The confirmation by the European Union that Malta is a leading country in the ICT sector and is “well advanced in information society” is good news indeed. It shows that the investment that the government embarked upon many years ago to transform the country into an ICT island has now given its fruit.
A quick look at the figures shows the great strides forward Malta has made in this particular sector. Ninety-two per cent of public services are available online as against the European Union’s 51 per cent average, putting Malta in second place overall. Added to this, 82 per cent of Maltese households have a broadband connection as against the EU’s 77 per cent, with Malta in fourth place in this particular ranking.
Of equal importance is the fact that Malta’s economy enjoys the third largest contribution to its GDP from the ICT sector and the fourth largest employment ratio in the EU.
All this is set to grow even more, and when one thinks only of the SmartCity investment, which is to create over 5,000 jobs most of which will be in the ICT sector, it is clear that the road that was embarked upon has been one that led to success.
The thing is that, with then constant advances in technology, one cannot really stop and say “we are there”. Because things change rapidly in the technological world, and investment must continue uninterruptedly to maintain a competitive edge over other countries that are also spending big money to keep in touch.
Just to give one example, we have moved on from pagers to mobile phones the size of a shoe to wafer-thin mobile phones within a matter of a few years. A mobile phone that was bought last year is still usable if properly maintained, but its technology is nowhere near that of mobile phones being sold today.
The same goes in all other ICT sectors – computers bought two years ago are not as fast as the ones on the market today, although they will still frustrate you when they crash unexpectedly without giving you the chance to save your work.
Yet, the investment must not stop at the equipment only. This is necessary for Malta to remain in the forefront in the sector, but it will be meaningless if it is not accompanied by heavy investment in the human resources that need to operate it.
Unless our education system produces enough people to fill up the jobs that will be created in the sector, and unless there are enough people who train the younger generations in the constant developments in ICT, there is a risk that Malta will fall behind.
The education sector must work hand in hand with industry in this regard, and there needs to be forward-planning that will seek to establish the requirements that will be required not next year only, but in five or 10 years and even beyond that.
Infrastructure, Communications and Transport Minister Austin Gatt is right to say that the real challenge remains attracting more people to achieve specialist training in the sector, adding that more needs to be done to get more people interested.
He went on to add that “the regatta is not over and we have to work harder to get further faster”. Well, the regatta will never be over, because there will always be some form of development that supersedes a system that might be only a few months old but is already outdated.
And this is why Malta must always keep an eye on what is going on and try to plan ahead as much as possible.