Original Title : Panini Keypad
Media Format : Mobile based
Website : http://www.PaniniKeypad.com
Producer : Luna Ergonomics Pvt Ltd
Language : 9 Major Languages of India and 17 global languages
Location : Uttar Pradesh, INDIA
Contact : abhijit@PaniniKeypad.com

Panini Keypad is a new technology that allows people to type in all languages of Indian subcontinent on the phone very fast and in an easy manner with vastly reduced number of key presses and without the need of printed characters on keypad. The technology has been developed and offered to users in Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, Punjabi and a similar technology has also been developed for 17 other global languages from diverse linguistic families as Korean, Arabic and Russian. This is a smart input technology for all these languages. For example, in India alone there are 800+ million phone users and only around 90 million know English. The others cannot type on the phone because their vernacular languages are not supported. So they cannot send a text message or store an address book entry and will otherwise be left out from all digitally enabling possibilities that the phone in every hand today promises. According to many, the Panini Keypad is a timely breakthrough which will play a pivotal role in that digital emancipation of our masses and in the ongoing telecom revolution focused on data usage. The Panini Keypad is a new usability and today is already offered in all the significant platforms – Java, Android, iPhone and Windows. One can download the software from PaniniKeypad.com for free operation for a time limited period of evaluation. The software is also transferrable to phone over USB cable/Bluetooth/Memory Card/ or Direct download to phone.

The Jury has noted that over 6000 downloads per day is happening from its website, from all major global app stores and from hundreds of other websites. It estimates to millions of users worldwide. The Jury opined that the software appears to have found a right product fit, knowledge and preference for this new usability and it may grow quickly. Jury also observed that a dynamic keypad with no printed characters on keypad is a new concept. Also, statistical prediction instead of dictionary based techs is a new feature. All languages are there in one phone which is also a new concept. The Jury also appreciated that there is no multitapping required which makes it simple and easy to use. It vastly reduced number of key presses and time taken for the same. The Jury also noted that this is solution has won many awards and recognitions.

Original Title : Nikosh Font and Converter
Media Format : Web based
Producer : Election Commission Secretariat
Language : Bangla & English
Location : Dhaka, BANGLADESH
Contact : farzana2905@gmail.com

In the early stages of computer, ASCII character codes were used to represent characters. This has no place for languages like Bangla as ASCII could only accommodate 128 characters. The keyboard was designed keeping roman characters in mind. The Bangla characters are inherently complex due to presence of conjunct characters. Unicode addresses the issue of fonts from a universal perspective and accommodates all the languages. Nikosh font was developed to fill this vacuum. The team from Election Commission Secretariat developed the Nikosh Font which is a Unicode 5.1 compliant font for use in Voterlist database. Nikosh Converter helps convert legacy documents prepared in Bangla using ASCII into Unicode 5.1 so as to ensure portability and interoperability of such documents. Nikosh font and converters are available in the website (www.ecs.gov.bd/nikosh).

The Jury noted that till date from this site www.ecs.gov.bd/nikosh 11000 nikosh converter and 7300 times nikosh font has been downloaded. Also, it was noted that, through this project people are willingly using bangla in internet and also the database in Bangla can be sorted and searched easily. Files in bangla are becoming interoperable due to this solution. It was also observed that installation of this product is very simple and the product itself is very user-friendly. The Jury opined that this product is may be very useful for all the government offices in Bangladesh as they have to work in the Bangla language and therefore would serve great purpose for the government activities.