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PETALING JAYA: Ericsson Malaysia's Mobile Innovation Village (MIV) model has passed an assessment of its feasibility and impact in empowering the local rural community via ICT solutions.

Doctors from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) and The Centre of Excellence for Rural Informatics (CoERI) of the same university conducted the three-month-long needs, assessment, feasibility and impact (NAFI) study.

It was found that the MIV model successfully enabled empowerment of the local rural community in Kampung Serasot of the Bau District in Sarawak with its remote health monitoring, mobile IP communications, and cloud computing components.

Conducted among 90 households of the mainly Bidayuh agricultural community, the study was done in collaboration with local government agencies and a telecommunications service provider.

The study provided insights on how mobile data and village WiFi services are used and how they can become more affordable in the future.

In addition to smartphones, components of the model included a locally designed Tablet PC by Mimos and manufactured by i-Solutions and Computing Sdn Bhd, and an eLearning System delivered via Ericsson's PC as a Service cloud-computing solution.

The MIV also enabled people to have their health monitored remotely by doctors via Ericsson's mobile health solution, which allowed patients to send their weight and blood-pressure readings as well as electrocardiograms for analysis and management.

Ericsson said it is now working closely with various local agencies and companies to collaborate and augment its solutions.

The Unimas study found that only 11% of the participants had used the Internet before, with 50% having had a family member who has used the Internet before. The remaining 39% had only heard of the Internet prior to the study.