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Project
A Research Project Implemented by
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)
Supported by
MIMOS Bhd Malaysia, IDRC, and Telekom Malaysia
Overview
• Background of eBario Project
• Objectives of Project
• People Centered Approach
• Benefits of Project to Community
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ICTs for Development
• Rural communities are left out
• Information fosters development
• Can ICTs deliver rural (including remote)
development?
• If so, how, under what conditions, and is
anything else required?
• A RESEARCH initiative to introduce computers, VSATs (Very Small Aperture Terminal), telephones, and Internet to villagers in Bario, a Kelabit settlement in Central Borneo.
• Implemented by University Malaysia Sarawak with funding from Malaysian government and IDRC, Canada.
What is electronic
Bario?
• To identify potentials for remote/rural communities in Sarawak to develop socially, culturally and economically from information and communication technologies usage & applications
• To experiment with methodologies to connect rural communities to new technologies
• The initiative is expected to demonstrate the many ways in which ICTs can be used to help marginalized communities in Malaysia to develop socially, culturally and economically.
What are the objectives?
Why Bario?
• Many candidate communities would satisfy criteria for a rural remote location
• Bario – highly isolated and remote
• UNIMAS known to community from previous research into bio-diversity
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Isolated and Remote
“It is one of those few places
in Borneo, and, more widely on
the map of the world where
you can get further away from
a known place, where in fact,
you be more away from what
most people call the world. It
is one of those few places
where you [or I] are likely to be
able to feel more remote, more
cut off from the great outside
world.” -- Tom Harrison
Where is Bario?
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Bario
Remote and Isolated
A Four Week Trek Through Dense Tropical Forest, Air and Logging Road
1950’s
Today Malaysia Singapore
Airlines (MSA)
Malaysia Airlines
Outside National grid & with little info and communication infrastructures
A technical challenge
Ensure success & benefits for
local people
Social and economic
challenge
• Smart School as a
demonstrator application that
includes SMK Bario and SRK
Bario
• A Community telecentre set up
– Gatuman B@rio (Bario
Telecentre)
Implementation ideas…
Technical Project
but
Community Oriented Content
Involving… • The Kelabit People
• University and Government
• Schools
• Private Companies
• Foundations
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Implementation
• Local context
• Baseline studies conducted
• Community members play an equal and active role
• Computers introduced systematically
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A LONGHOUSE BASED ‘COMMUNITY’
There are 10 long houses
dispersed widely in 17 villages
around Bario
20 to 40 families stay in a single
long house
Each family occupies ~25 sq m
with private rooms and open
kitchen
Long houses have common
veranda for meetings and
gatherings
Growing Rice
Harvesting Bario Rice
Kelabit Children
Now
Then
One of the first School Buildings in Bario - built by
villagers
Irau by a successful Kelabit family – 5 out
of 6 children are university graduates
Singing Old Kelabit songs to the family
Charting The Future
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Head Of The Community
Sharing Ideas…
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“Educated Elites” in
Discussions
On Logging in Bario
On e-Bario project
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Potential Areas for ICTs Development
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Technologies
Computers and Internet Access Provided to Secondary school
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Satellite Connection
Power Supply
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Computers and Internet Access for the Community
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Benefits to Bario • Education
– Computer literacy of students, teachers and community
– IT-based Teaching & Learning
– Distance Learning
• Culture
– Preservation of culture
– Family trees & oral traditions
• Commerce
– Tourism/E-commerce
• Accommodation booking
• Handicrafts, rice
• Agriculture
– Assembling, classifying and sharing information about rice production
• Health – Information on upper respiratory
ailment
– Medical information exchanged between medical staff in Bario, Miri, Kuching
– First rural Clinic with Internet access
• Community – Empowerment of community
– Telecentre sustainability
• Technology – Satellite Internet access
– Telephone
– Wireless network
• Tourism
• Human Resource Dev’t – IT Literacy
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Implications
• For development practice
– new skills for extension officers and field workers
• For institutional development
– knowing what skills are required and when to apply them
• For policy-making
– applying appropriate priorities
– making resources available
The Influence of Context
• Ask the right questions:
• How can technology help? not
• How can we use this technology?
• Emphasize the context to answer the right question
• Focus on social, cultural, political and economic profiles
• Integrate new facilities with existing practices
Participatory Rural Communication
Appraisal
• Multidisciplinary, participatory, interactive
• Helps field staff and extension workers develop communication programmes
• Qualitative, quantitative, ethnographic
• UNIMAS and E-Bario
– Surveys, focus groups, interviews, life-stories, meetings, visual ethnography, socio-cultural analyses
