Undoubtedly, SAINS or Sarawak Information Network System has gone a long way from the user of Internet to become producer of original solutions. To date, it has designed and developed more than 200 original solutions, which have been implemented through 1000s of projects in the State’s public sector.
The solutions are being marketed through partners in New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Oman and Canada. The business strategy, though relatively new, is growing. Understandably, the road ahead will see products and partnerships maturing in width and depth.
SAINS started building applications mainly with proprietary technologies. However, it is increasingly turning to open source technologies, which allows it to build independent solutions with greater freedom to integrate solutions with other technologies. Ultimately, it translates into ability to compete internationally and better bottom line.
Understandably, SAINS is committed to undertake new solutions with open source technologies and reduce the use of proprietary technologies even in the existing systems. On the occasion of its 20th Anniversary, SAINS announces its new solution for Medical Centre and Hospital Information and Management system. The solution, branded as my1Healthcare Solution, is ready to take on Malaysian as well as international markets.
The local healthcare industry has already shown great interest in the solution, which will be marketed through partners in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and China. The product, coupled with video conferencing and satellite technologies, has the potential to bring greater efficiency to the flying doctor service in rural Sarawak.
On education, SAINS has been seeking collaboration with the Ministry of Education (MOE) on how it can assist the schools, those in remote areas in particular. A pilot collaboration branded as “Sekolah Kamek” has been launched with the objective to assist rural schools in the management of their website in terms of security as well as e-learning content.
SAINS, as a successful business entity, is conscious of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). For example, its Rural ICT Guided Home-based Technopreneur (RIGHT) initiative, which started in 2006, is gaining recognition both locally and internationally. It is looking forward for partners for long- term collaboration to jointly bridge the urban-rural digital divide.
SAINS, as a successful business entity, is conscious of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). For example, its Rural ICT Guided Home-based Technopreneur (RIGHT) initiative, which started in 2006, is gaining recognition both locally and internationally. It is looking forward for partners for long- term collaboration to jointly bridge the urban-rural digital divide.
Besides SAINS is collaborating with Sarawak Society for the Blind and Malaysian Council for Rehabilitation to teach the visually impaired persons to use Sarawak e-Government applications. Besides, SAINS will also assist in the hosting of training materials for rehabilitation care givers in rural Sarawak.
Pehin Sri Abdul Taib, in his speech during the 20th anniversary of SAINS, suggests that SAINS could design a program to reach rural areas for it to become part of the government’s productive way to bridge the digital divide. The rural people, the young ones in particular in areas where the penetration of Internet is still low, must be progressively re-oriented from their own vision or from what they have been doing in their own settings to the new way of doing things.
Generally, the people, at this stage of development, must be given appropriate motivation to ensure that they remain in the mainstream of development and be current, for example, on the emphasis on the relevancy of technical education. Therefore, it is advisable for SAINS to come up with a program that can arouse interests of young people on technical education.
Pehin Sri Abdul Taib says young people must be able to acknowledge the relevancy of technical education in anticipation of 52% of more than 1.5 jobs to be created in the next 20 years will be technically biased. Perhaps, SAINS should consider making RIGHT program to be more inclusive in order to serve more people in the new setting and environment.
He agrees that the concept of Rural ICT Guided Home based Technopreneur (RIGHT) is a good program but it should be made more comprehensive in order to attract rural youth to pursue technical education. In other words, RIGHT program is good but not good enough for SCORE as it is now.
SAINS was established as Sarawak Computerisation Services (SCS) Sdn. Bhd. in 1991 to replace the State Computerisation Committee (SCC), which was set up in 1986 under MAMPU Sarawak to undertake corporate approach to computerisation for the State Government.
Then Sarawak was among the lowest in terms of computerisation in Malaysia. A new strategy had to be adopted in order to leapfrog the field. The MAMPU practice to coordinate project implementation by vendors effectively from outside Sarawak could not be used to solve the State’s problem of being the lowest in terms of computerization.
The SCS was renamed Sarawak Information Systems Sdn. Bhd. or SAINS in 1994. Henceforth, the State’s requirements for ICT skills would be sourced through SAINS, which, apart from undertaking all ICT work, would also attach ICT staff to agencies that require such services.
Understandably, SAINS, in the early years, had to face with a lot of resistance from agencies. Many of them were doubtful that it would be able to perform up to expectation. Hence, SAINS owes its continued existence and success to the support and confidence of the Chief Minister, Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud in its operations. He was reported to have said during a briefing that that he would be very happy if all State agencies and statutory bodies could be managed and run like SAINS.
He could recognize the significance of projects being undertaken by SAINS within the overall big picture including the huge potential of the Internet, which was unfolding. Pehin Sri Abdul Taib’s confidence in SAINS, until today, is being regarded as the greatest morale booster to all staff, who had been getting negative reception and lack of appreciation from customers for their work.
By 1997, SAINS, only three years after getting into serious development of systems, started to attract the attention of other state governments for its achievements. Among the earliest visitor was Sabah though it had already been rated among the top ICT utilizing states in Malaysia. Later it became very apparent to both parties that overall Sarawak was already well ahead.
Subsequently, other states as well as many Federal agencies visited Sarawak, after the launching of SarawakNet, the first state wide area network in Malaysia. Sarawaknet remains the biggest and most comprehensive network in terms of content, services and security. Uniquely, it was planned, designed, built, operated and supported completely in-house.
SAINS has undertaken a number of significant projects at the Federal Government level. Among them are the e-Syariah project, the e-Court project, the Ubiquitous Library project and the e-Welfare project.
The e-Syariah project was officially launched in September 2005. In 2006, it was voted the best EG-MSC Flagship Application in conjunction with the “Telehealth & E-Government Flagship Seminar: Flagship Lessons Learnt, Best Practices & Transformation” and subsequently won the Prime Minister’s ICT Quality Award.
The Integrated Court Solution (ICS), implemented for 80 courts in Sabah and Sarawak, won the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (APICTA) award in 2008 and the United Nations World Submit Award in 2009. Until today it remains the only winner of the UN WSA in the ASIAN region.
The APICTA award is the highest corporate sector ICT award in Malaysia. The Ubiquitous Library or U-Library Solution has again won APICTA award for the year 2011. SAINS has now achieved the rare distinction of winning the APICTA award three times. The first time was in 2004 with the TimberNet solution.
Today, SAINS is a leader in web portal business, especially in providing on-line e-Government services. With this capability, SAINS has consistently assisted the State to achieve the 5-star ratings for the Sarawak Government web portal. Besides, the website for the Federal DID Department created by SAINS has been judged the top among all public sector websites in Malaysia for 2011.
benuasains
*Photos Source:
http://www.sains.com.my
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