International: Joomla! Users Group of Cambodia (JUGCAM)
Getting to know our Cambodian community members
Written by John T. Denny, Ph.D.
Chorn Sokun and John T Denny, PH.D., co-authored this article.
Cambodia is changing fast, just a few years ago Internet access was considered an extreme luxury, yet today one can find a vibrant telecoms market with no less than 10 registered ISP's, satellite broadband offerings, 3G services and new roll outs at a relatively fast pace.
Having lived through decades of world isolation Cambodians see the Internet as a way to connect to family and friends overseas, explore the world around them, learn new things and in general expand their horizons, yet at the same time the public and private sector are increasingly turning to the net to communicate with their constituent bases. The Open Forum Cambodia brought the first publicly available Internet connections in 1994, at that time they accessed international telephone lines at a cost of $5/minute. [i]
Today it is another world as Cambodians, (although primarily identified as youth) embrace an Internet connected world and are ever increasingly making a mark by creating their own space in the cyber world. Although most Cambodians on the Internet elect to communicate in English citing ease of use issues, the National ICT Development Authority of Cambodia (NiDA) in cooperation with The Open Forum Cambodia have created and released an MS windows based Khmer Unicode installer systems and a selection of free and open source software in Khmer.
As Cambodians realize the potential of the life in the digital world they are more and more drawn to finding ways to creatively participate in this digital revolution. Many Cambodian youth have mastered computer basics, can easily get on the net, chat with friends, search for information and are increasingly involved in social networking and date generation activities. Yet the next logical step seems to be encouraging Cambodian participation in Web development. Schools, businesses, government agencies and civil society all greatly benefit from sharing information about their activities on the web. More and more of them are turning to Joomla! citing ease of use, flexibility, and collaborative potential and extensive support community as reasons for selecting Joomla! as their preferred content management platform.
Recently the National ICT Development Authority of Cambodia (NiDA), having trained over 10,000 Cambodians on typing using Khmer Unicode, Open Office and Internet applications, has made a major shift to development and training of Joomla! as a core software focus. Under direction of His Excellency Noy SHOUNG, there are plans underway to do nationwide training, encourage all sectors to develop Web sites and bring in support mechanisms which will help develop social and economic capacity for all Cambodians while bringing the nation closer to the rest of the world.
In October 2007, a core group of Joomla! users formed the Joomla! Users Group of Cambodia (JUGCAM) which is now recognized by Joomla! as a free and open focal point for all who wish to share and learn about Joomla! in Cambodia. JUGCAM works in cooperation with NiDA, Open Forum Cambodia and other leading groups to help promote Joomla! as a useful tool in moving Cambodia into the information age. JUGCAM plans to assist on Khmer localization of Joomla!, setting up Joomla! Days and promote web development as a viable path for Cambodians who wish to take up technology as a career.
JUGCAM is a growing virtual community with approximately 70 members consisting of Cambodians and non-Cambodians working in government, private and civil society sectors. Many have implemented and customized Joomla! to fit their personal website needs while some have done well by developing creative solutions for clients. The rich code base of Joomla! and associated projects (Joomla! Extensions) is a great gift to those who need a mature program yet cannot put in the time and effort to develop it from scratch. Cambodians need access to ready made resources and it appears that Joomla! is a smart fit on all fronts. We are excited to be a part of the Joomla! community and recognize that Joomla! is a well designed project full of community driven resources which are massively adaptable where specific needs should be met.
Whether it be on Joomla! or any of the other fine open source CMS’s we are excited to see Cambodia moving forward in the digital space and are confident that Cambodians will eagerly see the benefits of learning content management and web development hoping Joomla! will play major role.
Welcome to Cambodia and a warm welcome to our Joomla! using friends around the world.
[i] See: http://www.culturalprofiles.net/Cambodia/Directories/Cambodia_Cultural_Profile/-1818.html
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