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Malaysian Internet boat surfs into Borneo


In this story:

Bridging digital divide

RELATED STORIES, SITES icon



KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (Reuters) -- Malaysia will pioneer waterborne Net surfing next year when it launches an Internet boat to educate isolated villagers on Borneo Island about information technology (IT).

The vessel will cruise the jungle-fringed Rajang River in the state of Sarawak, docking at villages every few hours to teach residents how to use computers and surf the Net, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) dean of information technology, Khairuddin Abdul Hamid, told Reuters on Wednesday.

"We want to introduce IT to the community so that before the actual infrastructure comes in a few years time, they are prepared," Khairuddin said in a phone interview from the capital of Sarawak, Kuching.

Students will be the main users of the 1-million ringgit ($263,000) boat, which will ply the river with 20 networked computers each with Internet access, Khairuddin said. Three Sarawak manufacturers have submitted blueprints for the craft whose maiden voyage is scheduled for June 2001.

In 1999 Malaysia launched the Mobile Internet Unit, a bus converted into a rolling computer/Internet laboratory that traveled to rural schools near the federal capital Kuala Lumpur introducing students to computers and the Internet.

The country is also known for the Multimedia Super Corridor, a 750-sq-km (290-sq-mile) zone extending south from Kuala Lumpur to Cyberjaya, the high-tech hub that is home to many multinational firms and Putrajaya, the newly-built 'wired' administrative capital.

Bridging digital divide

The floating classroom is one attempt to tackle the so-called digital divide in Malaysia between those who know IT and the IT illiterate, Khairuddin said.

Malaysia's minister responsible for telecommunications said last week that closing the knowledge gap is one of the country's two main challenges in the IT field. The other is to increase the overall number of people using the Internet.

That number, the Internet penetration rate, stands at about nine per cent in the country of 23 million people, while neighboring Singapore boasts a 30 percent rate. Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea also have higher rates than Malaysia.

Unimas researchers recently loaded computers onto buffaloes for the final stretch of their voyage to Bario, an isolated community in Sarawak's Kelabit highlands and home of another university IT project.

That effort, known as e-bario, will initially involve wiring a 'smart' school to introduce students to IT. The second step will be to discover if residents of the community of scattered villages could use wired technologies for social development, especially to reverse the outflow of young people lured by jobs to Malaysia's towns and cities.

Khairuddin said Unimas would apply to the government's IT council for the 1.5 million ringgit it needed for the Internet boat project.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.



RELATED STORIES:
Racing to Wire Asia
December 1, 2000
TIME Asia: 'People Want to Use the Internet Anywhere, Anytime'
November 20, 2000
Study: Internet use in Asia matches the West
September 6, 2000
Asian leaders meet to grapple with Internet growth
July 13, 2000
Wireless showdown looms in Asia
August 28, 2000

RELATED SITES:
Mobile Internet Unit
Multimedia Super Corridor


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