Contact: Cik Sarina bt. Ishak
T/F: +60 4 866-2706
M: +60 19 437-0147
E: ena@balikpulau.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RURAL FOLKS TO JOIN THE MALAYSIA’S 5% ELITES VIA ‘BLOG BASH’ – KNOWLEDGE-SHARING @ KONGSI, BALIK PULAU, PENANG
Social Entrepreneurs Club of Balik Pulau Launching Campaign via Rural Internet Centre on Sunday, 22 MAR 2009, To Not Just Bridge Digital Divide But Push Mass Local Empowerment Via New Participatory Media/Web 2.0 Technologies
While most villagers, or even urbaners are enjoying their day-off on Sunday morning, and folks in Balik Pulau congregating at the weekly “Agro Market” (Pasar Tani) near the local Rapid Penang bus depot, as many as a hundred internet and new media enthusiasts including the local village folks will congregate not too far away near a K-Komuniti Building to share and learn on how to collaborate using high-tech Web 2.0 tools, including Facebook, Twitter and Google Docs, which are rather unheard of by more than 95% Malaysians as of to-date.
Kelab Usahawan Sosial Balik Pulau (KUSBP) with support from the multiple award-winning Pusat Internet Desa of Balik Pulau (PIDBP), an initiative by the Malaysian Ministry of Energy, Water and Communication (KTAK) is organizing a full-day program ‘Blog Bash 2009’, themed “Community Media for Local Socio-economic Development” in the 3-in-1 forms of forum, seminar and workshop on Web 2.0 media technologies this Sunday, 22 MAR 2009 at Dewan Balora Mastika (next to K-Komuniti/JKKK Kongsi Building), Balik Pulau, Pulau Pinang.
The first-ever held open program is in collaboration with Technopreneur Development Division (TeDD) of the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC/MSC Malaysia), Penang Association of ICT Entrepreneurs (ICT Penang) and the Southwest District of Penang’s Council for Entrepreneur Development (MPUD-DBDPP).Yang Berhormat Sr. Hj Muhamad Farid bin Hj Saad, Chairman of MPUD-DBDPP who is also the present ADUN for Pulau Betong, Balik Pulau and Advisor to PID Balik Pulau, is scheduled to officiate the event and initiative launch starting at 8:30am.
Pn. Siti Huraizah bt. Abdul Rahman, Honorary Secretary for the newly formed KUSBP who also currently serves as the resident supervisor for PID Balik Pulau said, “We want to empower the local community with cutting-edge means to elevate everyone’s potentials, not just for them to be ‘celik IT’ (IT-literate). Then only can every Malaysian no matter where each chooses to reside, can take advantage of various programs that MSC Malaysia is making available for many years now.”
Siti Huraizah also pointed out that the tiny PID Balik Pulau situated at the annex of the local Pos Malaysia office has provided various IT services to more than 10,000 local residents over the last few years, of which, over 1,200 has registered as its members.
The morning sessions will include presentations on the trends, evolution and other studies on both traditional and new mass media, and a discussion forum to be participated by all four quadrants of the society – policy makers and government agencies, business/industry, academic and social NGO. Among confirmed participants for the forum include En. Roslan Bakri Zakaria (General Manager of TeDD-MDeC, caretaker of the MSC Malaysia implementation), En. Rohizam Yusoff (Penang-born CEO of VirtualMalaysia.com Sdn Bhd, a multiple award-winning MSC-status company), En. Mohd Ansari Abdul Rahman (Vice Chairman of TechBiz Penang, a business cluster under InvestPenang), Pn Elia Mastura Kamaruddin (E-Public Relation Manager for Yayasan Kemajuan Sosial Malaysia - YKSM), and academic representatives from regional educational institutions. En. Adenan Sayan, a Balik Pulau “boy” who now markets herbal products to worldwide buyers from his growing Klang Valley base will also be joining the forum as a panel member.
To engage attendees, the afternoon sessions of Blog Bash 2009 @ Balik Pulau is crafted to run at least four parallel workshops on specific Web 2.0 tools including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WikiMedia and Google Docs. Other topics considered, based on request by participants which can be submitted while registering at http://kusbp.pp.my (official website for KUSBP) include among others, ecommerce-related dropshipping, Paypal online-payment, trading on eBay , AliBaba, Lelong, Mudah, 1K etc. Participants will later be able to draft their impromptu presentation on chosen topics for public-sharing and future collaboration.
En. Nasir Sobri, Honorary Secretary for ICT Penang, who also currently serves as the Vice Chairman of KUSBP commented, “We are very much pleased to work with ‘Rakan-rakan PID’, or also known as RaPID, to connect entrepreneurs in the ICT industry with the local community in knowledge-sharing events like this.”
ICT Penang’s main agenda, according to Nasir, is to acculturate the local community with entrepreneurship skills and ICT knowledge in order to generate more progressive entrepreneurs, especially among the Bumiputra residents of Penang.
