The Orientation Workshop on the Information Technology (IT) in Asian Co-operative Project otherwise called Social Marketing on Information Technology was conducted for FORMASI, a member of the Asian Women in Cooperative Development Forum (AWCF) in Indonesia. It was held in Hotel Bumikarsa, Bidakara, Jakarta, Indonesia on January 24-25, 2005. This workshop is part of the programmed activities of “it@coops” –Information Technology in Asian Co-operatives project, a joint project between AWCF and the Capacity Building International Germany or InWEnt and supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation Development (BMZ).

The two day workshop has three objectives:
(1)Increase the awareness of co-operatives and non-government organizations supporting co-operatives on the importance of Information and communication technology (ICT) in developing business, networking, empowering women and eventually alleviate poverty; (2)Increase the commitment of stakeholders to participate and contribute in implementing the it@co-ops project; (3)and integrate it@co-ops into the co-op’s program and policies.

The first two objectives were fully achieved, for the last objective, it took the form of a take home action plan for the participants to convince the co-op decision makers to further commit and act thru policy statement and resolution. Overall, the participants appreciated the project and committed to implement and sustain the project.

The workshop was attended by forty one (41) attendees coming from the primary co-operatives and some non-government organizations that are members of FORMASI that are assisting co-operatives, four (4) resource persons. The workshop was attended by Ms Salome Ganibe, Regional Coordinator of AWCF, Ms Angie Valdez, Project Assistant, and Ms Aster Penaranda, Finance Officer.

IT COORDINATOR – Ms Naida was hired December 2005 to replace Mr. Orsini Osman. Ms Naida is responsible for the preparation, implementation, and monitoring the different activities to be conducted in the country which includes among others the running of the ICT training programme and setting up of ICT Based Business Development Centers and virtual networking.

COMPUTER LABORATORY – The project provided the necessary fund to rent a fully equipped computer laboratory to facilitate the conduct of the ICT training programme. The functional IT Training Center is located at V1 Mampang Prapatan, Chancoran, Jakarta.

IT TRAINING INSTITUTE SELECTED – InWEnt contracted the services of PT Mitra Integrasi Informatika with office address at Annex 11 Building Comp. Metropolitan, Jl. Jend. Sudirman Kav. 29-31, Jakarta. PT Mitra was represented by Mr. Sony Setiawan and Ms Dessy during the interview.

PT. Mitra (MII) is a subsidiary of PT.Metrodata Electronics (ME) under the Solution Business Unit providing solution in information technology products and related services such as IT installation and implementation, IT Consultancy, IT Planning and design and certified training and others. The subsidiary was incorporated on May, 1996. The company is currently applying the international standard working process, quality management systems ISO 9001:2000.