DUBAI, 13 October 2006 — Details of a pioneering partnership to further extend Arabic linguistic research in the Middle East was announced yesterday by the British University in Dubai (BUiD).
The new project will be a joint initiative between BUiD’s Institute of Informatics — the first research-based department dedicated to Information Technology in the UAE — and Fast Search and Transfer (FAST) — the leading provider of enterprise search solutions.
The one-year pilot research project will examine the feasibility of developing an Arabic search engine capable of scanning text pages and the Internet to locate names, a resource which has not as yet been established in the Middle East.
“This is a pioneering collaboration between ourselves and industry leaders in search technology which we trust will be mutually beneficial and lead to long-term collaboration. FAST has developed search technology with linguistic capabilities for 80 languages, Arabic included, however this collaboration will provide further enhancement of advanced linguistic capabilities for Arabic,” said Dr. Habib Talhami, head of the Institute of Informatics at BUiD. Talhami, who has previously worked on the indexing of Arabic speech databases using advanced speech recognition technology at BUiD, added, “We are hoping to achieve this capability for enterprises and to advance further research in all aspects of Arabic language technology. This is the beginning of our relationship and we intend to expand into further areas of collaboration in the future.”
FAST, a Norwegian-based global organization with offices in six continents, coordinates with leading universities in 28 counties. FAST products support 80 different languages.
“There is a growing need for this new technology and we look forward to this partnership to help extend Arabic linguistic research. We are delighted to be involved with the leading research-based university in the UAE,” said Muneer Mussa, regional vice president of FAST.
Helping to undertake the project will be BUiD student Hafsa Raza, who has been sponsored by FAST to work as research assistant in the region for the international team.
BUiD’s Institute of Informatics is partnered with the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh; one of the UK’s highest-rated research centers in computer science and related disciplines.
