Daniel and Richard are the webmasters of discovertawau.com. They befriended each other while studying at secondary school in SMK Kuhara, Tawau. Their interest to create the website sparked because they wanted to promote their hometown as not many people know where Tawau is and how Tawau looks like.

After finishing their Sijil Perperiksaan Malaysia (UK equivalent of GCE-O level) in year 1997, they decided to use their free time to create the website. The work started by taking pictures around Tawau town, collecting information from Tawau library, Tawau Town Council and also through interviews from locals. By end of November 1997, their first Tawau website was uploaded to the cyberworld. The response was great and they received a lot of feedbacks from the people of Tawau and also from overseas.

infoTawau version 1.0 (launched in late 1997)

Two years later, they went back to Tawau during the semester break. Then, they decided to upgrade and update the Tawau website. The updated version was named InfoTawau2000 as to mark the new Tawau website.

infoTawau version 2.0, also known as infoTawau2000

At the moment, Richard is working in Beijing, China while Daniel in Penang, Malaysia. The version 2.0 of the website was not updated for a long time as Daniel and Richard seldom see each other to maintain it.

Some 13 years after the first launch, Richard and Daniel decided to upgrade the website again to version 3.0 incorporating latest web technologies to enable collaboration and sharing from visitors and to enable a true web community. Discover Tawau is now joined by:

• Azlan Lauddin Martin who is the “know-all” person of Tawau and the prime mover of this group
• Kee Faridah Kothman who has deep roots with the Kee family of Tawau
• Maya Wahida who is an active Tawau-based blogger and social media specialist.

They are now inviting people from all over the world to share stories, news, photos and everything about Tawau. If you would like to contribute, please contact us.