Bonnes pratiques

   Creating self-sufficient ICT champions in rural communities of Malaysia
   Source: http://www.iicd.org/stories/   
 see also below: TaniNet : An Internet-based System for the Agricultural Community 
Author : Amri Rahayat
Date added : 2000-09-01

Brief Project Background

To ensure that rural communities truly embrace ICT, they must be turned into active participants who understand the underlying technology rather than just being passive users. This will create a "moment of truth" in which the community realises on its own will - through exploration and regular use of technology - the benefits and potential applications of ICT to suit their own unique needs. In turn, it will help ensure that the technology application will evolve.

Because of this belief, the SMASY pilot project undertaken by Worldview Foundation and its partners sought to provide more than just PCs to the rural population of Kampung Raja Musa, a village set deep in the agricultural heartland of Malaysia. The main goal was to turn the people into self-sufficient champions of ICT. This paper outlines the objectives of the project and its powerful results, as well as the potential for future applications.

The Smasy project website can be found at http://www.wview.com.my/smasy/index_bi.htm

Results

One of the biggest challenges that Malaysia faces as it strives towards industrialised nation status by the year 2020 is to ensure that the rural populace is not left out. With ICT developing at literally breakneck speed (and progress being tracked in “Internet time” rather than real time), there is a very real risk that the divide between what the Malaysian Government terms digital “haves” and “have-nots” will widen very quickly.

That aside, perhaps a more compelling reason to bring ICT to the rural areas is the tremendous potential of the Internet as an engine for social and economic re-engineering. With the global reach it provides, the Internet – particularly through the World Wide Web – empowers remote communities to participate on the global stage.

It is this spirit that permeates the Smart Masyarakat Project (SMASY) – Smart Community Project – developed by Worldview Foundation in the state of Selangor. Because of this, the project is not content to simply provide PCs for people to access the Internet.

Rather, it seeks to create rural communities that actually understand the underlying technology, as opposed to merely using it. Such awareness would turn a community from being a passive receptor of development into an active participant who is self-sufficient enough to maintain and extend the technology for its own use.

Further, by immersing the community entirely and nurturing it into “champions of technology”, the population would feel more compelled to adopt the technology as their own. In short, IT becomes a part of their everyday life. This lessens the risk of such projects from becoming white elephants that are abandoned after the initial excitement has passed and ensures that the project would evolve.

This holistic approach is demonstrated in the SMASY pilot project in Kampung Raja Musa. Started in August 1999, it was undertaken by Worldview in partnership with Aincom Computer Centre, a local computer company and the Community Development Division (KEMAS) of Kuala Selangor. Backed by funding from MIMOS Berhad under its Demonstrator Application Grant Scheme (DAGS), the project aims to develop a knowledge community in line with the national IT objectives using new IT and multimedia applications with relevant contents.

The specific objectives of the project are:
· To expose the Kampung Raja Musa community to IT and make it an integral part of their lives;
· To manage and make available information to the community through using the latest and most user-friendly technology;
· To provide an avenue for business promotions and to introduce e-commerce over the Internet; and
· To improve the community’s well being through knowledge enhancement, improvement in communications, increase in confidence as well as in earning capacity.

To enable these objectives, the SMASY committee developed four information kiosks and organised weekly training sessions for the villagers. The kiosks are designed for ease-of-use: the villagers access the interactive multimedia content via a simple, intuitive touchscreen interface. The lack of removable storage devices was necessary to simplify maintenance, yet the design was made for easy uploads of information while providing a degree of robustness to prolong its working life.

To achieve the goal of creating a self-sufficient community, a group of young people was appointed to maintain the equipment. The necessary training was provided by Worldview and Aincom, and after a few sessions the group was capable enough of servicing the systems. The fact that this group has been formally absorbed into the JKKK underlines the villagers’ commitment and belief in the project.

The content was conceptualised by the Worldview team and contribution of information from government departments and educational institution with the help of the Village Development Committee (JKKK). It was then developed to provide the basic information appropriate to the village but providing the ability for updating.

The committee realised from the outset that one of the key success factors for the project was to provide content that was relevant and useful to the community. To this end, Worldview developed multimedia content on diverse topics. In addition to the usual information about the village and the project, the database also contained information relating to health, agriculture, tourism, environment, social development and income generation. In short, the database encompassed the different facets that touch rural life.

