Telecentre Programme for Orang Asli (TPOA) West Malaysia is a community-university based initiative in partnership with the Department of Orang Asli Development (JAKOA) is committed to develop community telecentre as a platform to enhance quality of life through mobilizing community, building capacities, identifying programmatic gaps, and impacting social policy. At the same time this community-based programmes is an R & D proposal for researchers from different disciplines and faculties at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak to explore Needs Analysis and Asset Base Community Development (ABCD) approaches in implementing ICT-driven community development programmes amongst Orang Asli in West Malaysia.

TPOA was built from the Needs Analysis in Developing Telecentre among Orang Asli West Malaysia initiative, which was conducted within a one-year period of February 2011 till February 2012. The main goal of Needs Analysis was to conduct preliminary assessment of actual Information Communication Technology (ICT) needs and uses in the communities to be served by these facilities and to provide training to all stakeholders (specifically community mobilisers attached to government and non-governmental agencies) on how to carry out community engagement activities when setting up telecentres for community development.

The TPOA programme sought to fulfill several objectives

TPOA adopted six Community Development Programmes rooted from the Needs Analysis. Each programme was divided among UNIMAS researchers according to the four telecntre sites, and they were given the responsibility to design community development programmes for each site as well as develop local content relevant to the respective communities involved.