Hi everyone, We *WILL* be having a Change seminar on Tuesday, March 4th. Our speaker will be Kalika Bali from the Technology for Emerging Markets lab at Microsoft Research, India. Please join us at 12pm in CSE 203. As usual, lunch will be provided. *Speaker Bio* Kalika Bali is a researcher in the Technologies for Emerging Markets and Multilingual Systems research areas at Microsoft Research India. Her interests are in speech and language technology for education, NLP and speech technology for Indian languages, linguistic resources and standards, and cognitive models of language processing. Her current research focuses on the use of non-standard language use in computer-mediated conversations, especially in social media. *Understanding Language in Emerging Markets* In emerging markets such as India and China, the typical user demography differs not only in the language used but also in the way languages might be used. Technology especially mobile and internet must cater to a user base that differs in many ways from those in North America or Europe. Taking India as a case study, this talk outlines major challenges in localizing technology and services vis-à-vis language technology, policy, and linguistics, as well as user demography and practices. Deeper research issues need to be addressed regarding issues of language use, such as the dominance of transliteration and code mixing in all spheres of computer-mediated communication. We will also discuss potential solutions that point towards an improved natural language user interface for these users.