The rich content was necessary to help drive the community towards using the technology regularly. When they find the information useful they would be more likely to access it frequently, whether in the course of their work, study or for leisure. As the project developed, this theory was proven correct.

Furthermore, not only did the villagers begin to integrate the systems into their daily routines, they began to improvise and develop content that was unique to their needs. The content, then, was a powerful medium to subconsciously encourage the villagers to explore and push the boundaries of the technology.

Enabling this progress were the training courses, designed by Worldview. They were conceived to provide a steadily increasing amount of knowledge. The initial sessions provided the villagers with an introduction to IT, followed by practical, hands-on sessions where they were encouraged to explore the content. Towards the end, the sessions began opening up possibilities for future development and applications of the available technology.

One year on, apart from PCs, the four interactive multimedia touch screen multimedia kiosks dispersed at its main hubs, this village lying at the heart of the lush agricultural region of Northwest Selangor displays almost no sign of having made the jump into the information age. Strike up a conversation with one of the villagers, however, and you will probably hear IT terms peppered here and there as through IT has always been part of their lives.

The Internet manifests itself in various, often powerful, ways. A housewife with no higher education talks of setting up an online shopfront to market her home-based tailoring business. A university student studying in the city corresponds with her family in the village via e-mail. Demands for home PCs in the largely agrarian community have increased. One of the villagers has even started to clone computers for sale, and some have begun to design their own Websites as well as for local businesses. In many ways, the project is already integrated into everyday life in Kampung Raja Muda Musa.

In this way, SMASY has achieved its goal to leapfrog the agrarian community into the IT age. The project was designed from the outset as a new and genuine application. It combines 3 major elements – technology development, training development and community development – which are geared towards the creation of a civilised society as emphasised in Malaysia’s New Philosophy of Rural Development.

The villagers, from all walks of life and age groups, have taken to the project with much enthusiasm. While more than half of its population is made up of young people under the age of 25, the village’s elderly have also not missed out on the weekly training sessions.

The villagers have learned to live with the technology to the extent that they are beginning to customise it to suit their unique needs. Indeed, it is heartening to see pensioners and housewives, their curiosities evidently piqued, standing over the kiosks, exploring the contents and learning new things.

The SMASY project has been an outstanding success, but the journey is not yet over. Worldview will build on this foundation to extend the concept further. A wireless Internet ICT village is being designed for the remote region. The mission to narrow the digital divide and lead the rural population into the knowledge economy has only just begun.

END

Project Information

Organisation : -
Total budget in US$ : -
Country of activity : Malaysia

Contact Information

Amri Rahayat
---_______________________________________________________________________

TaniNet : An Internet-based System for the Agricultural Community http://www.taninet.com.my  

Author : Dr. Shamsul Bahar Abdul-Kadir
Date added : 2000-08-31

Brief Project Background

Despite the rapid Internet evolution in Malaysia, the farming community is not getting its full benefit. Efforts to get them use the Internet without the availability of proper resources and appropriate content are ineffective. TaniNet is an interactive on-line agricultural and biotechnological website aimed at providing the agricultural community with information on advances of planting materials and practices. The goal of TaniNet is to get the rural farming community use information and communication technology as means of accessing and sharing information and using online services. It is also to familiarize them with the latest biotechnology advances and their applicability to the Malaysian agricultural context. Community development is an important integral part of the project. Through collaborative efforts in the form of a smart partnership among the private sector, government and community organization, TaniNet has demonstrated to be an effective system using ICT for the benefit of all. Among its achievements, TaniNet has introduced on-line services and e-commerce to the rural farming community. TaniNet is set to become a specialized agricultural portal for the agricultural community within Malaysia and the Asia Pacific region.

Results

Introduction

Focus on the Malaysian agricultural sector was renewed following the Malaysia economic crisis in 1998. The decline in the exchange rate of Malaysian Ringgit (RM) compared to major world currencies has uncovered the vulnerability of Malaysian food supply and at the same time increases the awareness on the importance of the local agricultural sector.

