Activities

Fifth Himalayan Computational Linguistic Olympiad, 2022

http://hlon.org
Date: March 11, 2022
Venue: Islington College, Kamalpokhari, Kathmandu Nepal

Language Technology Kendra (LTK) has been organizing the Himalayan Computational Linguistic Olympiad (HLON) since 2017 on an annual basis.
The Himalayan Computational Linguistic Olympiad Nepal (HLON) aims to conduct Computational Linguistic competitions covering the areas Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing in Nepal targeting school (VIII-X) and college level students (10+2, A-level, CBSE). The objectives of the competition would be the following:
  • Create awareness about the International Linguistics Olympiad and the preparations made by the different countries in the national and international levels;
  • Establish a strong base of a Computational Linguistics (Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing) community with a sound knowledge of logic an analytical skills;
  • Create a pool of Computer Science and Natural Language Processing enthusiasts in Nepal so that there could be a sound participation in the International Linguistics Olympiad representing Nepal.
The International Linguistics Olympiad has been going on for a while. However, Nepal is just organizing competition in the National level for the fourth time this year and has just participated once in International Olympiad for the first time in July 2019. In this regard, we still have a long way to go before we would be making any meaningful participation in the Olympiad. Given that a good team is selected and that this train be trained adequately, Nepal has every ground for winning the International Olympiad. We believe that there are computationally bright minds and logically/analytically talented people in Nepal who can perform very well in the international arena and can make Nepal and Nepalis proud. Furthermore, our belief is also that this initiative can build a strong base of Computer Science and Natural Language Processing community with a sound knowledge of logic and analytical skills.
Conducting such Olympiads in the National Level and sending the participants to participate in the International Level would provide exposure of our Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing talents globally so that we could attract the attention of multi-national companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc. for international level of collaboration.

List of past HLON Olympiads:
Fourth Himalayan Computational Linguistic Olympiad, 2020
Third Himalayan Computational Linguistic Olympiad, 2019
Second Himalayan Computational Linguistic Olympiad, 2018
First Himalayan Computational Linguistic Olympiad, 2017
The B. P. Koirala India - Nepal Foundation (BPKF) has approved the 6 months Project (May - October, 2012) to be hosted by the Language Technology Kendra on "Language Endangerment in Nepal and India. A Case Study of Three Potentially Endangered Languages across the borders between Nepal and India", The Project would be led by Prof. Dr. Yogendra Prasad Yadava with Prof. Pat Hall advising on Language Technologies. The three languages being studied are respectively, Byangsi, RanaTharu and Lapcha.
LTK conducted the National Conference on Use of ICT in Rural Nepal: Technology Influences in Conjunction with the Results Dissemination Workshop - Use Models of Technology (March 22-23, 2012).
LTK conducted a 3-day training on "Tools and Techniques for Developing and Using Web Applications"  to the students and faculties of the Department of Languages and Mass Communication, Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel from June 15-17, 2011

Mr. Bal Krishna Bal has been nominated as the member of the IDN Variant TLD Case Study Team for the Devanagari Script formed by the Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers, ICANN. Mr. Bal attended the Face-to-Face Meeting of the Study Team for the Devanagari Script held in Singapore on June 18, 2011

Pictures from the PAN Localization Network Meeting, Cairo, Egypt, 30 April, 2011

Mr. Amar Gurung and Mr. Bal Krishna Bal attended the PAN Localization Network meeting on behalf of LTK

Pictures from the Panel Discussion, Alexandrina, Egypt, May 5, 2011

Mr. Bal Krishna Bal represented LTK in the Panel Discussion on "Wider Adoption of HLT for Development in Asia and Africa" as part of the HLTD 2011 conference in Alexandrina, Egypt.

Some glimpses from the Orientation and Presentation on Using Ubuntu GNU/Linux at Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Nepal Government. March 24, 2011



LTK organized a seminar on "Writing the Languages of Nepal in Computer" on April 5, 2011.

Participation in conferences/seminars/workshops/talks

  • 31’st Linguistics Society of Nepal (LSN), November 26-27, 2010. Mr. Bal Krishna Bal, Chief Technical Officer, LTK presented a paper.
  • 13’th Oriental Chapter of the International Committee for the Co-ordination and Standardization of Speech Databases and Assessment Techniques (O-COCOSDA) Workshop, November 24-25, 2010. Participated by Mr. Bal Krishna Bal, Chief Technical Officer, LTK.
  • ADD#6 and Asian WordNet meeting organized by the Thai Computational Linguistics Laboratory (TCLLAB), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan. (December 6-9, 2010). Mr. Bal Krishna Bal, Chief Technical Officer, LTK presented a country report on the status of Language Resources in the workshop.
  • LTK participated in CAN SofTech 2067.
  • Paper Submitted to HLTD 2011 to be held in Egypt this year.

Collaboration and extension of co-operation

  • LTK has been nominated as the contact point of FLaReNet for Nepal
  • Memory of Understanding (MoU) signed in March 2011 between LTK and Universal Speech Translation Advanced Research Consortium (U-STAR consortium). http://www.ustar-consortium.com/index.html . Currently, the consortium has representatives from 14 countries covering 15 languages including English.
  • Discussions are underway to set up a permanent PAN Localization (PAN L10n) network between partners of the PAN Localization Project (http://panl10n.net). Memory of Understanding (MoU) will be tentatively signed by the end of 2011.

Software Research and Development(R&D), Orientations and Trainings

  • Online Admission Management System, Kathmandu University, 2010.
  • Orientation and Presentation on Using Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Nepal Government. March 24, 2011.
  • Training Packages Development (Underway)
    • Nepali Unicode Installation and Typing
    • Tools and Techniques for enabling Nepali environment on the web
    • Computer aided translation
  • Worked on the Java Bin Data Analysis Project of the Simula Research Lab, Norway.

    Internships

    We hosted 3 interns starting from May-December 2010 at LTK. They were engaged on developing an information web portal for LTK.

 

    Releases

    • 2003 - Release of Nepali Unicode Keyboard Drivers (Romanized and Traditional)
    • December 2005 - Release of NepaLinux 1.0, Nepali Spell checker and Thesaurus 1.0
    • November 2006 - Release of NepaLinux 1.1, Nepali Spell checker and Thesarus 1.1
    • July 2006 - Release of Dobhase, web based English to Nepali Machine Translation System
    • Jan 2007 - Release of Nepali Open CD 1.0
    • July 2007 - Release of NepaLinux 2.0, LTSP enabled NepaLinux 2.0
    • December 2007 - Release of Nepali Text to Speech(TTS), Nepali Sabdakos, Fonts (Madan 2.0, Janaki)
    • May 2008 - Release of NepaLinux 3.0, Nepali Spell checker and Thesaurus 2.0
    • July 2008 - Release of NepaLinux 3.0 (Educational)