By Martin Benjamin | Executive Director
The summer was an exciting period for Kamusi. We went live with our "Big Data Beta" - bringing in well over a million terms in more than 20 languages, with the data model living up to expectations. The details are here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/aaglw1ntifvyc0a/wordnet_to_kamusi.docx?dl=0
Now we have moved beyond proof-of-concept, to a system that demonstrably provides unique communications opportunities within and among languages. We still can't afford to turn the key on our data collection methods, because we do not have the management capacity to support the number of people we will need to coordinate. Nor have we done any fundraising, because we always prefer focusing on the actual work on the project. However, we are planning a campaign for December, so that we can fund the next stage.
While our Big Data model has shown itself to be robust and thrilling, it is unfortunately too data-intensive for the small server we've been running from in South Africa. With industrial-size data, we now need an industrial-sized server. Unfortunately, that takes money. We've been running the server on the forebearance of our hosts that they will eventually get paid, but the new loads we put on the system have overtaxed not just their patience but their hardware. As a result, we are suffering regular site outages. These outages have nothing to do with our mission or our methods, merely our equipment. We are looking for a solution (that is, money to pay for better equipment), but meanwhile please do not be surprised to see that the site is off-line.
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