Melung, a village in Kedungbanteng district, Banyumas, Central Java, has a village portal as information medium for its citizens. The portal, located at Melung.or.id, is part of a building village movement, a movement to use information technology to introduce the potentials of the village.
Melung Village Portal, developed by Infest Yogyakarta, was launched on November 11, 2011. The portal is used to share information from and to the villagers as well as to promote the village’s potential to the outside community. In addition to using the portal, promotion of village’s potential is also done through the village’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.
In addition to village portal, Melung village also managed to take advantage of information technology in other forms for the development of the village. Success story of this implementation of information technology is spread through the village portal. Examples of village ICT programs are internet for the village, village information system (SID) and SMS center. Through internet for the village program, the citizens are able to access various information that was previously difficult to get because the location of the village is on the slope of Mount Slamet. Melung village farmers, for example, utilize the internet to find information about organic farming to be further implemented in the development of organic farming in the village.
Other great thing, Melung village government is also developing village information system (SID) to facilitate service to the community. The system is under development and at the stage of people’s data entry. With SID, service to the citizens is expected to be easier and faster because the data is stored in the database that is easily searchable and accessible.
Meanwhile, SMS center is used to deliver information from the village government to the citizens in a fast way. In addition to socialize village’s policy, SMS center is also utilized to give disaster warning to the citizens in occurrence of twister which is frequent in the village.
According to a Tempo article that was uploaded on Melung village portal, the success of Melung village will be implemented in other villages in Banyumas. Of course, the adoption of such initiative shouldn’t be limited to the Banyumas region and other areas should also take up this initiative.
