Since Independence, our political leaders have been striving to improve our chances to create sustainable job opportunities by investing in better education and a smart infrastructure. However, we still clamour for a high cohort of trained workers with skills involving science, engineering and maths (STEM), as facts show that we have not yet achieved our targets in higher technical education. This is not for want of trying, but statistics warn us of having the second highest number of early school leavers in Europe and a low percentage of women who work.
Each year, our political leaders share with us their sacred creeds to turn the island into a Utopia where they promise to build a platform for collaboration between government, industries and individuals to transform our national industrial ecology into a productive country.
Alas, the spirit is willing but the body is weak. We have invested millions in education from kindergarten to tertiary levels yet we still have some way to go to solve the skill mismatch in particular sectors (such as iGaming and Life Sciences). We require a quiet revolution in learning new skills through a different mind-set focused on innovation, research and development.
While we feel snug in our cocoon, the world is experiencing stellar growth in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, machine learning, biotechnics and Fintech in the financial services (among others).
These are the building blocks of present and future technology where young businesses compete to provide cutting-edge services and products, having access to seed capital, top university facilities and management proficiency. Start-ups need easy access to finance and must be guided by an astute and targeted regulation policy (resist the temptation of gold plating EU rules). Many EU countries give tax credits to start-ups.
These are nurtured to grow from the slippery slopes of nurseries to get up on their feet and play a significant role in a competitive world. Gone are the days when textile factories, run on a cut-make and trim technology, provided jobs for thousands of low skilled workers complementing ex-British naval shipyards aided with heavy state subsidies providing low margin services to mercantile ships amid stiff competition from neighbouring countries in the Med.
Upgrading our manufacturing base has always been an upward struggle mainly due to double insularity - the handicap of our geographical location at the periphery of Europe and the limitation of our land mass. These drawbacks make us more conscious of the drive for a better-qualified workforce, which, aided with adequate capital and transfer of technology, can be turbocharged to match the successes of Silicon Valley.
Ultimately, driving all this will be ideas and innovation, the likes of which drove the industrial revolution in Europe some 200 years ago. Today we hear buzz words such as "long term disruptions" inculcating the growth of artificial intelligence - and creating the right environment for technical excellence. For readers, this may seem like pie in the sky. Yet as a small nation, we have survived many challenges and now that our economy is firing on all cylinders with 6.7 per cent GPD growth, we can face the future with courage - enjoying full employment and registering a modest surplus in our national accounts. It goes without saying that we need a champion to help us ratchet up our appalling educational infrastructure.
Apart from the frenzied drive to build high-rises, can we seek new sectors born from ideas and turn them into technological parks fostering knowledge exchange and using public funds to buy knowhow. This acts as a catalyst for invention. In ancient times our ancestors had improvised and built magnificent stone temples to worship their Gods (some of them still standing since millennia) and this without access to the modern facilities now at our disposal. Neolithic temples are masterpieces linked to advanced astrological functionality and an engineering marvel. We owe it to our ancestors to triumph - they are our torchbearers and silent mentors.
We have heard many times in past budget speeches that the government will provide clear leadership to lead us out of the woods and, although we made good progress, there is still a long way to go to be able to surmount challenges for future growth. Ideally, the public and private sectors should join hands to work in partnership to reposition our export potential in both goods and services yet occasionally may seem as strange bedfellows.
Solutions need to transcend the political cycle. The medicine is bitter and for it to work the patient needs strong nerves, good leadership and weaned on proper funding. The cure involves reinventing the way things are done, collaborating more widely with ecosystems of organisations, cutting dead wood in bloated bureaucracies, stopping the endless engagement of unmeritorious key personnel in government departments chosen as "persons of trust". We need to cut graft and corruption by investing in people of merit.
The elimination of cronyism in political appointments will lead to a better and more equitable cohort of able-bodied persons in the top echelons of government. With this object in mind, I sought guidance by visiting the Cambridge Innovation Centre (CIC) - a Thought Leadership hub in Rotterdam, The Netherlands which tasted success in helping a growing number of start-up firms.
This is a home for about 550 innovative companies and is built to synergise with CIC's international community of entrepreneurs, investors, and established businesses. CIC headquarters is based in Boston US and houses more than 1,000 companies in an impressive building sporting 50,000 square metres of premium office and co-working space across eight facilities. As stated earlier, Innovation starts with smart people, wherever they may be: R&D departments at start-ups, businesses from small to large, universities and research institutes. In a word - the innovators.
It is a fact that the growth in radical innovations demands focus and input from a wide spectrum of connected parties. The promoters of CIC project are talking to the government and realtors to explore ways how to collaborate in the Silicon Valley success story - in short, building an active innovation eco-system.
Interested persons wishing to know more about this project can contact Marouska Camilleri at [email protected].
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George Mangion is a senior partner of the audit and consultancy firm PKF, and has over 25 years' experience in accounting, taxation, financial and consultancy services