PRESS RELEASE: Blog Bash 2009-MSC Malaysia @PenangCity (Sun, 22 MAR 2009)

8/14/2019 PRESS RELEASE: Blog Bash 2009-MSC Malaysia @PenangCity (Sun, 22 MAR 2009)

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Contact: Cik Sarina bt. Ishak

T/F: +60 4 866-2706

M: +60 19 437-0147

E: [email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RURAL FOLKS TO JOIN THE MALAYSIAS 5% ELITES VIA

BLOG BASH KNOWLEDGE-SHARING @ KONGSI, BALIK

PULAU, PENANG

Social Entrepreneurs Club of Balik Pulau Launching Campaign via

Rural Internet Centre on Sunday, 22 MAR 2009, To Not Just Bridge

Digital Divide But Push Mass Local Empowerment Via New

Participatory Media/Web 2.0 Technologies

While most villagers, or even urbaners are enjoying their day-off on Sunday morning,

and folks in Balik Pulau congregating at the weekly Agro Market (Pasar Tani) near the

local Rapid Penang bus depot, as many as a hundred internet and new media

enthusiasts including the local village folks will congregate not too far away near a K-

Komuniti Building to share and learn on how to collaborate using high-tech Web 2.0

tools, including Facebook, Twitterand Google Docs, which are rather unheard of by

more than 95% Malaysians as of to-date.

Kelab Usahawan Sosial Balik Pulau (KUSBP) with support from the multiple award-

winning Pusat Internet Desa of Balik Pulau (PIDBP), an initiative by the Malaysian

Ministry of Energy, Water and Communication (KTAK) is organizing a full-day program

Blog Bash 2009, themed Community Media for Local Socio-economic Development

in the 3-in-1 forms of forum, seminar and workshop on Web 2.0 media technologies

this Sunday, 22 MAR 2009 at Dewan Balora Mastika (next to K-Komuniti/JKKK Kongsi

Building), Balik Pulau, Pulau Pinang.

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The first-ever held open program is in collaboration with Technopreneur Development

Division (TeDD) of the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC/MSC Malaysia),

Penang Association of ICT Entrepreneurs (ICT Penang) and the Southwest District of

Penangs Council for Entrepreneur Development (MPUD-DBDPP).

Yang Berhormat Sr. Hj Muhamad Farid bin Hj Saad, Chairman of MPUD-DBDPP who is

also the present ADUN for Pulau Betong, Balik Pulau and Advisor to PID Balik Pulau, is

scheduled to officiate the event and initiative launch starting at 8:30am.

Pn. Siti Huraizah bt. Abdul Rahman, Honorary Secretary for the newly formed KUSBP

who also currently serves as the resident supervisor for PID Balik Pulau said, We want

to empower the local community with cutting-edge means to elevate everyones

potentials, not just for them to be celik IT (IT-literate). Then only can every Malaysian

no matter where each chooses to reside, can take advantage of various programs thatMSC Malaysia is making available for many years now.

Siti Huraizah also pointed out that the tiny PID Balik Pulau situated at the annex of the

local Pos Malaysia office has provided various IT services to more than 10,000 local

residents over the last few years, of which, over 1,200 has registered as its members.

The morning sessions will include presentations on the trends, evolution and other

studies on both traditional and new mass media, and a discussion forum to be

participated by all four quadrants of the society policy makers and government

agencies, business/industry, academic and social NGO. Among confirmed participants

for the forum include En. Roslan Bakri Zakaria (General Manager of TeDD-MDeC,

caretaker of the MSC Malaysia implementation), En. Rohizam Yusoff (Penang-born CEO

of VirtualMalaysia.com Sdn Bhd, a multiple award-winning MSC-status company), En.

Mohd Ansari Abdul Rahman (Vice Chairman of TechBiz Penang, a business cluster

under InvestPenang), Pn Elia Mastura Kamaruddin (E-Public Relation Manager for

Yayasan Kemajuan Sosial Malaysia - YKSM), and academic representatives from

regional educational institutions. En. Adenan Sayan, a Balik Pulau boy who now

markets herbal products to worldwide buyers from his growing Klang Valley base will

also be joining the forum as a panel member.

To engage attendees, the afternoon sessions ofBlog Bash 2009 @ Balik Pulau is

crafted to run at least four parallel workshops on specific Web 2.0 tools including

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WikiMedia and Google Docs. Other topics considered,

based on request by participants which can be submitted while registering at

http://kusbp.pp.my (official website for KUSBP) include among others, ecommerce-

related dropshipping, Paypal online-payment, trading on eBay,AliBaba, Lelong,

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Mudah, 1Ketc. Participants will later be able to draft their impromptu presentation on

chosen topics for public-sharing and future collaboration.

En. Nasir Sobri, Honorary Secretary for ICT Penang, who also currently serves as the

Vice Chairman of KUSBP commented, We are very much pleased to work with Rakan-

rakan PID, or also known as RaPID, to connect entrepreneurs in the ICT industry with

the local community in knowledge-sharing events like this.

ICT Penangs main agenda, according to Nasir, is to acculturate the local community

with entrepreneurship skills and ICT knowledge in order to generate more progressive

entrepreneurs, especially among the Bumiputra residents of Penang.

