The Fondazzjoni Temi Zammit (FTZ) held an “e-Tutor Seminar” at the University of Malta earlier this month. The seminar and accompanying online training course formed part of a European-funded Interreg IVC project called “EVITA: Exchange, valorisation and transfer of regional best policy measures for SME support on IT and e-business adoption”.
The project is designed to strengthen and support ICT products and services among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It aims to increase SMEs’ competitiveness by improving their accessibility to the global digital economy, particularly focusing on Web 2.0 business opportunities.
Led by the Greek Research and Technology Network GRNET, the project consortium brings together other partners from Greece, Spain, Sweden, France, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Latvia and Malta. Apart from ‘donor’ partners who have successfully adopted ICT and e-business initiatives, and ‘beneficiary’ partners from regions which lag behind in their e-business penetration strategies, the consortium includes a third set of players. These consist of organisations with expertise in the provision of e-learning and ICT training as well as the drawing up of plans to enhance SME competitiveness and regional development, acting as catalysts in the transfer of the good practices.
The “e-Tutor Seminar” held in Malta provided face-to-face and ICT-assisted training to staff teams from the eight European countries taking part in the project. Rev. Prof. Peter Serracino Inglott, president of the Fondazzjoni Temi Zammit and chairman of the Mediterranean Institute of the University of Malta, and Dr Ilias Hatzakis, coordinator of the project, welcomed the 25 participants from across Europe who attended the course in order to be certified as EVITA tutors.
The three-day seminar focused on the use of the EVITA e-learning platform and on the techniques and practices of e-business, digital marketing and Search Engine Optimisation, web 2.0 tools, web analytics and related topics. James Cilia, an e-learning expert from the University of Malta, discussed the tools available through the e-learning platform, while Dr Montserrat Pennaroya, CEO of GEA Internet Project Consulting, described ways of attracting visitors to a website and how one could convert those visitors into customers.
Following their participation in this course, the certified tutors will in turn be offering localized training to SMEs in their respective regions, including Malta, effectively acting as catalysts and multipliers of the good practices identified. The project website (www.evita-interreg4c.eu) will be used as a repository to provide access to documents related to the project.
EVITA has a total budget of €1.7 million, of which €1.4 million is funded by the Interreg IVC programme of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Maltese partner Fondazzjoni Temi Zammit is responsible for the Communications component and for the development of the e-learning platform.