Date: 17th – 25th August 2022
Venue: SDIH, UTS, Bawang Assan, Long Lamai
The Participatory Design Conference (PDC-Place) Malaysia was hosted by the Advanced Centre for Sustainable Socio-Economic and Technological Development (ASSET) in the University of Technology Sarawak (UTS) from August 17 to 25th, 2022. The “PDC Places” are smaller in-person events and activities running in different locations around the world alongside the main PDC conference, which was hosted by the Newcastle University in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Yet another successful event and our first fully physical conference since the lockdowns, PDC-Place Malaysia welcomed 109 participants from 9 countries, including Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, Colombia, India, Pakistan, Australia, Nigeria and Sweden. The speakers and participants include ministerial-level officials, various international and regional organisations, academicians, postgraduate students, researchers, development practitioners and representatives of local indigenous communities. Malaysia PDC-Place saw greater gender diversity, regional parity, and diversification of stakeholder groups.
The event was co-organised by UTS, Yayasan Sarawak (the Sarawak Foundation), Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation Berhad (SDEC), Business Events Sarawak, Association for Progressive Communications and the International Network for Post-Graduate Students in the Area of ICT4D (IPID).
Here are 10 highlights PDC-Place Malaysia:
A network has been established for Participatory Design (PD) community in Malaysia. The event was attended by 100 registered participants.
Sessions hosted at 4 different locations including 3 off-campus venues, Sibu Digital Innovation Hub, World Fuzhou Heritage Gallery and the Iban Longhouse of Bawang Assan.
To promote understanding of indigenous epistemologies and local contexts of our research partnerships, Pluriversal Fair is organised as part of the conference.
The Pluriversal Fair at Bawang Assan Longhouse and World Fuzhou Heritage Gallery hosted sessions in dual languages, English and Bahasa Malay and English and Mandarin.
UTS and Sarawak Development Institute signed a Memorandum of Agreement to develop a digital platform CHAMPS, for crowdsource heritage automation mapping of Kuching Division.
UTS and Malmö University Sweden signed a Memorandum of Understanding for establishing indigenous climate observatories in Lesotho, Eswatini and Malaysia.
A total of 24 local, regional and international rorganisations were represented in the conference.
The PDC-Place Malaysia hosted 5 workshops, 5 Keynotes, a policy dialogue, a panel discussion, a mentor-mentee session for postgraduate students and an exhibition covering key areas of conversation and action that cut across the program, including digital inclusion, climate change, service learning, participatory design and ICT4D.
The participants of the Policy Dialogue laid out 10 recommendations for the State to design inclusive, impactful, long-term and sustainable digital inclusion policies and solutions for Sarawak based on the local community needs.
The IPID-Asia Fund provided travel bursaries and free conference registration to 12 IPID Fellows, postgraduate students in the area of ICT4D to attend PDC-Place Malaysia.
