Call for Participation: 30th Internationalization & Unicode Conference

Washington, D.C., USA; November 15-17, 2006

The Unicode® Consortium has announced a call for participation in The Thirtieth Internationalization & Unicode Conference (IUC), taking place in Washington, D.C., USA on November 15-17, 2006. The call for participation runs until May 15. The conference is produced by The Object Management Group™ (OMG™).

The Internationalization & Unicode Conference is the premier technical conference focusing on multilingual, global software and Web internationalization. Each IUC conference features a variety of tutorials and conference sessions that cover current topics related to Web and software internationalization, globalization, and Unicode.

IUC 30 will include sessions with a special focus on the internationalization and globalization challenges faced by governmental, national, and international organizations as they seek to better communicate globally. Organizations are specifically invited to submit case studies on their globalization efforts.

The conference Program Committee is also seeking technical and business-focused presentations on case studies, experience reports, evaluations or research papers on topics relevant to (but not limited to):

• Internationalization challenges for NGOs and governments
• Encoding and internationalization standards in government
• Internationalization or enabling of applications or Web sites
• Implementation of Unicode
• Working with multilingual text and data
• New and upcoming technologies
• Security and phishing
• Making scripts and languages accessible
• Global development best practices
• Business cases and technical issues for globalized software
• Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR)
• Publishing and broadcasting for a global audience

Tutorial Sessions are an important part of the conference. The Program Committee is seeking proposals on topics of interest to general software users, to project and program managers, and to technical attendees who need to build basic knowledge of Unicode and software internationalization. Tutorial topics can include (but aren’t limited to):

• Program and project management of internationalization
• Case studies: internationalizing existing systems
• Best practices in localization process and technology
• Users: making the most of international features in common applications

Tutorial presenters receive complimentary registration, an honorarium and two nights lodging. Tutorial presenters will need to register for the conference. A web link to the speaker registration form as well as the hotel reservation form will be provided with your acceptance package.

Session presenters receive a fifty percent conference discount and two nights lodging. Session presenters will be required to register for the conference. (The 50% discount also applies to co-presenters and co-authors.) A web link to the speaker registration form as well as the hotel reservation form will be provided with your acceptance package. We will provide a free hotel room for two nights during the Conference for the presenter at each session. If there are multiple presenters for a session, they will have to decide how the free nights are allotted. If an individual is selected to present in more than one session, he/she will still be eligible for only a single complimentary two-night stay.

Proposals for panel sessions in any of the above areas are also welcomed. Those interested in holding Birds-of-a-Feather meetings should contact Kevin Loughry with their suggestions at loughry@omg.org, +1-781-444 0404.

Internationalization and Unicode experts, implementers, clients and vendors are invited to attend this unique conference. The interactive format makes the Internationalization & Unicode Conference a great place to meet and exchange ideas with leading experts, find out about the needs of potential clients, or get information about new and existing Unicode-enabled products.

Interested individuals or organizations are invited to submit a brief (up to 600 word) abstract of their proposed conference presentation by May 15 using this web form: http://www.unicodeconference.org/abstracts. 

The Program Committee will select presentations for inclusion in the program and notify authors by June 1. Final presentation materials will be required from all selected presenters by October 23. The conference agenda will be available by June 7 and posted at http://www.unicodeconference.org. 

Sponsorships and exhibit space are available; for more information on sponsoring, exhibiting or other questions contact Kevin Loughry at loughry@omg.org, +1-781-444 0404.

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About The Unicode Consortium

The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization founded to develop, extend and promote use of the Unicode Standard and related globalization standards.

The membership of the consortium represents a broad spectrum of corporations and organizations in the computer and information processing industry. Members are: Adobe Systems, L'Agence Intergouvernementale de la Francophonie, Apple Computer, Basis Technology, Denic e.G., Google, Inc., Government of India - Ministry of Information Technology, Government of Pakistan - National Language Authority, HP, IBM, Justsystem, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, The University of California at Berkeley, VeriSign, Yahoo! and about one hundred Associate, Liaison, and Individual members.

For more information, please contact the Unicode Consortium (http://www.unicode.org/).

About the Event Producer

The Object Management Group™ (OMG™) is the new Event Producer for the Internationalization & Unicode Conferences. The OMG is an open membership, not-for-profit consortium that produces and maintains computer industry specifications for interoperable enterprise applications. Our specifications include MDA®, UML®, CORBA®, MOF™, XMI® and CWM™. OMG’s specifications are all available for download by everyone without charge.

For more information about OMG, visit us online at http://www.omg.org.

Note to editors: Unicode Standard, Unicode and the Unicode Logo are trademarks of Unicode, Inc. Unicode Consortium is a registered trademark of Unicode, Inc. MDA, Model Driven Architecture, OMG Logo, UML and CORBA are registered trademarks, and OMG, Object Management Group, MOF, MDA Logos, Unified Modeling Language and UML logo are trademarks, of Object Management Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.