The Role of Indonesian Woman in Popularizing Science

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="320" caption="Merry Magdalena and Netsains community. It was a fun show session in Senayan ITC, Jakarta (the photo is courtesy of netsains.com)"][/caption]

Originally, Indonesia was a patriarchal country. However, things are changing nowadays. Women emancipation has permeated every aspect of our country life being. Modern Indonesia is a new Indonesia. Today, we can see the presence of women's leadership everywhere in this country. Starting from a start up publishing company in Jakarta, hard core politicians, until the tourism industries in Bali, women are actively involved in their critical managerial leads. However, there are one flaws. The role of women in popularizing science is still lagging. Henceforth, there always exception. One Indonesian women deserves the credit for it. She is Merry Magdalena.

Who is Merry Magdalena?

She is a long time veteran science and technology (sci-tech) journalist in Indonesia. She started her journalism carreer working as sci-tech reporter in Sinar Harapan newspaper for 6  years. After her resignation, then she worked at QBheadlines.com news portal as associate editor for two years. Today, she has officially relieved as a journalist, and starting her own book writing and publishing business. Now, she is a full blown writerpreneur. For more information on her recent activity, Just click her web at http://merry.netsains.com/

During her occupation as a sci-tech journalist, she has acquaintances with some high profile and key scientist in our country. They are Onno W Purbo, well know Indonesian open source activist, and Kusmayanto Kadiman, then the minister of research and technology. She has interviewed a lot of others scientist. Her vast knowledge on popular science has led her to publish several books. They are 'Don't afraid with Cyberlaw', 'Don't lie with social networking' , ' Tips on electronic transaction  ordination', and 'Operating System of your choice'. They are all published in Indonesian language, and some books are on process of publishing. Those books already received warm reception from the youngster which hungry for popular science information.

The Construction of Netsains community and its famous web site

Up until some times ago, Indonesian public has difficulty in accessing popular science (pop-sci) information in their own mother tongue. There are roughly no publication, whether on line or off line, which discuss pop-sci in Indonesian language. All we have are technical description of sci-tech, which could be overwhelming for most of the public. During those not-so-cool times, we have to access pop-sci information from abroad, and mainly in English. There are two problem with this accessing foreign pop-sci websites. One, not every Indonesian is fluent in advanced English. They do speak English. However, for most of the high school and early years university students, reading pop-sci articles in English is just overwhelming for them. Second, the pop-sci information from abroad is not certain could be applied in Indonesia. Sci-tech was born within a specific socio-cultural context, so it could not applied 'as it is' in our country. We desperately need pop-sci information in our mother tongue. Only one women who could arrange that, and she is Merry Magdalena.

During her occupation as journalist, she has created a strong network with various people from Information Technology (IT) community. They range from independent open source activist, until some corporate people. She managed asking assistance to them, and successfully gathered some people in helping her. In 2007, she and her friends launched the pop-sci website http://netsains.com

It was a successful independent project. When others project just crumble cause of inconsistency and lack of commitments, netsains just survive. In the beginning, netsains only consisted of IT people. However, during the passing of time, other people from different kind of background were joining. They are artists, lawyers, businessman, sociologist, NGO activist, students, and many more. The member are growing day by day, because of the strong support from the open source community.

Netsains nowadays

Today, Netsains.com is the largest pop-sci website in Indonesia, maybe even in south east Asian region. It is accessed not only by Indonesian, but also by Malaysians and even some non native Indonesian speaker. Just for example, an Australian Indonesian language teacher, Laura Lochore, has asked Merry to allow her accessing the contents of Netsains, for the educational purpose in her country. Netsains, although an Indonesian language pop-sci portal, is already internationalized.