About the Arabic Computer Site

The Arabic Computer site is a workplace to research the past, present, and future of building Arabic-first computers and integrating the Arabic language in modern-day technologies. The research component of the project is to trace back the history of the computer invention, going back as far as we can, and identify the events and stories that led to the incorporation of the Arabic language in computers. We hope that by learning more about that period, we can identify the limitations as well as the challenges that were faced in attempting to build computers and software that primarily support the Arabic language and are not just an afterthought. To support such research, we will attempt to conduct interviews with experts, professionals, and various members of our Arab society, and we will publish the videos under the media module of the site. We will also look at the computer industry today, where we witness more of the Arab youth either programming or simply using digital devices in English, maybe because the English language is much easier to code and communicate in the digital world? Furthermore, we will curate different resources, both academic and nonacademic, to discuss the rate of adoption of the Arabic language in computers and various digital devices, then suggest tools and techniques to improve the adoption. As part of the project, we will identify different initiatives that primarily support the Arabic language within the digital world in any shape or form, including adding our attempts at developing tools or prototypes that support the Arabic language.

The project has one main goal, and that is to encourage programmers to build Arabic-first software, and, why not, maybe Arab-first computer hardware! We hope that our brothers and sisters in our Arab world will help contribute and support such a non-profit initiative.

Disclaimer: all the work published on the site will be under the Creative Commons 4.0 license that is made available at Creative Commons 4.0