IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

Malta merits such an investment, having placed first in EU eGovernment Benchmarking in 2010, ranked fifth highest in the percentage of employees with ICT skills in Europe, and fourth among European countries in terms of eSkills activities by the government. The innovative deal is the brainchild of Claudio Grech, CEO of MITA, the same person who for a short while acted as main negotiator on behalf of the government on the multi-million euro residential ICT office complex (SmartCity) being built at Ricasoli by the Gulf Arab corporation Tecom. Visiting MITA’s website one appreciates its three strategic drivers, which are job creation, support of education and development, and technology. When fully functional the Microsoft innovation centre will, in turn, save millions a year in licence fees and pave the way for trained ICT workers in the digital economy.

“(The) government believes that ICT can and should be one of the main thrusts of Malta’s future economic activity – ICT remains at the centre of Malta’s future economic growth in various sectors. It is also key because of its potential of job creation and sustainability of other sectors that depend on a robust ICT industry and skilled ICT workforce, such as the iGaming and Financial services sectors,” he told the conference on ‘Simpler, Smarter, Faster – Virtualisation Made Easier’.

There is no getting away from technology; it has become an integral part of our framework. With this in mind, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat launched the Digital Malta Strategy last March which set out a vision to transform Malta into a country, which, by 2020, “will prosper as a digitally-enabled nation in all sectors of society”.

Icon’s digital solution for Jobsplus (formerly ETC) has received a prestigious award from the Malta Communications Authority for best technology in the e-Government sector. Apart from providing job seekers with matched vacancies and employers with matched CV profiles, it gives stakeholders the opportunity to view and analyse the most common gaps between profiles and enterprise demands.

The portal developed by Icon is part of a fully-responsive website which can be used seamlessly on desktops, tablets and smartphones alike. With a deep understanding of the recruitment sector, and a highly-qualified team, Icon, a Microsoft and Google Partner, was able to offer a cost-effective solution, designed to be approachable and appeal to a younger audience, in line with the brand strategy recently introduced through the transition from the ETC to Jobsplus.

The past decades have witnessed an exponential increase in the ways and methods in which information technology and digital innovation have infiltrated our daily lives and routines. Both domestic appliances and industrial processes have come to rely more heavily on ICT, and the smart-phone revolution has seen the creation of digital applications for many of the routine tasks we perform daily. This is expected to keep increasing in the near future.

As a country, we have never been blessed with natural resources. But what we have lacked in raw materials we have made up for in the industrious work rate and versatility of our workforce. And that is how we have progressed and moved our economy forward throughout the ages.

ICON’s digital solution for Jobsplus has been shortlisted for ‘Best eGovernment Initiative’ in the 2016 MCA eBusiness Awards because it gives stakeholders the opportunity to view and analyse the most common gaps between profiles and enterprise demands.

The portal is part of a website that can be used on desktops, tablets and smartphones. A Microsoft and Google Partner, ICON was able to offer a cost-effective solution designed to appeal to a younger audience.

Example 1: registration for submitting documents via the MFSA website. To register one has to use an insecure software like Java, disable security settings in the internet browser and the Java client and install a legacy software named E-Lock, making reference to long gone versions of the Netscape browser. There are surely more modern and secure ways to enable such a service and these should also not be restricted to the Windows OS and the Internet Explorer only.

Electronic services are catching up as more and more people discover the convenience of procuring the goods and services they need from the comfort of their home at any time of the day. Electronic banking and e-commerce are achieving significant growth as service providers invest in making their online service more secure and easy to use.

One notable exception in the success story is the take-up of e-government services by the majority of people who actually need these services.

“There is no point boasting about e-government services if a large chunk of the population can’t use them,” Dr Zammit Lewis said.

They were informed that the issuance of identity cards would be discontinued and the process would be replaced by the new e-Residence Permit scheme. The problem was that the Citizenship and Expatriate Affairs Department was totally unprepared for the administrative load that confronted it. Chaos ensued.

"The socially disadvantaged are often the same citizens who are excluded from using the Government's electronic services, as well as those who make most use of the public sector's resources," said the Minister for Home and Parliamentary Affairs Carm Mifsud Bonnici at the launch of the project in Mriehel this afternoon.

The solution, being provided by European Dynamics SA covers the full lifecycle of public procurement, to the publishing stage to award and execution of contracts.

It will enable actual tender bids to be submitted securely on line. as well as new possibilities such as 'reverse auctions'. where bidders compete to offer the lowest price. These solutions have been proven to result in better value for government.

Government launched the eSkills Malta Foundation that will see various stakeholders working together to jointly create the skills base and life-long quality growth required for a digitally enabled knowledge economy.

Addressing a press conference, Edward Zammit Lewis, Parliamentary Secretary for Competitiveness and Economic Growth, explained the importance of eSkills for Malta to have a thriving digital economy.

The three year €9.2 million project, completed in March 2011, brought together researchers and companies from Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Spain, UK and the US to find methods of managing traffic so that congestion at choke points of the network is minimised, thus resulting in better quality connections for Internet users. The EU contributed €5.9 million in ICT research funding.

The course, eBIZ, is being organised by IT training company TCTC, and is being provided free of charge as a result of the patronage of the Economy Ministry and through sponsorships by Bank of Valletta, Business First, GO and SmartCity Malta.

He was speaking during the launch of the second generation of the e-government project, which was introduced 12 years ago.

The adventure to make various e-government services available online had been met with a lot of scepticism 12 years ago, Dr Gatt said, luckily it has also been met with hope and that is what made Malta’s e-governance rank first in Europe three times in a row. The results speak for themselves, he said.

A propriety Distributed Ledger Technology can revolutionise societies and businesses.

The founders of Maltese start-up TechWeave believe time is way too precious to be wasted. For instance, why do new property owners need to spend significant time to inform local authorities and other third-parties about their change in address? Would it be more convenient if such changes could be inputted through an eID online portal and all necessary updates would be automatically performed by merely providing our consent? This simple online application can spare a typical person hours of queuing and parking.

GO's, Internet of Things (IoT) solutions are now more improved thanks to its newly launched Narrowband-IOT nationwide network, which allows businesses to not only improve their operational efficiency, but become greener too, because NB-IoT requires less energy to operate.

With the addition of NB-IoT to all its mobile networks, including its recently launched 5G network, GO today offers the widest IoT portfolio in Malta.

Implementation starts in October 2011. All schools are to have access by mid-2013.