|Palmball| |Rockbolter|
|El-Mishkak| |Words-War|
|Book Review| |Article Review|
KAFKAF R&D
The photo-ceremony of the official launch of El-Mishkak on 20 May 1999. Standing on the left is the manager of CPA Bank, Jijel, Algeria, which invested in the project.
The story of this entreprise goes back to summer 1983. That time I had just got my BSc. degree in electronics and applied for a grant from the algerian government to study abroad.
One day, I was playing ping-pong with my brothers. While I was waiting for my turn, I started throwing a ping-pong ball against a wall. I hit it with the palm of my hand and when it bounces back from the wall I first returned it with the same hand, and after a while I started to use alternate hands...eureka! I have just invented a new game!
I jumped with joy and told my brothers without explaining anything "just remember this moment, It might lead to something big".
Well, a long time has passed and I neither become rich nor famous, but I have since then been a very busy man: not only I fulfilled my childhood dreams about inventing something new, but I managed to put a product on the market starting from scratch as well.
The name "kaf-kaf" is coined from the two arabic words "kef" and "kora".Which mean palm and ball respectively. But the first letter in both arabic words is "k" which is called "kaf" in arabic, and hence the name KAFKAF for the new game, and PALMBALL in English.
SOME IMPORTANT DATES:
1983, Jijel, Algeria. The idea of Kafkaf (Palmball) started.
1983-1984, Birmingham University, England. Making the first sketch and the first prototype of Palmball.The first rules are set.
1984-1988, Nottigham University, England. Making the second prototype and applying for a patent application. The game was tested with students at the uinversity, and a video explaining the rules was made. Getting in touch with few companies in order to licence the game.
1989, Basingstoke, England. Started own company KAFKAF Research and Development (KAFKAF R&D) in order to optimize manufacture and market the electronic game PalmBall.
1990, Basingstoke, England. The idea of El-Mishkak came to me while I was thinking about writing a book related to the moderization of arabic language. The project of PalmBall was shelved and the design, manufacture and marketing of El-Mishkak started.
1991-1993, Basingstoke, England. The first pre-production run of El-Mishkak was made, and the game was put on display at four book-stores in London, on sale-or-return basis. The first articles about the game were published in El-Sharq El-Awsat, Al-hayat and sayyidaty magazine in London. Also, the Algerian newspaper Al-Massa published daily a word-game based on El-Mishkak for a period of six months in 1991.
September 1993. Returned back to Algeria.
1996. Design of a popular version of El-Mishkak.
1998. KAFKAF R&D is officially launched in Algeria with the aim of manufacturing and producing the popular version of El-Mishkak.
Mai 1999. El-Mishkak is manufactured and distributed on the Algerian market.
2000. Designed a new multilingual word-game called Words-War.
2002. Started the computer version of El-Mishkak, called Mishkak-PC, within the Dictionary Research Lab.
Email: bouhadjera@mail.univ-jijel.dz