The Malaysian government, after identifying the challenges at hand, has introduced the Third National Agricultural Policy 1998-2010 (NAP3). The NAP3 aims to meet the national food requirements through the following means [1]:

  • Enhancing competitiveness and profitability in agriculture and forestry
  • Enhancing the integrated development of the food and industrial crop sub-sectors
  • Strengthening requisite economic foundation
  • Adopting sustainable development


Other than to overcome the challenges through the methods listed, NAP3 also acknowledges the presence of diverse consumer preferences towards products. Thus, the focus of NAP3 include the use of current conventional as well as the more developed emerging technologies to achieve higher productivity and quality and to increase the competitiveness of the sector.

The use of information technology is emphasized in NAP3. It is hoped that information technology will play an important role in the acquisition and dissemination of new knowledge and technologies to motivate the involvement of youth in the agricultural sector. The utilization of computer simulated scenario analysis will also help to enhance on-farm advice and information exchange to agricultural producers [1].

In order to achieve the targets outlined in NAP3, the steps need to be taken not only by the government but also by individuals involved in the agricultural sector. An important aspect of any change is the effective dissemination of information to inform and educate the participating parties, especially farmers and smallholders. Currently, efforts to inform these target groups are done on individual and small-groups basis and this is not efficient merely because of the rapid development of new beneficial agricultural products due to the advancement in agricultural technology. Hence, a new technological solution is needed to work in parallel with the government efforts to help educate and inform the farmers and smallholders.

Currently there are a number of agricultural resource sites available on the Internet [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. However, most of these sites are tailored for the developed countries or for specific continent if not environment. A major bulk of the information available on the above mentioned websites are not applicable to the Malaysian agricultural sector due to differences in weather, crops and production techniques. Language barrier is also something that could not be denied as most web-sites use English as the medium while most Malaysian farmers are versed only in their mother tongue, the Malay language. An exception to these sites is the Malaysian Ministry of Agriculture website that is available in both languages [11].

TaniNet is created to enable the Malaysian agricultural community to use the Internet as a tool for communication and as a place to share information on agriculture and biotechnology. It also plays a vital role in attracting Malaysian farmers to use the Internet by providing them with valuable agricultural information online. TaniNet's effort to promote Internet literacy among farmers does not stop at the browser. Efforts have been made to also educate and train the farmers on how to utilize the Internet, or more specifically, TaniNet, to obtain either information on agriculture or solutions to their problems.

Since its inception for almost a year, TaniNet achievement has been measured by several performance indicators which include page hit rate, number of queries, number of respondents to an online survey, number of personalized services and many others. At later stages, TaniNet is set to become a specialized agricultural portal for the agricultural community within Malaysia and the Asia Pacific region.

The objectives and architecture if TaniNet

TaniNet is essentially an information service toolset. Its prime objective is to introduce the Malaysian rural farming community to agricultural biotechnology through an interactive internet-based service both in English and the Malaysian native language, Bahasa Melayu. This includes the following specific objectives:
  • Provide on-line information and services on agriculture and biotechnology
  • Increase local understanding of agricultural biotechnology and local applications of new technology
  • Provide a forum for discussion among rural farming community through managed bulletin board and chat room
  • Provide searchable information on agricultural biotechnology
  • Provide access to expert advice and troubleshooting related to agricultural problems via internet
  • Educate community as to use of internet to access important and useful information and services
  • Introduce e-commerce to the small and medium scale agricultural industries


From an architectural point of view, TaniNet consists of two main structures. One of the structures is a software engine structure as shown in figure 1. As a website, TaniNet is equipped with a typical set of facilities such as main articles on agricultural related topics with the support of an archiving system, bulletin board, query and FAQ services and event directory. In order to sustain and maintain a long-term relationship with the targeted community, a TaniNet membership scheme is devised. TaniNet is also designed with a strong support of product and expert databases. Over a period of time, these databases will hold most up-to-date knowledge of agricultural products and experts available within the agricultural community. Finally, TaniNet is also aimed at providing commercial services in order to self-finance its existence. For this, TaniNet is supported with various applications within e-commerce services.

