About TshwaneDJe

TshwaneDJe Human Language Technology is a private company co-founded by David Joffe and Prof. Gilles-Maurice de Schryver (experts in software development and lexicography respectively) in 2002, based on, amongst others, a joint vision of improving the world and bridging cultures through better dictionaries.

Originally based in David Joffe's hometown of Pretoria (of which the traditional African name is 'Tshwane') in South Africa, in 2009 the company opened its new head office in Stellenbosch. Since its inception, we've steadily expanded to a team that now includes several programmers/experts; we've achieved this growth through a focus on professionalism, world-class quality, and delivering value to customers. Originally dealing primarily with lexicography, the company has been broadening its focus to also cover terminology management software, software tools for translators, and general Language Services such as translation.

Our customers include Oxford University Press, Pearson, Longman, Macmillan, the Royal National Academy of Medicine (Spain), Grupo Clarín (Argentina), the Department of Justice (Canada), the Welsh Language Board, the Malaysian Institute of Language and Literature, Van Dale Lexicografie, Le Robert (France), the Royal Spanish Academy, the Institute for Dutch Lexicology (Netherlands), and more.

TshwaneDJe members are also active in academic research and have published many publications »

Core Team at a Glance

	David Joffe (BSc Comp Sci, Univ. of Pretoria) » Co-founder and owner of TshwaneDJe, and the original creator of the industry-leading TLex dictionary writing system. He has a BSc Computer Science degree and over 15 years' software development and project management experience. He previously built, a.o., a flight simulator visualization system for the South African Air Force, and mining training simulators for Anglo Platinum. He currently manages the development of TLex, in use by major publishers including Oxford University Press and Pearson, as well as the tlTerm terminology management software, tlTranslate Translation Memory software, tlCorpus concordance software, and tlDatabase database software.
	Prof. Dr. Ing. Gilles-Maurice de Schryver » Born 15 September 1971 in Sint-Amandsberg, Belgium, Gilles-Maurice de Schryver holds an MSc in microelectronic engineering (1995), an MA in corpus lexicography (1999), and a PhD in computational linguistics (2005). He is the author or co-author of 18 books and 86 peer-reviewed articles, mainly on corpus and dictionary topics for the African languages, and increasingly also on language-independent lexicography software. To date, he read 9 keynotes/plenaries and presented or co-presented 100 conference papers. He has also organised or co-organised 16 conferences and seminars. He is an assistant professor in the department of African languages and cultures at Ghent University, Belgium, and an extraordinary professor in the Xhosa department at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. He is also a founding member of African Language Technology, President of Afrilex, an elected board member of Euralex, Asialex as well as Australex, initiator of PangaeaLex, and co-founder of TshwaneDJe HLT. [Updated July 2010]
	Malcolm James MacLeod (BSc Hons Comp Sci, UNISA) Malcolm is an expert C++ programmer, but also does some occasional PHP. He joined TshwaneDJe in early 2006. He is one of the main developers on TshwaneLex, and is the primary developer of the TLex Electronic Dictionary publishing system, as well as the tlTranslate Translation Memory software. He is also highly experienced with data conversions. Since early 2010, he is managing overall software development and company operations of TshwaneDJe in Stellenbosch.
	Estea Fourie (MPhil Translation, Univ. Stellenbosch) Estea joined the TshwaneDJe team in May 2010 as Manager of the new Language Services Department. She holds an MPhil in Translation from the University of Stellenbosch (2008), a BA (Languages and Culture) (2002) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Translation (2003). She worked as Principal Language Practitioner at the Language Management department of the South African Police Service from 2006, and is an experienced translator for English to Afrikaans, as well as Afrikaans to English and translating from Dutch. She is also the convener of the committee on “Computer applications for terminology” as part of the SABS TC 37 “Terminology and other language and content resources”.