Bario Community Radio a possibility by year-end

http://www.theborneopost.com/2011/07/13/bario-community-radio-a-possibility-by-year-end/

Posted on July 13, 2011, Wednesday

KUCHING: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) expects to launch its pilot project, Bario Community Radio, by end of this year.

Associate Professor Dr Alvin Yeo from the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology (FCSIT) said the Kelabit-language station would allow Bario residents to communicate with each other.

“It’s like a one-stop centre for information. Let’s say someone out there don’t have Internet access they can call the station and ask for information about a certain topic. The person at the station can go online, look for the information and share it through the radio,” Yeo said.
The project, an extension of the e-Bario centre, is funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

According to Yeo, they already had the licence to operate the community radio but they first needed to talk with the federal government, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture.

The university’s vice-chancellor Associate Professor Datuk Dr Khairuddin Abdul Hamid added that the project was the university’s initiative to bring technology into the rural area.

“E-Bario is a good lab for innovation. We’re now upgrading the infrastructure the first one since we introduced e-Bario. We have introduced a long range Wifi. From Bario, we can connect to a number of longhouses and villages in the (Bario) area,” he said during a press conference after the launch of the 7th International Conference on IT in Asia (CITA) 2011.

He added that Bario was very well aware of the available technology and were pushing for them to introduce those technologies into the area.