Programs

All programs of the Open Institute are strategically implemented to ensure that the benefits of technology for social and economic advance are usable in Cambodian society.

(Click here to see past programs of the Open Institute)

SPICE-Structuring Partnership for Innovative Communication Environtment
The USAID-funded SPICE program, implemented by the Open Institute, facilitates social and business innovation using communications technology and improves communications in Khmer via mobile devices. The purpose of the program is to build on partnerships between technology-oriented civil society organizations (CSOs) and private sector entities to utilize existing technologies to promote and deliver a greater diversity of information to the public, improve communications in Khmer using mobile devices, and increase the capacity of CSOs to use social media for development purposes.

Khmer Software Initiative
This program is the key fundamental and supporting program to all other programs of the Open Institute. This program open doors to computer program localization and development in Cambodia with the vision that language will not be a barrier to access technology, development and learning. The mission of the program is to ensure that local language echnology is available to as many people as possible, and that it is used for cultural, educational and economic growth.

Open Schools Program
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport and the Open Institute jointly implement the Open Schools program with a belief that effective use of ICT can improve the quality of education. The program is committed to ensure the development of all the necessary tools required to improve the quality of education through the use of ICT, including the necessary plans, computer programs in Khmer language, curricula, distance learning methodology, training materials, and technology for sustainability. The Program will also ensure that teachers receive the necessary training and support. A Master Plan and Action Plan of ICT in Education will be one of the key important results of the program.

Women's Empowerment for Social Change

This program aims at improving social and gender equality through advocacy and the promotion of information sharing and communication. This program also creates stronger synergy among the women's organizations and women activists through the open space for sharing and discussing women issues on the Women's Web Portal. Women's Empowerment for Social Change is designed to help women exercise their rights in a balanced way and can build competence to become self-sufficient, with improved women's participation in social, economic and political life, the program also provides capacity building, forum discussions on key women's issues and research on women and ICT.

Lexicography
Starting as a project to create electronic tools to support the use of Khmer language (a spell-checker and an electronic dictionary), the project has digitalized all the existing lexicographic resources for Khmer (old dictionaries, etc.), most of them almost lost after the Khmer Rouge genocide. Also, as the reference dictionary for the Khmer language only defines 17.000 of the almost 50.000 current words (without entering into specific fields), advancement on Khmer Lexicography must go through the writing of definitions for many of these words that still do not have them. This is a long process, but the project has started it, hoping that in a few years, with this and other efforts, it will be possible to write a dictionary of the Khmer language with all 50.000 definitions.