The government yesterday entered into its sixth vertical strategic alliance with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) – one of the leading providers in geographic information system (GIS).
The alliance was announced by IT and Investment Minister Austin Gatt and ESRI Regional Manager Europe Aart van Wingerden at the Mediterranean Conference Centre yesterday.
Mr van Wingerden explained that GIS technology was the way of the future, in that within a decade, more and more systems are going to be designed to be pluggable, meaning that they will be designed to work with GIS.
GIS technology is comprehensive in the sense that it works by combining imaging with all sorts of date. To give an example, a GIS map can be tagged with information relating to underground sewers, wastewater management, afforestation, power grids and virtually everything else imaginable, explained Mr van Wingerden. Of course, GIS technology is more usually associated with car navigation systems and also, very recently, mobile telephony.
ESRI, he said, was set up in 1969 and currently employs some 5,000 people worldwide in 35 countries.
“Many people use our software, including the United Nations, the Red Cross and the European Commission amongst many others. Why the alliance? It is because we recognise the importance of the Malta government’s vision of an information society,” he said.
He said that his company’s vision was to see Malta become part of the global co-operative effort to enhance the world wide Geo-Web. “It will also enable Malta to become INSPIRE-ready. INSPIRE is a European Union directive which will see all software systems become compatible and will also implement data sharing,” he said.
Commenting about what the alliance would offer to the Maltese education system, Mr van Wingerden said that free software would be given out to students and that specialised courses would begin at MCAST. “In addition, we want to train teachers to be able to lecture in the field of GSI,” he said.
Mr van Wingerden said that MEPA was already using its software in land record management. Dr Gatt, on his part, said that this was the sixth vertical strategic alliance, following in the footsteps of others signed with world players such as Microsoft, IBM, CISCO and others. “There is no doubt that GIS technology will become ever-present in the world of IT. We want everything to be compatible for data sharing purposes, we want the police, MEPA, Enemalta, Water Services and others to all be on the same Geo-Web based systems,” he said.
Dr Gatt also said that the target was to open a GIS Competence Centre in 2008. “We need IT thinkers to change the current data hoarding mentality. Data needs to be brought out of silos and shared, that is the way forward,” he said. Dr Gatt said his ministry will definitely be looking at implementing GIS in the next e-Strategy.