UNIMAS News

The Insti­tute of Social Infor­mat­ics and Tech­no­log­i­cal Inno­va­tions (ISITI- CRI) suc­cess­fully organ­ised the fifth eBor­neo Knowl­edge Fair 2015 (eBKF5 2015) which ran from 18– 20 Novem­ber 2015. The knowl­edge fair this year marked yet another mile­stone for ISITI as this was the first time that ISITI organ­ised the knowl­edge fair in Ba’Kelalan, the Heart of Borneo.

The three- day event began with the post­grad­u­ate col­lo­quium, which saw the atten­dance of both local and inter­na­tional post­grad­u­ate stu­dents from var­i­ous coun­tries such as the United King­dom, Swe­den, and Nige­ria. The stu­dents pre­sented the progress of their work in var­i­ous areas of Infor­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nol­ogy for Devel­op­ment (ICT4D), all of which were rel­e­vant to the goals and objec­tives of the knowl­edge fair which is to pro­mote research that inno­vates with tech­nolo­gies in order to address the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties that remote and iso­lated indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties face.

Sev­eral work­shops were also organ­ised, namely “Com­mu­nity Radio”, which was facil­i­tated by Pro­fes­sor Dr Roger Har­ris, a vis­it­ing pro­fes­sor from UNI­MAS, together with local cham­pi­ons Stan­ley Issac and Cr. John Tarawe, “Engaged Learn­ing” and “Cli­mate Change and Indige­nous Knowl­edge”, which were over­seen by Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Dr Shorna Brous­sard Allred and Amy Kuo Som­chanhmavong, both from Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity, United States of America.

Dr Jacey- Lynn Minoi from UNI­MAS over­saw the work­shop on “Low Cost Aer­ial Pho­tog­ra­phy for Com­mu­nity Land Plan­ning”, whereas the work­shops on “Knowl­edge mobi­liza­tion: the impact of ICT4D research on pol­icy and prac­tice and sus­tain­abil­ity of inno­va­tions” and “Com­mu­nity Pro­to­cols” were respec­tively facil­i­tated by Pro­fes­sor Dr Alvin Yeo Wee and Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor Dr Poline Bala, both from UNI­MAS. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Smart Vil­lages Ini­tia­tive, Dr Terry van Gevelt and Dr Clau­dia Canales Holzeis also ran a work­shop high­light­ing the work done regard­ing the Smart Vil­lages Initiative.

The keynote speech enti­tled “Community- based co- design of Indige­nous Knowl­edge Tech­nolo­gies: Chal­lenges and Oppor­tu­ni­ties” was deliv­ered by Pro­fes­sor Dr Heike Win­schiers from the Politech­nique of Namibia.

The com­mu­nity mem­bers were also intro­duced to sev­eral areas of research that are cur­rently being con­ducted, all of which were pre­sented dur­ing the eBKF5 2015. This was excep­tion­ally ben­e­fi­cial as the mem­bers of the com­mu­nity were able to ask the researchers in detail what the cur­rent research is and how this can be fur­ther improved with the input of the local com­mu­nity as well. This high­lighted one of the unique fea­tures of the eBKF5 2015, which was to pro­vide these dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers with the appro­pri­ate plat­form to look at the many pos­si­bil­i­ties and oppor­tu­ni­ties which could be explored between the parties.

Apart from that, the par­tic­i­pants were also brought to explore the mag­nif­i­cent high­lands of Ba’Kelalan by mem­bers of the com­mu­nity, shar­ing with them the beau­ti­ful sights of their home­land and allow­ing the par­tic­i­pants to see for them­selves first­hand what the impact of their research could hold for the peo­ple of Ba’Kelalan.

The event also saw the rep­re­sen­ta­tion from var­i­ous stake­hold­ers such as the Malaysian Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Mul­ti­me­dia Com­mis­sion (MCMC), Maxis Sdn. Bhd, Pusat Inter­net 1 Malaysia (PI1M), researchers from UNI­MAS, UUM, UCTS, Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity, Cam­bridge and Oxford Uni­ver­sity, Politech­nique of Namibia, as well as mem­bers from the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties from Ba’Kelalan, Bario and Long Lamai.

The eBKF is a unique con­fer­ence which aims at indi­genis­ing and inno­vat­ing with tech­nolo­gies for impact in order to address the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties that remote and iso­lated indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties face, par­tic­u­larly the Lun Bawang com­mu­nity in Ba’Kelalan, and the rest of the world as a whole.