Indigenous knowledge fair kicks off in the Malaysian part of the Borneo island

Kota Samarahan, 19th November 2015 : Unviersiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)'s Institute of Social Informatics and Technological Innovations (ISITI-CRI) successfully kick-started the fifth eBorneo Knowledge Fair 2015 (eBKF5 2015) on 18 November 2015.

The knowledge fair this year marks yet another milestone for ISITI as this is the first time that ISITI has organised the knowledge fair in Ba’Kelalan, the Heart of Borneo.

The three-day event, which runs from 18-20 November 2015, 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.

Two 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 and Engaged Learning, which was facilitated by Associate Professor Dr Shorna Broussard Allred and Amy Kuo Somchanhmavong, both from Cornell University, United States of America.

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.

One of the highlights of the event was the welcoming ceremony, which saw the members of the Ba’Kelalan community welcoming all the delegates with several local performances. Community representative, Ketua Kampung Mr Yudan Meru also welcomed the participants to the event. Associate Professor Dr Poline Bala, from the Faculty of Social Sciences, UNIMAS, who is also the site leader of eBa’Kelalan, highlighted the aims and objectives of the eBKF5 2015 during her welcoming speech at the event.

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 eBKF5 this year aims at working on several areas of interest to the indigenous community, particularly the Lun Bawang community in Ba’Kelalan, and the rest of the world as a whole.

About eBorneo Knowledge Fair

The eBor­neo Knowl­edge Fair (eBKF) is a re-​branded ver­sion of what was pre­vi­ously called the e-​Bario Knowl­edge Fair and it rep­re­sents the expan­sion of the eBario project to include more indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Bor­neo, and beyond. The event is a bi-​annual un-​conference, held in the cen­tral Bor­neo high­lands of Sarawak, Malaysia. It show­cases the use of Infor­ma­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Tech­nolo­gies (ICTs) for devel­op­ment in iso­lated rural com­mu­ni­ties, espe­cially those that con­sist of indige­nous peo­ples. It is organ­ised by the Insti­tute of Social Infor­mat­ics and Tech­no­log­i­cal Inno­va­tions at Uni­ver­siti Malaysia Sarawak in con­junc­tion with the local com­mu­nity, bring­ing together researchers, prac­ti­tion­ers and pol­icy mak­ers with the res­i­dent indige­nous peo­ples, in both Malaysia and neigh­bour­ing Indonesia.

For more infor­ma­tion, please visit the eBorneo Knowledge Fair website (link below).