Jul 2007 Newsletter: Pangaea ring - Mr. Toru Ishida, Professor, Department of Social Informatics, Kyoto University
Time flies and it has already been 3 years since I got associated
with NPO Pangaea. I first met Takasaki-san, the Vice President of
NPO Pangaea. His proposal was selected as one of the "Exploratory
Software Projects" of IPA (Information-technology Promotion Agency,
Japan) in which I was a project manager. I found the theme of his
proposal "to realize the communication through pictograms" interesting,
however, what caught more of my attention was Takasaki-san himself,
who was full of vitality. I had the chance to meet with Mori-san,
the President of NPO Pangaea, and gradually, I started paying attention
to the activity of NPO Pangaea itself, which gave its birth due
to the 9.11.
9.11 has been a trigger for my own research on inter-cultural
collaboration as well. We have worked on the machine-translation project
collaborating with the universities in Asia in 2002. I was also offered
to plan a new project by NICT (National Institute of Information and
Communications Technology) at the time when I first met Takasaki-san and
Mori-san. The project I was asked to start was also something related to
overcoming barriers of the languages and the cultures.
I do believe my encounter with NPO Pangaea has been the inspiration
for the Language Grid Project supported by the collaboration of
industry-government-academia-society.
NPO Pangaea has been the first user of the Language Grid Project. We have offered the NPO Pangaea the multi-lingual chat tool developed jointly by Wakayama University and NICT, and we have been receiving much feedback from NPO Pangaea for the tool. NPO Pangaea, Kyoto University and us, we collaborate on the research on Pictograms. We can see the fruitful partnership between the academic researchers and NPO. I hear that several members of the Language Grid are participating in the Pangaea Activity held in places as Kyoto and Mie prefecture as volunteers. The Pangaea activity must be attractive not only for the children but also for the university students and the young researchers. It is true that NPO Pangaea and we do have different role and expertise in the society; however, I sincerely hope to cooperate with each other in order to carry forward the activities for us all to overcome the barriers of the languages and the cultures.
Toru Ishida
Professor, Department of Social Informatics, Kyoto University /
Project Leader, Language Grid Project
NPO Pangaea has been the first user of the Language Grid Project. We have offered the NPO Pangaea the multi-lingual chat tool developed jointly by Wakayama University and NICT, and we have been receiving much feedback from NPO Pangaea for the tool. NPO Pangaea, Kyoto University and us, we collaborate on the research on Pictograms. We can see the fruitful partnership between the academic researchers and NPO. I hear that several members of the Language Grid are participating in the Pangaea Activity held in places as Kyoto and Mie prefecture as volunteers. The Pangaea activity must be attractive not only for the children but also for the university students and the young researchers. It is true that NPO Pangaea and we do have different role and expertise in the society; however, I sincerely hope to cooperate with each other in order to carry forward the activities for us all to overcome the barriers of the languages and the cultures.
Toru Ishida
Professor, Department of Social Informatics, Kyoto University /
Project Leader, Language Grid Project
Posted by: kumakinoko | 3. Newsletter , 4. Pangaea Ring
