UAE | Education
More Arabic online content needed, Google official says
Joanne Kubba, Google manager of communications and public affairs for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), spoke at the opening of the Women's Leadership and Technology Conference at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) on Saturday.
- By Rania Moussly, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:00 March 1, 2010
Dubai: Less than one per cent of global online content is available in Arabic although Arabs make up 5 per cent of the world's population, a Google official has said.
Joanne Kubba, Google manager of communications and public affairs for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), spoke at the opening of the Women's Leadership and Technology Conference at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) on Saturday.
"You make up 5 per cent of the world's population but less than one per cent of the information is in your language," Kubba told the audience. "Even in English we don't have statistics on how much of that information is available for people in the Middle East, but in English," she added.
Kubba said that of that one per cent content, a majority is not useful to people's everyday lives. "If you think of information as choice, as freedom, as power, or an ability to reduce the digital divide between us versus them — less than one per cent doesn't do much for us," she added.
Community engagement
The conference, which ends today, set out to explore the use of social media for community engagement. It brought together academics, government officials and business leaders to discuss a means of building organisational capacities for women through digital information and communication.
"Maximising social technology allows us to become more connected global citizens in an increasingly digital world," said Richard Olson, US Ambassador to the UAE. "It is conferences like this that give citizens the tools needed to empower themselves," he added.
Olson said that according to a Harvard University study, there are approximately 35,000 Arabic language blogs from at least 18 Arabic-speaking countries. "Topic patterns vary from advocacy and activism to social business ventures and personal stories," he said. "In Saudi Arabia, 46 per cent of bloggers are females," he added.
Ameera Binkaram, Chairperson of the Sharjah Business Women's Council, said figures for the UAE show there are over 10,000 businesses owned by women — 2,000 of which are based in Sharjah. "Women in the Middle East own 14 per cent of business establishments in the region," she said.
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