The other structure is on procedural approach or activity applied to complement the software engine structure. In this structure, as shown in figure 2, online surveys and site visits are planned periodically to get up-to-date information from the farming community. Training is an important component to ensure success in meeting TaniNet objectives, particularly in terms of IT literacy. Scheduled conferences are also part of the initiatives within TaniNet to bring together the farming community into round table discussions. Online tutoring and virtual tourism are facilities accessible through TaniNet site for education and knowledge advancement. For promotional purposes, lucky gifts are given to lucky TaniNet registered members. In addition, TaniNet introduces a concept of TaniNet family, where a "family of the month" is chosen among the local farming community and published in the website with the aim of encouraging participation among the local farming community and to motivate others to strive for excellence.

Design and implementation

The design and implementation of TaniNet is a continuous and developmental process. Some components are fully operational while some are still at the design stage. The e-commerce application is the latest to be developed and was introduced on-line only about two months ago. However, one of its elements, i.e. the advertisement tool was implemented earlier to attract users. The following are discussions on the implemented tools and procedures.

Component Design:
This section provides brief description of some of the major components of TaniNet as previously outlined.

  1. Main Article - This component refers to the main article of the TaniNet homepage that focuses on some agriculture-related topic of interest. The editor chooses an article of interest for each published version of the homepage that is changed on a monthly basis. The featured topic varies among the different agricultural specialties to cater for diverse interest of the agricultural community.
  2. Bulletin Board - The design of the bulletin board is based on the concept of an interactive notice board where messages may be posted or replied to. Messages posted can be in the form of text, image or even voice. They can also be posted non-electronically by filling special forms. Anonymous messages are not allowed and reply information is required. Each message will be assigned an expiry date and will expire automatically. The bulletin board consists of three subcomponents:

    • Pasar Tani (Farmers Market) (Advertisements)
      This is where farmers may advertise their products or offer their services.
    • Peristiwa Tani (Farmers' Events) (Current Events)
      Announcements about current events related to agriculture may be posted here. Users may also request for announcements to be sent via electronic mail.
    • Tanya Pak Tani (Ask Father Farmer) (Queries and Discussions)
      This component enables farmers to pose questions regarding agriculture. Questions will be forwarded to the relevant experts selected by the editor from TaniNet's expert database. Farmers may also generate informal discussions on a current topic amongst themselves.
  3. Advertisements - A number of categories of advertisements have been defined based on where they will be displayed amongst the TaniNet web pages. For example, first class advertisements appear in the main page. Currently advertisements are placed at no charge. Later, however, a fee may be charged for placing an advertisement with rates depending on its category as well as other factors such as the size of the space allocated and its form (text/image/audio/video). Requests for placing advertisements can be made through a form provided in the bulletin board.
  4. Online Survey - Surveys provide one way of obtaining information that can be used to improve services offered by TaniNet. They also provide a means for obtaining empirical evidence on certain issues. However, filling surveys is not something that users enjoy doing. Certainly, the amount of responses received affects the quality of information that can be extracted. Bearing this in mind, the component is designed in such a way that users do not mind participating. As an incentive, gifts are given away to lucky survey participants. All information obtained from surveys is confidential and will only be used to improve the level of services provided.
  5. Membership Scheme - A membership scheme has been devised to maintain committed TaniNet users. Certain services offered by TaniNet are classified members-only in order to attract membership such as:
    • free access to the TaniNet database of articles and other agricultural information;
    • participation in TaniNet activities like organized trips, seminars and conferences;
    • personal email address with the taninet.com.my domain.

    There are three categories of membership: student, individual and corporate. Registration can be performed online via the TaniNet website. Members are registered on a yearly basis and need to renew their memberships accordingly.
  6. Archive System - In each edition of the TaniNet homepage, certain material such as the main article can be identified for archiving so that they can be referenced in future. The TaniNet archive is a repository for such material. All archive entries are indexed for retrieval purposes. Another component related to the archive is the archiver that is used by the editor to identify material for populating the archive.
  7. Expert Database - One of the objectives of TaniNet is to function as a bank of experts. Experts in the field of agriculture are identified and appointed as TaniNet affiliates. A database of information about experts in various aspects of agriculture would be a great asset to TaniNet. As one of its services, TaniNet can be consulted to assist in identifying experts who could offer advice or services. Such a service is provided commercially as a secured online service.
  8. E-commerce - a simple yet effective e-commerce service is made available, where product and supplier databases are being developed. A shopping cart is available and purchase orders can be made on-line. A payment gateway has however not been incorporated. Delivery and payments are being done conventionally off-line until further development.
  9. Search Engine - The TaniNet homepage incorporates a link to a search engine. The search engine is designed to retrieve information from the current edition of the homepage as well as from the archive system described above.