“As in the past, we have had the pleasure to work with many other organizations including Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), MCA ICT Resource Centre (MiRC), Warisan Global (WG), Rural Internet Centre (PID) of Balik Pulau, YKSM and MDEC particularly during the recent annual Global Entrepreneurship Week event back in November 2008. This year, we plan to work with many more organizations especially with academic institutions for the week of 16-22 November 2009 to cultivate the culture of entrepreneurship, especially among our youths, fresh graduates etc, and enable these entrepreneurs to generate local employments to counter the present global financial crisis.” Nasir added.Blog Bash 2009 happens to be one of the first events in Malaysia to include Twitter, a social micro-sharing web service as one of its focus topic. Although Twitter has accelerated to be the fastest growing community on the Web throughout 2008 with over 1300% annual growth according to the latest Nielsen Research report (GlobalFaces, March 2009), accumulating well over ten million users especially from the United States, Korea, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Australia among others, Twitter users in Malaysia currently number to no more than 5,000 as of March 2009, but is growing fast in the past two months of January and February 2009 -- Amazon.com’s Alexa web traffic statistics shows that web traffic has jumped four-fold globally (or at least two-fold in Malaysia), for the twitter.com website in just the two months of Jan-Feb 2009.
Participants in this Blog Bash (named after a favorite online activity in Malaysia being the nation placed at the fourth position globally for the interest on the word “blog”, just behind Vietnam, France and Singapore -- according to the Google Trends web search service) who are interested to explore avenues to turn their IT passion into entrepreneurial ventures will be offered guidance accordingly, in collaboration with MDEC among others, including via the “MSC Malaysia Innotech Interstate – Northern” event, the first of the four legs national stops, set to start three days afterwards on the 25th and 26th of March 2009, at the Penang Development Corporation (PDC) office complex in Bayan Baru, Pulau Pinang.
KUSBP is accepting registration for Blog Bash 2009 at its http://usahawan.balikpulau.org website. To ensure effective sessions, the afternoon technical workshop is limited to 50 first registrants only, based on online registration, open until 6pm on Saturday, 21 MAR 2009. For assistance, contact Project Blog Bash 2009 team at (04) 866-2706 (phone/fax) or email to kusbp@pp.my
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If you’d like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview please contact Kelab Usahawan Sosial Secretariat @ Pusat Internet Desa Balik Pulau at (04) 866-2706 or e-mail to kusbp@pp.my
Kelab Usahawan Sosial Balik Pulau (KUSBP)
Social Entrepreneurs Club (KUS) of Balik Pulau as with the other similar clubs at each of the 42 Rural Internet Centres (PID – nationwide ‘telecentre’ establishments by the Malaysian Government via the Ministry of Energy, Water and Communication - KTAK), was established in August 2008 to enable PID in offering more beneficial services to the wider local community, beyond with just Internet access and related telecommunication services. The mechanism of KUS is to offer sustainability model to PIDs, which are being progressively shifted from the government-supported model towards community-supported model as with many other telecentres around the world. Hence, although KUS Balik Pulau is a not-for-profit entity, it has initiated several business ventures to self-sustain itself, while at the same time offers a platform for existing and would-be entrepreneurs to network and collaborate for common benefits towards positive, local socio-economic developments. More information about KUS Balik Pulau can be obtained at its blog-centric website, http://kusbp.pp.my or from the PID-based secretariat via phone/fax at +60 4 866-2706. Honorary Secretary (2008-) for KUS Balik Pulau, Pn. Siti Huraizah bt. Abdul Rahman can be contacted at +60 19 579-6575 or ija@balikpulau.org Persatuan Usahawan ICT Pulau Pinang (ICT Penang)
Penang Association of ICT Entrepreneurs (ICT Penang), as registered with the Registrar of Societies (ROS) Malaysia since 2007 is a not-for-profit Penang-based society dedicated for improving socio-economic status of Malay entrepreneurs and companies. Though, its memberships are open to include Malay-centric organizations (with 51% or more ownership or memberships) and Malay individuals located anywhere in the world. A committee board consisting of eight business-owning members engages ICT Penang in various business ventures and ICT acculturation activities. As of March 2009, ICT Penang has registered over 200 members from various industries and professions (including 58 companies), and has successfully ran various activities involving hundreds of individuals as well as participated in various regional, national and global events. Through its continuous and aggressive activities, ICT Penang intends to grow its membership to surpass 400 by 2010 (not including free memberships through its community portals such as TechPenang.com or Akademi.Asia training programmes). More information is available at its blog website, http://ictpenang.com or from its secretariat via phone at +60 4 250-3015 (Pn. Sharifah Suenan) or fax at +60 4 262 9903. Honorary Secretary (2007-2009) for ICT Penang, En. Nasir Sobri can be contacted at +60 16 416-2747 or nasir@1oasis.netREGISTER TODAY, AT LATEST BY 6PM, Saturday, 21 MAR 2009 at HTTP://KUSBP.PP.MY
Just RM10 fee, to learn from EXPERTS from the Government, Business/Industry, Academic and Social NGO, including three experts from Kuala Lumpur!
FREE FOOD AND CERTIFICATES FOR WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS. LIMITED TO FIRST 50 REGISTRANTS!
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