Information Technology Reference
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some of the highest peaks and rugged mountains
in Central Borneo. This out-of-the-way situation
is well noted by Harrison (1959): 'There is one
[of] or two places on the map of Borneo and,
more widely, on the map of the world - where
you can get farther away from a known place …,
from what most people call “the world.” There
are fewer places where you (or I) are likely to be
able to feel more remote, more “cut off” from the
great outside…' (p.5). Nowadays, flying into the
unofficial capital of the Kelabit Highlands known
as Bario, is the only practical way to get there.
There is no road, and a land expedition requires
a river journey plus an additional weeklong trek
across forested mountains (Bala, 2002).
But, who are the Kelabit? Numbering at 5,240
in 2000, the Kelabit are one of the smallest ethnic
groups in Malaysia. For the past thirty years many
have left the Kelabit Highlands for education and
job opportunities. As a result only a thousand
still remain in the Highlands while the rest are
living in cities like Miri, Kuching and Kuala
Lumpur, or even overseas in the U.K., U.S.A.,
Canada, Holland, Australia and New Zealand.
This high level of rural-urban migration has led
to a geographically-dispersed community, creat-
ing almost a clear distinction between the Kelabit
who remain in the Highlands (rural Kelabit) and
those who have left to live in urban areas (urban
Kelabit).
Ironically, it was because of these two social
situations: high levels of rural-urban migration of
the Kelabit and the geographical remoteness of the
Kelabit Highlands that Bario became a test-bed for
the e-Bario project. Initiated by an interdisciplin-
ary team of researchers from Universiti Malaysia
Sarawak (UNIMAS), e-Bario explored the use
of telephones, computers, Very Small Aperture
Terminals (VSATs) and the Internet to improve
the lives of marginalized groups in remote areas
of Sarawak. Initially funded by International
Development Research Centre in Canada, it was
later adopted by the Malaysian Government as one
of its Demonstrator Application Grant Schemes.
The project was largely initiated in response to
Malaysia's approach to adopt ICT as essential
developmental tools in generating a knowledge
and information-based society (UN, 2000, p.9) - a
form of society which Malaysia aims to attain by
the year 2010 (Goh Beng Lan, 2002, p.190).
In order to facilitate this mass development
program, the Malaysian government has set out
specific targets. These include: to become an Infor-
mation Society by the year 2005, whereby people
would have access to information, and information
becomes a commodity; and to be a Knowledge-
based-Society by 2010, with a Malaysian society
that values the culture of life-long learning and
the creation of knowledge-based products and
services. Known as the National Information Com-
munication Technologies Initiatives, the following
is a brief review of the mechanisms by which the
government aims to attain these targets:
a)
establishment of a National IT Council;
b)
formulation of a National IT Agenda;
c)
development of the Multimedia Super
Corridor;
d)
implementation of Bridging the Digital
Divide Program (BDDP);
e)
awarding of the DAGS (Demonstrator
Application Grant Scheme).
The design of this multi-faceted strategy and
the mechanisms, however, does not include a clear
picture of how the rural sector of the nation will
be situated within the larger framework. There-
fore there exists a huge gap between what are in
effect two worlds: the government's aspirations
for a future knowledge-based economy, and the
realities of rural living.
It was within this perceived hiatus in national
development planning that e-Bario was conceived
as a pilot project to explore whether provision of
equal access to ICT can bring economic, social
and cultural benefits to rural communities in
Sarawak. This is particularly significant for the
state of Sarawak, where 60 per cent of its 2.027
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