Egypt has launched an initiative to digitally store its national archives online in Arabic.
Having claimed the world’s first Top Level Domain (TLD) name in Arabic script last month to reduce the language barrier amongst Arabic-only speakers, this move should boost Arabic content online from its current state of 2.9%.
Communications and Information Technology Minister Tarek Kamel told Reuters:
In the future this [digital processing of Egypt’s National Archives] will be very useful when we have the Arabic domain really operational. We are now preparing the content in Arabic that really reflects the long history of Egypt in digital form.
ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is preparing the new TLDs for launch sometime during 2010.
1 million documents have been archived so far. According to IBM who is providing the technology services, this move will increase the current amount of Arabic content on the web by another 25 million records.
This will certainly please the 300 million Arabs yearning for content!
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