Component Integration
All TaniNet software components are put into a web server. Those components accessible by the public as well as TaniNet members are accessed via the TaniNet homepage. On the other hand, components for administrative tasks used by the management staff such as the editor are accessed separately. An example of such a component is the Query Management System that assists in handling incoming queries and forwarding responses received from the respective experts relevant to each those queries.

Implementation
The TaniNet website (www.taninet.com.my) has been set up in which the TaniNet homepage is published. Relevant content are developed with cooperation of local resource persons or agencies, and are then published onto the website in local or indigenous fashion. Community development efforts are implemented with the involvement of local farmers' organizations. For the pilot phase these efforts are focused at four areas in the state of Selangor with close cooperation with the local farmers' association in the respective areas. To bring the farming community closer to TaniNet, briefing and training sessions are provided to the community leaders, farmers and their family members. Briefings and dialogues have also been conducted at the state and national levels to obtain support and cooperation from the relevant government agencies. The local small and medium scale agricultural industries are being attracted to participate by the provision of advertisements for their products, which for the time being are being published free of cost. The farming community is also beginning to have better access to information on agriculture suppliers through these advertisements, and may also order supplies on-line through the e-commerce services.

Performance evaluation

Throughout the development and implementation of TaniNet, several attributes have been chosen to represent performance indicators. Such attributes are:

  • Hit rates
  • Number of on-line survey respondents
  • Number of queries
  • Number of membership applications
  • Number of business transactions


Performance indicator attribute is used to indicate whether the project is on track towards achieving its primary objectives or otherwise. One of them is the number of hits. Figure 3 shows the number of hits for the last ten months.

Month No. of Hits
Nov. 1999 - Feb. 2000 1,044
March 2000 722
April 2000 794
May 2000 1,335
June 2000 1,773
July 2000 3,643
August (upto 16th) 2000 2,256
TOTAL (upto 28thAug '00) 11,567
Figure 3: Number of TaniNet visitors

The total number of hits achieved by the middle of August 2000 is more than 10,000 hits. It is important to note that the TaniNet website has not been widely publicized at this stage. It is only recently that the website is registered with search engine sites such as www.cari.com.my, www.catcha.com.my, www.yahoo.com and www.altavista.com.

Another attribute is the number of on-line survey respondents [12]. Currently the number of respondents is 486, whereas the target number is 250 respondents only. Other than getting the necessary feedback, this is a positive indication of interest within the society to participate in such an on-line service.

The number of queries posted can also be used to gauge the performance of TaniNet. So far, TaniNet has received 133 queries regarding various agricultural issues, of which 87 are received in the last three months (see figure 4). An example is a query received regarding a problem of Jasmine plants that have been infested with white flies. Another example is a question about the most suitable fish that eat weeds in ponds. Where necessary the queries are referred to the TaniNet panel of experts. Currently TaniNet has registered 39 experts in various specialties of agruculture.

Type of Question No. of Queries
Horticulture 35
Livestock 9
Cash Crops 7
Industrial Crops 5
Aquaculture 4
Land Management 4
Biotechnology 3
Marketing 3
Extension 2
Finance 2
Agro-forestry 2
Others 11
Total 87
Figure 4: Different type of queries
(June 1 - August 28, 2000)

The performance of TaniNet has also been evaluated in terms of registered members. Figure 5 shows the number of members so far. Although most of the members are from within Malaysia, it is interesting to note that there is interest from the international community represented by a small number of international members of TaniNet. It is necessary to note that the content of TaniNet has so far been focused to the local community.

Country No. of registeredMembers
Malaysia 932
Foreign 8
Total 940
Figure 5: TaniNet membership

Towards the end of the first year demonstration phase, the management of TaniNet is beginning to explore areas of business opportunities. In the area of advertisements, 90 individuals and companies have already placed their advertisements in TaniNet website, consisting of 48 classifieds (short advertisements), 15 of half-page advertisements and 27 advertisements with pictures. One of the local farmers associations has reported at least ten business transactions arising from the advertisements. There were also queries from farming communities asking for TaniNet's assistance in developing their web-based applications. With these responses, together with the start of on-line commerce activities, we believe that TaniNet is capable of progressing within the commercial Internet world.

