The minister was speaking during the launch of the National Informatics Competition to be held on 25 June.

The contest will include a number of Informatics – information science – problems that have to be solved in a fixed time frame. Prospective participants under 20 years of age have until 21 May to apply on-line on www.miti.gov.mt

The winner will be invited to represent Malta at the international Olympiad of Informatics (IOI) for which the candidate will be given prior specialised training.

Dr Gatt said the government will be sponsoring Malta’s participation in the IOI as part of its commitment towards promoting IT.

Key players in the industry monitor the IOI, scouting for new talent the minister said. “This will be a good opportunity to showcase our human resources in a competitive environment”.

Entries are welcome from all Maltese students at sixth form, higher secondary and university level. The official programming languages allowed are Pascal and C++ and the level of difficulty requires that the candidates hold IT knowledge at A-level standard.

The minister explained that this contest forms part of the government’s commitment to making our society among the best in the IT field, along with other landmark projects such as the Cisco systems academy, from which some 150 students have already graduated.

Dr Gatt also announced that the ministry is on the point of signing a second agreement with Microsoft, details of which will be announced in the next few days.