| Azlan Othman |
BRUNEI Darussalam should not just be consumers and importers of Information Technology (IT) but also in equal measure be producers of applications and software technologies, a nation of skilled software developers who are productive and actively contributing in the country’s information technology sector. This was said by the Minister of Religious Affairs, Pehin Udana Khatib Dato Paduka Seri Setia Ustaz Haji Awang Badaruddin bin Pengarah Dato Paduka Haji Awang Othman.
The minister was speaking at the official launch of the ‘Islamic Mind Brunei’ application – created by Mindplus Education Sdn Bhd, a local tech company – yesterday at The Rizqun International Hotel in Gadong.
The app is a comprehensive Islamic learning programme which makes use of highly en-gaging animated video clips to introduce the Bruneian Islamic curriculum. Launched in 2016, ‘Islamic Mind Brunei’ had been designed with a vision of combining the best of Islamic learning pedagogy with innovative interactive media.
“The support of the relevant parties in the fields needed for further development of info-technology is very important because it is part of the support for the country at the end of the day,” he said. “The benefits of IT are abundant and the people who want to work in this field and have the potential to succeed need to be encouraged and given assistance.”
“The ‘Islamic Mind Brunei’ application was created to educate users about Islam in an innovative and fun way. Targeted users are students and individuals from the Muslim community, especially parents and teachers. The app was created in collaboration with the Ministry of Religious Affairs through the Department of Islamic Studies and the Islamic Da’wah Centre,” the minister added.
He also pointed out that for the first phase of this initial launch, the app will include 50 animated Islamic topics which have been approved by the Islamic Da’wah Centre.
“We hope to see further enhancements to the app (in the subsequent phases). We understand that for the second phase more than 700 topics from the Brunei Darussalam religious education curriculum, and several new English programmes, games and competitions will be added to the app,” said the minister.
‘Islamic Mind Brunei’, which Mindplus Education Sdn Bhd is hoping to monetise, is compatible for mobile devices using the Android and iOS platforms, as the app was designed as such to take advantage of the two operating systems’ wide usage and marketing potential.
Commenting on the application’s inception, Pengiran Mohd Khairi bin Pengiran Haji Metussin, the CEO of Mindplus Education Sdn Bhd, said, “Information found on the Internet is not always reliable. We need to spread to our children reliable, credible sources of information which is endorsed by religious authorities such as the Islamic Da’wah Centre. Parents usually do not have time to disseminate Islamic education properly to their children. Conventional methods such as attending school are not enough. New technologies are being developed and introduced at a rapid pace and children are adapting to new things very fast.
“‘Islamic Mind Brunei’ was created to solve this problem. It can become an Islamic education tool and a means to better understand the religion. We (Bruneians) have been recognised by our neighbouring countries who have said that our Islamic content is safe, moderate and easy.”
Pengiran Mohd Khairi stated further that the first phase “touches on 50 general topics such as stories of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), the history of Madinah and Makkah, and Islamic values”, adding that “children need to understand the real value of Islam”. “In the next three years, I envision every household in Brunei Darussalam using ‘Islamic Mind Brunei’ as a tool to teach children, and I believe that every school in the country will use the app as part of their teaching aids. In phase two, we are going to incorporate hundreds more Islamic topics (into the app) with more features and in both Malay and English, as well as many more games.”
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