Towards meeting information needs of rural community: transforming access to value creation

Despite numerous initiatives and efforts by the public and private sectors to bring access of ICT and the Internet to the rural communities, there appears to be a lack of value added benefit that the community can gain from the diffusion of ICT. Studies have shown that the lack of local content, IT illiteracy, and affordability are among the factors that contribute to the rural community’s lack of interest to adopt IT. This paper therefore aims to conceptualize the idea that a proper categorization of information based on the needs of local community has the potential to transform a community with ICT access into ensuring its appropriation by the community to access value added information for their socio-economic benefits. Based on a survey of 203 respondents from twelve neighbouring villages in the northern region of Malaysia, information needs of the local community were identified and prioritized. A telecentre ecosystem was examined to neutralize gaps within the ecosystem that can affect potential for value creation and in the long term contribute to sustainability of the telecentre. Keywords: NSF-BDD; bridging the digital divide; ICT diffusion; ICT adoption; telecentre ecosystem;