Community development

In applying Internet based applications to community development, the use of local content and culture compatibility has been very much emphasized [13]. With this in mind, TaniNet has been developed using indigenous content ranging from popular style articles to academic and research articles from Malaysian scientists and agriculturalists. The web-site presentation is based on a magazine format with updates done regularly, from weekly for announcements and news articles to longer intervals for other components of the website. The user interface has been made user friendly to both the farmer in the field and the scientist in the laboratory.

An important component in the whole implementation of TaniNet is training for users and potential users. For users at government agencies and corporations, briefings and talks are carried out to introduce TaniNet and to promote use of TaniNet as a community development tool, both in terms of building commercial communities and for social and economic development of the rural and underserved farming communities. Members of the farming community are given hands-on introductory training on use of the personal computer, accessing the Internet and skills to access information and services offered by TaniNet. The training modules and implementation are tailored to achieve maximum impact within the constraints of time and infrastructure availability. An example to dispel any fear of technology among the rural farmers and the older generation is the dissembling of the pc and letting them hold and touch the components while explaining in simple language the functions of the components. For instance, the computer mouse is dissembled to show its simple internal structure including the way the mouse ball operates. At this pilot phase of TaniNet the beginnings of a mind set change has been observed among the rural farming community. Interestingly, with the demonstration of TaniNet, a mind set change as to the use of ICT has also been observed among the leaders, including senior government officials and leaders.

TaniNet started in September 1999 as a Demonstrator Application project under the Demonstrator Application Grant Scheme or DAGS. DAGS is within the ambit of the National Information Technology Council (NITC). Among the main objectives of this grant scheme is to acculturate Malaysians to Information and Communication Technology (ICT), enabling them to maximize the benefit of ICT applications at work and at home (14).
The development of TaniNet thus far is a result of a smart partnership among a number of parties. The Government, through the NITC provides a financial grant to cover a major part of the first year development costs, and through the DAGS Secretariat assisted in project conceptualization, monitoring and evaluation. The main promoter, TropBio Research Sdn Bhd, a private limited company involved in biotechnology, provides the leadership and development of editorial content. Another private limited company, Bionergy Sdn Bhd, an IT solutions and training provider, provides the IT inputs and leads the community development efforts.

Community development efforts are carried out with close cooperation of the Farmers Organization Authority at the Federal and State levels, and the local farmers' associations at the district or village levels, namely Area Farmers Associations. For the pilot phase, four Area Farmers Associations in the state of Selangor are chosen as the initial target population. TaniNet has been well received by the farmers associations and their members judging by their response to the training sessions, feedback from their community leaders and results of the performance indicators as stated above.

Among the many comments received is that the TaniNet website provides a friendly user interface, easy and fast to access and download. An attractive feature for the farming community is that they can easily and without much hassle place advertisements of their products onto the website, and are now starting to receive inquiries and purchase orders. Marketing has been a main concern among the small and medium scale farmers and now TaniNet may have provided the answer to their need. The ability to pose queries and questions as to their individual problems and getting responses within 24 hours, at least in the form of acknowledgement, has impressed the farmers as to the capability of ICT applications, and TaniNet has provided the farmer easy access to the experts in the respective fields.

Conclusion

This story is about an internet-based system called TaniNet that has been successfully implemented to demonstrate the effective use of ICT for the benefit of the farming community. With the proposed software engine structure and procedural approach structure, TaniNet has become a comprehensive toolset as an interactive and on-line information service provider. As indicated by our evaluation, TaniNet is the tool for future communication within the farming community locally and abroad. Training and community development efforts are important components of the project. TaniNet's development has been achieved through close cooperation and collaboration in the form of a smart partnership among the government, private corporations and community organizations. Finally, we believe that with a concerted effort, TaniNet can be realized as an agricultural portal for current and future agricultural management and business activities.

Lessons

http://www.taninet.com.my 

Project Information

Organisation : -
Total budget in US$ : -

Contact Information

Dr. Shamsul Bahar Abdul-Kadir

 
 

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