide increased and equitable access to education and training for
  all Tanzanian citizens
• support and promote the benefits of the Internet for learning, education and training in Tanzania.
• Help
  universities to build next generation e-learning tools and services for
  its core residential and its extended education environment

- develop and implement an ICT environment making out the basic communication platform for the health workers,
- build capacity among healthcare workers, technicians and physicians to use and maintain the developed telemedicine systems,
- in-depth field testing to fine tune the telemedicine system to work in the particular local context.