Songan, P., Hamid, K., Yeo, A. W., Gnaniah, J., & Zen, H. (2006). Challenges to Community Informatics to Bridging the Digital Divide. Idea Group Inc.

The authors of this article, all representing the University Malaysia Sarawak in Malaysia, mention the term Community Informatics (CI) as the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) applied to reduce or eliminate the “digital divide”. CI was first introduced by Michael Gurstein in his article with the same name in the year 2000. From the e-Bario initiative in Malaysia, the authors demonstrate that ICT needs to be provided with education and training.

The challenges identified to bridge the digital divide using ICT are: 1) the cost of the infrastructure to maintain constant connectivity; 2) the language of the resources, usually the non-native language English; 3) the coordination of approaches using skilled human resources with rural population; and 4) the awareness about the ICT being introduced in the rural and surrounding communities.

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- Community Informatics (CI) is the application of ICT to overcome the “digital divide”
- Although the information revolution threatens to increase income inequity, nationally and internationally, it can provide tools, which can dramatically reduce isolation and poverty and alleviate its worst effects.
- The World Bank recommends a systematic approach to the application of ICT to the needs of rural communities.
- the economics of telecommunications are related to distance. The greater the distance from communities of interest, the greater the savings in travel costs and time. … In gaining access to information, geography alone places rural people at a disadvantage compared to urbanites
- The e-Barrio project is one of the most notable of Malaysia’s Internet development initiatives.
- the project demonstrates that ICT cannot just be “dropped” in a rural village, but needs to be accompanied by training and education to be successful and sustainable.
- Based on the experience of the e-Bario project, the challenges that are faced in using ICT for bridging the digital divide are largely related to the aspects that are described below:
- - Costly Infrastructure, Connectivity and Use
- - Language of Resources
- - - The contents of training manuals and the materials that are available on the Internet are primarily in English, which are not understood by many people in the rural areas.
- - Coordinated Approaches and Skilled Human Resources
- - Awareness in Development of ICT among Rural Communities
- - - the Government has been promoting the advantages of the “k-economy” in which dependence on physical resources will give way to the exploitation of knowledge resources in the future development of the economy