LISA Forum Europe

Do you want to do business in the Arabic countries? Do you want to create an Arabic Web Site? Do you want to adapt your software for the Arabic market? Do you want to author Arabic documents in Word, PDF or email formats? Do you want to process Arabic data efficiently? Or do you simply want to learn about a fascinating language and culture?

This workshop teaches the key aspects of Arabic Language Information Processing. It covers the Arabic language and culture and the special relationship between them. The Arabic writing system, with its contextual rules and complex ligatures, is presented.

We will look at Arabic characters, how they are entered, stored and displayed. All important Arabic coding systems will be covered. The features of bi-directional writing will be explained: directional characters, neutral characters, mirror characters etc. The Unicode algorithm will be discussed, and simple rules to follow in Word and HTML will be presented.

The workshop then covers the various tools available today to help process Arabic data and concludes by presenting insights and experience on doing business in the Arabic world (partnerships, sponsorships, transactions, etc.)

After taking this workshop you will be ready to target the Arabic market with your product: you will know how to do business, what requirements to consider, what changes your software or Web site or embedded system requires, and how to implement those changes..

Who will benefit from this workshop and why?

Who:	Interested in...
Executives	becoming aware of many potentially relevant issues to your business related to Arabic language clients, suppliers and partners learning important aspects of doing business in the Arabic world
Marketing and Product Managers	understanding many important aspects of Arabic culture, language and data processing learning about products and technologies related to Arabic language processing, what exists, what does not exist and what needs to exist a comprehensive Requirements checklist for Arabic products
Managers	understanding risk and complexity assessment related to Arabic data and language processing. working with business partners in the Arabic world. avoiding common pitfalls
Software Developers Web Developers	gaining a clear conceptual reference and terminology to describe the unique aspects of Arabic processing. practical advice and examples learn the issues and complexity of Arabic language handling a comprehensive Requirements checklist for Arabic products
Translation Agencies Translators	learning about the opportunities the Arabic language offers supporting translation to & from Arabic: what works, what doesn't how to deal with bidirectional issues in Word and PDF
Test Managers Testers	learning where failures can occur and their potential consequences in systems (software, Web sites) processing Arabic data. learn the issues and complexity of Arabic language handling a comprehensive Requirements checklist for Arabic products
Civil Servants Government Employees	gaining a broad overview of the issues related to the Arabic language and culture. gaining an understanding of the complexities of Arabic data processing.
Language analysts	learning about Arabic language / computer issues becoming aware of Arabic linguistic issues expanding career horizons gaining a clear conceptual reference and terminology to describe the unique aspects of Arabic processing.

About i18N workshops

At i18N Inc., we are committed to providing a high-quality learning experience. We design all of our workshops based on the following principles:

visual & intuitive: tables, graphics, animation & video provide extreme clarity
lots of content: rich, relevant content; our handouts can serve as reference
abstract models: we consider the forest first, then the trees (then the bugs!)
no sales pitch: our only sales pitch is the quality of our workshops

About Matta Saikali

Matta Saikali is Vice-President Testing Services at i18N Inc. (www.i18n.ca), a firm specializing in internationalization training and consulting. Matta has more than ten years experience in internationalization and localization testing. His testing experience covers more than 30 languages including European, Asian, Arabic, Hindi, etc.

Formerly Director of Software Quality Assurance (SQA) at Gemplus, Matta built up and managed a team of 35 SQA professionals responsible for the testing of the original English version as well as all globalised versions of Windows applications and embedded systems (smart cards) in European and Asian languages.

As Director of SQA at Purkinje, Matta built up and managed the testing team for a multilingual multi-user client-server application for clinical data entry.

Matta was also SQA team leader at ALIS where he was involved in testing all ALIS products, notably their Arabic/Farsi product line.

He can be reached at Matta.Saikali@i18n.ca.

This program is developed by i18N Inc.

Localization Standards Industry Association