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1. 1
Project
A Research Project Implemented by
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)
Supported by
MIMOS Bhd Malaysia, IDRC, and Telekom Malaysia

2. Overview
• Background of eBario Project
• Objectives of Project
• People Centered Approach
• Benefits of Project to Community
2

3. 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?

4. • 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?

5. • 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?

6. 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
6

7. 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

8. Where is Bario?
8
Bario

9. Remote and Isolated
A Four Week Trek Through Dense Tropical Forest, Air and Logging Road
1950’s
Today
Malaysia Singapore
Airlines (MSA)
Malaysia Airlines

10. Outside National grid & with little info and
communication infrastructures
A technical challenge

11. Ensure success & benefits for
local people
Social and economic
challenge

12. • 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…

13. Technical Project
but
Community Oriented Content

14. Involving…
• The Kelabit People
• University and Government
• Schools
• Private Companies
• Foundations
14

15. Implementation
• Local context
• Baseline studies conducted
• Community members play an
equal and active role
• Computers introduced
systematically
15

16. 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

17. Growing Rice
Harvesting Bario Rice

18. Kelabit Children
Now
Then

19. One of the first School Buildings in Bario - built by
villagers

20. Irau by a successful Kelabit family – 5 out
of 6 children are university graduates

21. Singing Old Kelabit songs to the family

22. Charting
The Future
22

23. 23

24. 24
Head Of The Community

25. Sharing Ideas…
25

26. “Educated Elites” in
Discussions
On Logging in Bario
On e-Bario project

27. 27

28. Potential Areas for ICTs
Development
28

29. Technologies

30. Computers and Internet Access
Provided to Secondary school
30

31. Satellite Connection

32. Power Supply
32

33. Computers and Internet Access for the Community
33

34. 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
34

35. 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

36. 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

37. 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

38. Thank you
bpoline@fss.unimas.my