Our last podcast was with Dwayne Bailey from Translate.org.za and I found the interview was very timely as I work towards expanding open source projects in South Africa.  

Being able to adapt to a new user's language requirements narrows the 'digital divide' considerably.  The project has translated key programs such as OpenOffice and FireFox to be available in the 11 official languages of South Africa.

The required font set is already pre-loaded into Ubuntu & you can select South Africa language support.  An ordinary keyboard can be used along with the ctrl keys to obtain the required characters. I will post the keyboard shortcuts as soon as I learn them.

As well, the Translate.org.za team identified a key need for better instruction in the use of an office suite.  Most people have self learned how to use the office programs and are not aware of many of the key features.  

To help address this, they have compiled a book called "Open the Door" to help people master OpenOffice.

The manual includes these 7 tasks:

1. How to maximise your use of OpenOffice.org
2. How to get and keep your ducks in a row
3. How to write excellent reports using OpenOffice.org
4. Powerful presentations with Impress
5. Getting creative with OpenOffice.org
6. Collaborating and working with others using OpenOffice.org
7. Extending your office skills on OpenOffice.org

By purchasing Open the Door, you can help Translate.org.za keep OpenOffice translated into South African languages.

 These changes made to Open Office include:

• The user interface translated into Afrikaans, Northern Sotho and South African English.
• Spell checkers for Northern Sotho, Afrikaans, South African English and Zulu.
• Hyphenation for Afrikaans and Zulu.

As we look to implement PC's installed with Open Source, it is projects like this that will make the adoption and long term success of the deployment a reality.

On a closing note, I enjoyed meeting Dwayne in person at Software Freedom Day this past Saturday and plan a return trip to spend some more time with his team.