Abstract for Paper Submission for E-Asia 2011

Answers to Questionnaire from Lt Col Sumeet Shahi

Abstract for Paper Submission for E-Asia 2011 Title Panini Keypad for typing in regional languages on the phone. Author Abhijit Bhattacharjee Founder and CEO, Luna Ergonomics Pvt Ltd #11, JSSATE STEP, C-20/1, Sec 62, Noida, India Email : Abhijit@PaniniKeypad.com +91 98102 29631

Summary It is imperative for all stake holders to support regional languages of India on the phone to take the data opportunity of the mobile phone to all users. Supporting regional languages on the phone has been a challenge regarding offering a usability technology that allows easy and convenient typing on the phone. Printed characters on keypad is unsuitable in a country with many languages and scripts. And multitap support that asks the user to tap upto 9 taps to type a character is cumbersome to use. A new technology of statistical predictive texting that pre-estimates characters that the user could be typing and places them on the screen for selection by the user by single keypresses has offered a viable means to support all languages on the same phone and yet offer a means of typing that is simple to use and is also very fast. This has many advantages and has turned out to be very popular with users as well as manufacturers. This new technology called CleverTexting developed by an Indian company called Luna Ergonomics has been developed for all Indian languages into one integrated platform called Panini Keypad which allows typing in all Indian scripts and also interoperation like transliteration between them. The technology is also applicable for all global languages and has already been developed for most major global languages and is being developed for the others. It is an opportunity for an Indian innovation to determine the way the world writes on digital devices.

More details The need for supporting Bengali in phones in Bangladesh and other languages of the
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Abstract for Paper Submission for E-Asia 2011

subcontinent in phones in the region. Hundreds of millions of people in the Indian subcontinent use the mobile phone today and this is a huge opportunity to bridge the digital divide in the region, particularly through data communication. Matters like M-Governance, M-Education, M-Health, M-Commerce. However the phone is primarily in English and only 15% of Indians are familiar with English and the percentage is even lower in most other countries. Therefore it is critically essential that all phones in the region support input and transmission in languages of the subcontinent.

Existing systems and their drawbacks. Languages of the subcontinent are currently either not supported or supported very poorly through multi-taps. English has 26 characters and yet it results in 3 to 4 key press per character. And these languages have about 70 characters including matras and special symbols. Hence the number of keypresses go upto 7 or even 9. This is completely unusable. Other approaches that has involved input in Roman are also not suitable for the majority who anyway do not know the English language. And it is also very slow and two stage. First write in Roman through multitaps and then convert to regional language, sometimes having to choose between many options offered. This approach also doesnt work for words outside the dictionary.

The Panini Keypad The Panini Keypad is a new technology that allows one to type in all languages of the subcontinent on the basic phone, very fast and easy without the need of printed characters on keypad. It allows you to write directly in the native script and not via English, so no familiarity with English is required. It can support input in many languages on the same phone at the same time. And it involves vastly reduced number of keypresses, reduced time taken and ease to learn and use by people from all social profiles and education level. The Panini Keypad is a dynamic intelligent virtual keypad where characters are accurately predicted for the user on the screen from which the user enters using the numeric keypad on the phone. The efficacy of the patented technology is from the quality of the predictions which is based on linguistics and AI that works for words both inside and outside the dictionary. It is very lightweight and can be easily implemented on every kind of phone. And in future, applicable to
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Abstract for Paper Submission for E-Asia 2011

every kind of digital appliance. The Panini Keypad has been developed for all important languages of the subcontinent and is available for all kinds of phones. It supports Java, Android, iPhones and Windows phones and can be embedded into the phone hardware on the cheapest phones or also offered in SIM cards to end users. It is already being used by a million people to send messages in all Indian languages from their phones. The Bengali product is particularly popular in Bangladesh. Screen shots.

Panini Keypad running in Bengali on a basic phone.

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Abstract for Paper Submission for E-Asia 2011

Panini Keypad running in Bengali on advanced Touch phone, an iPhone. A video is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYBLQKvfBV8
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Abstract for Paper Submission for E-Asia 2011

List of Awards and Recognitions to the Panini Keypad

* Winner TieCon Global 50 Top Tech Start ups, San Jose, California, May 2011 * Winner Microsoft BizSpark, Top 15 Tech Startups India, Bangalore, June 2011 * Winner, Red Herring Global 100 for 2010, Los Angeles, California * Winner, Red Herring Asia 100, 2010, Shanghai * Winner, Nokia Global Mobile Innovation Award, 2009, Stuttgart * Winner, Nasscom Social Innovation Honours, 2011, Mumbai * Winner of Lockheed Martin India Innovation Gold Medal, 2010, FICCI, Delhi * Aegis Graham Bell award, 2010, Mumbai * Best start up of India, Proto.in, 2010, Mumbai * Winner, mBillionth Award, 2010, Delhi * Winner of Economic Times Power of Ideas, 2009, and also again in 2010. * Star Entrepreneur Award, 2011, Pune * Cover Story of Journal of Ergonomist Society, UK, 2009 * Showcased in Oracle Pavilion during the Mobile World Congress, Barcelona as a key java technology. Feb 2011. * Showcased during keynote address at JavaOne World Conf, Hyderabad, 2011. * Invited to be a member of the International Telecommunication Union, Geneva and the Secy Gen personally considers this technology an important breakthrough for telecommunications in the developing world. Innovation story in ITU News, March 2011. * Membership and recognitions from industry bodies like IAMAI, FICCI, NASSCOM, ASSOCHAM, ITU-APT, CMAI, TIE and others. * Nominated for World Bank InfoDev Global Top50, Helsinki, May 2011

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