Community Based ICT4D: Indonesia’s Experience

Onno W. Purbo (onno@indo.net.id)
Sabbatical leave at International Development Research Center (IDRC)
Acknowledgement.
Supported by IDRC, the essence of this paper is presented at WSIS 2003. I’d like to thank my friends, e.g., Judith MS, Basuki Suhardiman, Donny BU, Bona Simandjuntak, Donny, Adi, Noor, M. Ichsan, Michael Sunggiardi, Heru Nugroho, Ase, Rusmanto etc.who voluntarily work hard to help the community.

Introduction
Indonesia 1993, there was no cybercafé, no schools on the Internet, few ICT books, few ICT magazine, and a handful Internet Users. In addition, no funding from World Bank, no funding from IMF, and not much government support received.
Dominated by young university students connected to the Internet using walkie-talkie and radio rig running on 144MHz Very High Frequency (VHF) band at 1200 bps. Throughput is low. It takes 12 hours to transfer e-mails of total one Mbyte. Used 286 acts as our first gateway & mail server running KA9Q TCP/IP switch on MS-DOS connected to a homebrew 1200 bps packet radio modem. Such simple equipment is good enough to set a strong foundation for future Indonesian community based ICT infrastructure. It is all driven by a simple vision “to see Indonesian knowledge based society”.
Ten years later today, 2003, we are looking at 7+ Million Indonesian Internet Users (source: http://www.apjii.or.id); 5000+ WiFi outdoor installations; 2000+ Cybercafés; 1500+ schools on the Internet; 1000+ Community Radio; 20+ ICT Magazine; hundreds books title and the most important ones is the existence of hundreds local ICT authors who write the ICT books and articles in local Indonesian language. No funding from World Bank, no funding from IMF, and not much government support received.
This paper will describe the alternative path towards a self-finance community based ICT infrastructure based on ten years field experience in Indonesia.
Basic Condition
No support and funding from the Government, World Bank and IMF are ever assumed. Typical lunch on street hawker costs US$0.25/lunch. Spare of US$0.10-0.50/students/month is affordable in most cases. Middle class families in urban may spare US$15-30/month.
There was lack of ICT knowledge, books, magazines and, thus, basically no local ICT content in the early days for the network deployment. ICT skills are limited to few good university students with access to ICT knowledge in English. Unfortunately, Indonesians are not read-write communities; we lean towards listen-talk communities.
Basic Premise
	There is some money in the communities. US$0.10-0.50/month/students means US$100-500/month/school. US$15-30/house means US$300-600/month/20 neighbors. A commercially offered 64Kbps dedicated 24 hour Internet link is about US$350-400/month.

Community Building Strategy
	In 1993, we basically started by relying on discussion platform for those who are interested in computer networking and the Internet. Mailing lists are used as the main vehicle to get young Indonesian ICT enthusiast together. Mind you, we are looking at a slow e-mail discussion platform at 1200bps.
	Several articles on the existence of this slow radio network appeared on Indonesia national newspaper. It drawn the attention many other universities and schools to join in at 1200bps. Tacit / implicit knowledge exchange among ICT enthusiasts continue and spread all over Indonesia.
	Having ICT articles were not enough; a more comprehensive knowledge on ICT skills was needed. Having daily technical e-mail discussions help these young students to analyze and synthesis ICT knowledge into a more useful form. Three (3) years later, 1996, the one of the first practical ICT book (not a translation) written by young Indonesian students. Elexmedia Komputindo published one of the first ICT book entitled “TCP/IP concept, design and implementation”. This book, as well as later publications defines the foundation for Indonesian community to move forward.
	In my lecture, no exams, I asked my students to write five (5) articles, and, later, one (1) book published to get an A. It basically shifts the education paradigm from being knowledge consumer into knowledge producer. These students received about US$500-700 of royalty; a good enough incentive for a student with US$30 monthly living cost. Later, many students from all over Indonesia, asked me to become the co-author of their book.
	Today 2003, we have hundreds ICT book titles supported by hundreds young ICT authors. Their books disseminate the practical ICT knowledge to the communities; as well as convince the communities to invest their own ICT infrastructure. A US$2000 investment for computer lab and Internet access at schools pays back in 1-2 years rely on US$0.50/students/month; similarly in Cybercafé. Fortunately cost of IT equipments is getting lower and user-friendly. Thus, it would be possible to build an infrastructure from the people, by the people and for the people. Not surprising to see the ICT infrastructure move towards Neighborhood Network as an extension of Cyber Café configuration.
	The whole process is good for the equipment manufacturers as well as many spin-off network service companies. It is not surprising to see them provide a significant amount of funding to do road shows, seminars, workshops, radio / television talk shows as well as donating some equipments for those who do the research and write articles / books. A rate of 2-3 seminars or workshops / week in 2-3 different cities is fairly typical.
	Information community education process is the basic strategy. It relies heavily on people’s power to shift the mindset of being a producer rather than consumer; demand driven rather than supply driven; and community based rather than operator based infrastructure.
Indonesia Community Based ICT infrastructure
Today, we have about 100.000 Indonesian mailing lists on various topics. It is the basic platform that drives the people’s movement. Knowledge is power, share it and it will multiply. We’ll see the true power of knowledge.
The basic technology used is WiFi for outdoors, VoIP, open source blend into a neighborhood network. Most of the practical & technical knowledge on community based ICT infrastructure can be freely downloaded from http://sandbox.bellanet.org/~onno/ and http://www.apjii.or.id/onno/. The mailing list is located at wifi4d@dgroups.org.
The Catch
There is a catch to the strategy. We need local informal champions the one who has the vision; knows the way; shows the way and goes the way. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to find one.