HCI as an instrument for strengthening culture and language of a Colombian native community

International audienceThis paper is about the relationship between culture and human-computer interaction. Cultures are live, open and in continuous change. Computer and information technology, as external factors for non-Western-industrialized societies, may trigger transformations, that sometimes, could be considered as negative or unwanted. For example, the usage of Western word-processors modified the Japanese writing sys- tem when Japanese people faced a number of unfamiliar concepts intro- duced in those computer tools [8]. At the same time, minority societies around the world are in danger of extinction. The Nasa people, our target population, struggle to revitalize their mother tongue and cultural tra- ditions. This text presents an experience about developing or adapting computer tools to help the revitalization efforts. The use of the com- puter could lead to positive effects, or at least, to effects aligned with the policies of the societ