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ARBEC - The Story
The ARBEC Genesis
 From the period of its creation to its official launch on April 16
1998, ARBEC's principal objective
in those days was to develop a pool of content with the intention of
marketing this information world wide.
However, at the onset of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, most of
ARBEC's original plans were derailed, including the postponement of a
joint collaboration with the Natural History Museum of London which was to
finance the South East Asian biodiversity research and reportings through
the European Union's sanction funding.
"Times then were grave, for us as a team and as individuals,"
lamented Mr Lim Kooi Fong, the project manager. "ARBEC on its
own account was able to sustain the project on an R&D basis for the
whole of 1998. We had no revenue, forthcoming ventures were scuttled, and
South East Asia was plain bad news" he added.
As there was no income generated, the site's information was
distributed and promoted free of charge. The aim and intent of this
strategy was to promote ARBEC's name within the research fraternity. This
move basically paid off.
By late 1998, ARBEC had already formed affiliations with major
biodiversity research institutions world wide. Amongst them are:
· The Natural History Museum, London (Formerly, the British Museum of
Natural History) · RICE University · Bioplan Division, United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) · METLA, Finland · Forest Research Institute
of Malaysia (FRIM) · Kew Gardens · Botanical Gardens, Scotland · The
Biodiversity Clearing House Mechanism, Brussels
ARBEC as an electronic journal platform also managed to establish ties
with major e-journal publishers through meetings at the Frankfurt
Bookfair. Amongst those appointed to distribute the content commercially
are SWETS, Blackwell Science and EBSCO
As a matter of fact, Professor Peter Bryant from the Cornell
University, was so impressed with the with the information, adopted parts
of ARBEC's content in his 101 course in "Introduction to
Biodiversity".
However, with the financial crisis persisting,
the board of
directors decided to look for alternative sourcing, although ARBEC was
still very much in the R&D stage. It was about that time that the
National IT Council of Malaysia initiated the Demonstrator Application
Grant Scheme (DAGS) in late 1997. The intent and purpose of DAGS is to
encourage the realisation of the nation's National IT Agenda (NITA)
covering the development of e-community, e-sovereignty, e-public services,
e-economy and education.
ARBEC was officially selected to be one of DAGS pioneer projects in
January 1999. |
