دور المحتوى الرقمي العربي في الوصول إلى مجتمع المعرفة : دراسة حالة لمبادرة الملك عبد الله للمحتوى العربي

Abstract EN

An effective presence in today's knowledge society based on knowledge economy and industry requires a set of tools that can add value to the knowledge assets.

Civilizations and countries are rated in the knowledge society according to the availability of an echo system for knowledge economy and the readiness of such tools to enable the knowledge society including the information and communication technology infrastructure, human resources, the broadband internet, quality of services, affordability by all sectors in the society to ensure information flow and equal opportunities according to needs.

They also include availability of digital content which was the subject of study and analysis by a number of studies.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was not isolated from such movement and efforts as the decision makers recognized the power of the internet in building the knowledge economy.

The fact to be stated here is lack of Arabic digital content compared with other international languages.

Arabic did not exceed 0.3% which is so tiny compared with the role of Arabic language.

King Abdullah's Initiation of Arabic Content in 2007 came to respond to this need.

It was created and supervised by King Abdul Aziz City for Sciences and Technology.

It adopted a vision based on enhancing the Arabic digital content qualitatively and quantitatively to enable building the knowledge society keeping in mind the special nature of Arabic language and civilization.

This paper sheds light on King Abdullah's Initiative for Digital Content by discussing its rationale, the concept, achievements and future plans.

Communication was made with the officers in charge of the Initiative to get reliable information and identify the Initiative's contributions to reduce the gap in the presence of Arabic language and other international languages on the Internet.

Opinions assured that King Abdullah Initiative contributed to increase the percentage of Arabic content on the internet to reach 3%.

In addition, this Initiative serves about one billion Muslims all over the world for the purpose of enriching Arabic digital content and supporting the change to knowledge society.

The study adopted case study method and got several findings including: knowledge society based on knowledge economy requires a set of certain tools such as availability of digital content and that King Abdullah Initiative for Digital Content sought to enrich this content to enhance Arabic language role among other languages.

There are several collaborative efforts between the Initiative and the competent authorities at local, regional, and international levels.

The study proposed several recommendations including the necessity to activate King Abdullah Initiative widely through organizing a collaborative work bringing all efforts to avoid repetition and duplication of efforts.

The study also recommended the need to utilize the power of young professionals and motivate them to create Arabic content and add it to the content of the Initiative.

Furthermore, the educational system should focus on encouraging academic research and writing in Arabic as well as activating the translation services in order to enrich the Arabic content.