Hello Eric, I have read through the proposal to the UK Computing Research Committee, and it sounds great and exciting. I whole-heartedly support this initiative. For what it's worth, please add me as a joint proposer. I am particularly excited about the idea of sound automated inference - this is indeed a grand challenge, especially when applied to such a critical text. The Quran is a worthy topic for computational analysis and artificial intelligence.
The number of Muslims worldwide is estimated at anything between 1 to 1.5 billion people. Hence, the Quran is believed in by possibly as many as 1 out of every 4 people on Earth alive today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups Islam is also often considered to be the fastest growing religion in Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth Speaking for myself, I welcome any new academic initiative to help with understanding the original Arabic of the Quran in more detail, and especially through computational means. I would be very keen to support any new proposal for study or research websites, or new powerful search and inference engines - especially given my academic and professional background in computer science. I am all for encouraging more people to read the Quran in order to come to their own conclusions. I am more than happy to support this. Kind Regards, -- Kais Dukes Language Research Group School of Computing University of Leeds http://corpus.quran.com - The Quranic Arabic Corpus [email protected] - Computational Quranic Arabic discussion list > On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 2:29 PM, Eric Atwell <[email protected]> wrote: > UKCRC, The UK Computing Research Committee, have asked for > "Grand Challenges in Computing Research for 2010 and beyond" > http://www.ukcrc.org.uk/grand-challenge/2010.cfm > > This will help UK research funding agencies to plan ahead. > They invite a 2-page proposal by 8th February, for a workshop in Edinburgh, > Scotland, on 16th April 2010. > > I'd like to propose: Understanding the Quran - a new Grand Challenge for > Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence > - see draft at > http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/eric/UnderstandingTheQuran.doc > > The proposal has to relate to "major societal grand challenges"; for the > purposes of this meeting they have picked four challenges on which to > focus, namely - climate change, assisted living, security and health. My > draft proposal on "Understanding the Quran" tries to fit this focus > by highlighting security-related applications; but of course an online Quran > Expert will have many other uses too. > > I hope others on the comp-quran discussion list will support this > proposal. If you would like to be named as a joint proposer, please > email me <[email protected]> to confirm: > > your NAME, and AFFLIATION - department/school and university > > Thanks in advance for your support. > > -- > Eric Atwell, > Senior Lecturer, Language research group, School of Computing, > Faculty of Engineering, UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS, Leeds LS2 9JT, England > TEL: 0113-3435430 FAX: 0113-3435468 WWW/email: google Eric Atwell
