Barcamp Phnom Penh 5

Last year we kick-started Mozilla Firefox Aurora Khmer localization effort at Barcamp Phnom Penh 4. Now a year later, Thanks to efforts of Mozilla Khmer L10N team and invaluable support of several people from various organizations. We have a successful release of Firefox Khmer.

Barcamp Phnom Penh is community organized two day un-conference held in the capital city of Cambodia. Walking around Barcamp Phnom Penh at University of Puthisastra in central Phnom Penh, you'll encounter young Cambodian's engaging in social media on latest smart phones and tablets everywhere. There are numerous booths advertising smart phones, right next English language schools, Media and NGO organizations.

At Barcamp Phnom Penh 5 this year there was marked improvement in quality of talks. The technology related talks were really in-depth and encouraged participation from audience. Cambodia has good English language penetration, learning English ensures better livelihood. In country where 50% of population live below the poverty line, the Cambodian youth have an insatiable thirst for learning and making a better life. This spirit attracts me to Cambodia time and again.

Firefox Khmer, FirefoxOS and Web API

On the first day of Barcamp Phnom Penh, I talked Mozilla mission and future of Web, As a platform. The demo of development version of FirefoxOS phone was well received.

The next day Vannak ENG talked about the about Mozilla localization and walked the audience through various steps of translating Firefox. It was great to see people hanging out after the talk to interact with Vannak. Such interactions help us build a good contributor community and help keep the Firefox translations update-to-date every 6 weeks

At the end of Barcamp Phnom Penh, I gave lightening talk titled '6 kick-ass things you can do with your browser'. The talk provided a whirlwind tour of Mozilla Web API and their status.

Khmer Language support in Firefox Mobile on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)

I met Danh Hong, the creator Khmer Web Fonts and we talked about the font rendering issues in Firefox Mobile(Bug 793474) running on Android Jelly Bean (4.x). These issues are now resolved in new HarfBuzz update (Bug 780409)

Few other issues in Khmer language support remain. Android Jelly Bean (4.1) supports Khmer rendering well, but Khmer fonts are not shipped with Android. You need to use third party app to install them.

On Desktop computers, though high quality Khmer fonts are available for various operating systems. There is lack of proper documentation about the installation process and the license are not very clear.

Upcoming Barcamps in Cambodia

The barcamp camp team deserves a pat on the back for organizing yet another fantastic event. Next year they are organizing five Barcamps all over Cambodia.

• BarCamp Angkor Siem Reap): 23-24 February 2013, www.angkor.barcampcambodia.org
• BarCamp Battambang : 25-26 May 2013, www.bb.barcampcambodia.org
• BarCamp Kampong Cham : 24-25 August 2013, www.kc.barcampcambodia.org
• BarCamp Phnom Penh : 19-20 October 2013, www.barcampphnompenh.org
• BarCamp Sihanoukville (The Beach): 7-8 December 2013 www.sv.barcampcambodia.org

Perhaps I'll try organize a hands-on workshop on web technologies at Hacker Space Phnom Penh or Small World Phnom Penh. If you are interested, get in touch with me.