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The project began in 1998 in the village of Bario in the highlands of northern Sarawak, one of the East-
Malaysian states that make up Borneo. At that time, Bario's population of around 1,000 was dwindling,
communications with the outside world were rudimentary, mobile phones were unheard of, no-one knew
anything of the internet, nobody used a computer, households had to generate their own electricity,
agriculture depended on imported labour, there was no road access from the main city of Miri from which
there was less than one ight per day by the scheduled 20-seater airplane service. The project, which became
known as eBario, introduced computers and the internet in the form of school laboratories and a community
telecentre for shared access.

The people in the area are mostly of the Kelabit indigenous ethnic minority, with their own culture and
language, both of which are under threat of extinction as members of the group disperse and integrate into
the dominant social and economic structure of Malaysia. The premise undertaken by researchers at Universiti
Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) was to introduce ICTs in order to empower the community to direct change along
a pathway of their own choosing rather than one imposed upon them by outsiders. The signi cance of this
becomes apparent by the fact that there are 370 million indigenous people in the world living in about 70
countries; roughly 75% of them living in Asia. The World Bank claims that indigenous people represent around
5% of the world’s population but 15% of the world’s poor population. Among the many social groups that have
been historically excluded, they say, indigenous peoples comprise one that o ers the greatest challenges to
development.

In 2007 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). In it, they acknowledge that indigenous peoples have su ered from historic
injustices as a result of colonization and dispossession of their lands, territories and resources, and that this
has prevented them from exercising their right to development in accordance with their own needs and
interests. The UNDRIP also voices the UN’s conviction that control by indigenous peoples over developments
a ecting them will enable them to promote such development. Despite approval of the UNDRIP, in practice,
most of the dominant societies that include indigenous peoples continue to follow assimilationist policies in
relation to their development. Such policies often ignore the speci c needs of indigenous peoples’
development and rights that are enshrined in the UNDRIP. They assume that what might be good for the
whole country will also be good for them, which in practice is often not the case. Orthodox development often
damages indigenous livelihoods, destroys their environment, robs their natural resources, belittles their
cultures and brings them into new forms of poverty.