As in the past, we have had the pleasure to work with many other organizations

including Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), MCA ICT Resource Centre (MiRC), Warisan

Global (WG), Rural Internet Centre (PID) of Balik Pulau, YKSM and MDEC particularly

during the recent annual Global Entrepreneurship Week event back in November 2008.

This year, we plan to work with many more organizations especially with academic

institutions for the week of 16-22 November 2009 to cultivate the culture of

entrepreneurship, especially among our youths, fresh graduates etc, and enable these

entrepreneurs to generate local employments to counter the present global financial

crisis. Nasir added.

Blog Bash 2009 happens to be one of the first events in Malaysia to include Twitter, a

social micro-sharing web service as one of its focus topic. Although Twitter has

accelerated to be the fastest growing community on the Web throughout 2008 with

over 1300% annual growth according to the latest Nielsen Research report

(GlobalFaces, March 2009), accumulating well over ten million users especially from

the United States, Korea, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Australia among others, Twitter

users in Malaysia currently number to no more than 5,000 as of March 2009, but is

growing fast in the past two months of January and February 2009 -- Amazon.coms

Alexa web traffic statistics shows that web traffic has jumped four-fold globally (or at

least two-fold in Malaysia), for the twitter.com website in just the two months of Jan-

Feb 2009.

Participants in this Blog Bash (named after a favorite online activity in Malaysia being

the nation placed at the fourth position globally for the interest on the word blog,

just behind Vietnam, France and Singapore -- according to the Google Trends web

search service) who are interested to explore avenues to turn their IT passion into

entrepreneurial ventures will be offered guidance accordingly, in collaboration with

MDEC among others, including via the MSC Malaysia Innotech Interstate Northern

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event, the first of the four legs national stops, set to start three days afterwards on the

25th and 26th of March 2009, at the Penang Development Corporation (PDC) office

complex in Bayan Baru, Pulau Pinang.

KUSBP is accepting registration for Blog Bash 2009 at its

http://usahawan.balikpulau.org website. To ensure effective sessions, the afternoon

technical workshop is limited to 50 first registrants only, based on online registration,

open until 6pm on Saturday, 21 MAR 2009. For assistance, contact Project Blog Bash

2009 team at (04) 866-2706 (phone/fax) or email to [email protected]

###

If youd like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview please contact Kelab

Usahawan Sosial Secretariat @ Pusat Internet Desa Balik Pulau at (04) 866-2706 or e-mail to

[email protected]

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Kelab Usahawan Sosial Balik Pulau (KUSBP)

Social Entrepreneurs Club (KUS) of Balik Pulau as with the other similar clubs at each

of the 42 Rural Internet Centres (PID nationwide telecentre establishments by the

Malaysian Government via the Ministry of Energy, Water and Communication - KTAK),

was established in August 2008 to enable PID in offering more beneficial services to

the wider local community, beyond with just Internet access and related

telecommunication services. The mechanism of KUS is to offer sustainability model to

PIDs, which are being progressively shifted from the government-supported model

towards community-supported model as with many other telecentres around the

world. Hence, although KUS Balik Pulau is a not-for-profit entity, it has initiated

several business ventures to self-sustain itself, while at the same time offers aplatform for existing and would-be entrepreneurs to network and collaborate for

common benefits towards positive, local socio-economic developments. More

information about KUS Balik Pulau can be obtained at its blog-centric website,

http://kusbp.pp.my or from the PID-based secretariat via phone/fax at +60 4 866-

2706. Honorary Secretary (2008-) for KUS Balik Pulau, Pn. Siti Huraizah bt. Abdul

Rahman can be contacted at +60 19 579-6575 or [email protected]

Persatuan Usahawan ICT Pulau Pinang (ICT Penang)

Penang Association of ICT Entrepreneurs (ICT Penang), as registered with the Registrar

of Societies (ROS) Malaysia since 2007 is a not-for-profit Penang-based society

dedicated for improving socio-economic status of Malay entrepreneurs and companies.

Though, its memberships are open to include Malay-centric organizations (with 51% or

more ownership or memberships) and Malay individuals located anywhere in the

world. A committee board consisting of eight business-owning members engages ICT

Penang in various business ventures and ICT acculturation activities. As of March

2009, ICT Penang has registered over 200 members from various industries and

professions (including 58 companies), and has successfully ran various activities

involving hundreds of individuals as well as participated in various regional, national

and global events. Through its continuous and aggressive activities, ICT Penang

intends to grow its membership to surpass 400 by 2010 (not including free

memberships through its community portals such as TechPenang.com orAkademi.Asia

training programmes). More information is available at its blog website,

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http://ictpenang.com or from its secretariat via phone at +60 4 250-3015 (Pn. Sharifah

Suenan) or fax at +60 4 262 9903. Honorary Secretary (2007-2009) for ICT Penang,

En. Nasir Sobri can be contacted at +60 16 416-2747 or [email protected]

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PRESS RELEASE: Blog Bash 2009-MSC Malaysia @PenangCity (Sun, 22 MAR 2009)