THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO RURAL COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT MODEL (Case Study: Balai Informasi Masyarakat and Warung Masyarakat Informasi)

• Main Author: INTAN NURWENDAH (NIM: 24009015), EVA
• Format: Theses
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/22003
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Nowadays, most of the potential natural resources in Indonesia can be found in rural areas. However, most of rural population is dominated by poor people. It reflects a significant gap between the resources they have and their ability to use them. Therefore, some efforts are needed to be done for improving their ability to increase their quality of life. It can be done through the community empowerment program. <br /> <br /> <br /> Basically, community empowerment is an open and fair way for people to actualize their skill and ability. As information technology has improved, community empowerment can also be done by using information technology. Through information technology, the community will be more open to a variety of information required. <br /> <br /> <br /> This effort was conducted in the form of Balai Informasi Masyarakat (BIM) and Warung Masyarakat Informasi (Warmasif). Among four case studies, two of them, namely BIM Cihideung and Warmasif Cilengkrang, have been practised in the long run but showed unsatisfactory results. The other two, namely BIM Cibedug and BIM Katapang, a new program that adopts the same concept as before, may show the same unsatisfactory result as BIM Cihideung and Warmasif Cilengkrang. Therefore, this research aims to find out the role of information technology on society’s knowledge and skills in order to know what factors affect the sustainability of the program. <br /> <br /> <br /> The link between community empowerment and information technology will be analyzed using a simulation model that was built by using the system dynamics approach. This approach was done by developing a model which combines the development of information technology model and knowledge model. Subsequently, the model will be used to simulate some of the scenarios to describe the behavior in the future. Therefore, based on the analysis, a finding would be obtained which can be used as the basis of appropriate proposals for the sustainability concept. <br /> <br /> <br /> This study eventually succeeded in developing a model that shows the influence of the development of information technology to the community's ability. Results of the simulations obtained an understanding that the development of information technology will affect the capacity of society, only if the society has knowledge, conducive community condition and the existence of adequate government support. Therefore, the required number of policies related to increase development of information technology, and the most important is the effort to build public awareness for the importance of empowerment in the communities to improve their quality of life. <br />