[APCPress] No embargo: Technology supports culture - Native languages now easier online

[Karen Higgs]

We think you will find this press release from APC member Web Networks 
in Toronto, Canada of interest.

Web has integrated APC ActionApps with a number of other applications to
come up with a first: ability to easily view Inukititut (a Canadian
Aboriginal Syllabic language) online, as well as giving Inuit abilities
to easily publish online in their native language.

========================================================

October 15, 2004 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TORONTO - Technology supports culture: Native languages now easier on
the Web

New solution puts Toronto firm at the forefront of implementing
languages on the Web.

Users can now surf the Web in Inuktitut on any computer, without extra
software or special settings. “Because the syllabics issue is handled by
our Web server,” says Oliver Zielke of Web Networks, “the user's fonts
and browser settings don't matter.” Site maintenance, he says, is a
snap. Webmasters can write in Inuktitut within the customized interface,
push a button, and it's done.

Web Networks of Toronto worked with Piruvik Centre of Iqualuit to
develop Attavik.net, an application suite that makes it easy to manage
documents, directories, calendars, registrations, and online payment in
the Inuit language.

“The Government of Nunavut is committed," says Eva Aariak, Languages
Commissioner of Nunavut, "to making Inuktitut its working language. This
type of development puts that goal within reach."

"In the big picture," says Chuck Gilhuly, executive director the Nunavut
Municipal Training Organization, "maintaining the viability of a
language is a matter of making things functional in the language. If we
had to become Web site programmers and write in code, we would have
never achieved the functionality that we have, or else we would have
gone broke trying to do it."

The technology behind Attavik.net can be used to serve Web sites in
other syllabic languages, such as Cree, Oji-cree, Naskapi, and Korean.

Web Networks, which developed the server-side tools, is a leader in
knowledge management tools for membership-base organizations. Its
clients include Greenpeace, Amnesty International, the Ontario Nurses
Assocation and the Canadian Labour Congress.

More information is available at www.attavik.net and www.web.net.

-30-

Contact:

         Oliver Zielke, CEO
         Web Networks (Toronto)
         1.800.932.7003 ext. 18
         oliver at web.net