Written by Melvin Farrugia, MITA Social Media, PR and Communication Executive

As we approach 2017, we look back at the challenges and the achievements that have characterised the past year. MITA's Executive Chairman, Tony Sultana gives us an overview about the significant investment that MITA has made throughout the year to keep abreast with the latest developments in technology. He also describes the agency's way forward to provide our country with the best technological direction.    

How would you say that 2016 was for MITA?

This year was full of challenges that varied from a lot of work that needed to be done to finding the right resources to work with. When looking at these challenges, we can surely say that MITA had a lot of successful stories.

Our success was not limited to Information Technology (IT). We also implemented important reforms and strengthened our relationships with the clients and the Government. Through the Marketing Department we also gave more exposure to the agency. I recollect how a few years ago it seemed like MITA was hiding itself from what it did. Today, no week passes without MITA sharing on its social media channels the initiatives that it is working on.

Thus, I would say that throughout 2016 we had significant challenges but we made significant success.

Team members change from time to time. Is this one of the biggest challenges that MITA has to face?

This challenge is not only occurring at MITA, but in all the organisations in Malta. It is happening a lot in the IT sector but also in other areas. The reason is that with the economic boom in Malta, there is a lot of movement going on and more people are joining organisations for a limited period of time. Less people are choosing to stay within the same organisation throughout their life and we need to accept this new culture of having employees that join the agency for a short period of time of two to three years. However, we have a significant number of MITA persons who have been with the agency for the last 15 years or more.

We need to realise that the world is changing and is not revolving around our agency. Therefore, we need to adjust according to how the world is changing and accept that fresh graduates from the University of Malta or MCAST come to work with MITA for some time to increase their value of their curriculum vitae.

Should we consider this as a negative thing? If a person joins MITA to improve his or her CV, it is still an honour for the agency, as this means that we are acting as a stepping stone for some employees to reach somewhere else. We should also be proud that indirectly we are helping the private sector. It is in the interest of MITA to help the Government, whose interest is to see the private sector flourishing. So in a way, we are helping to leverage the private sector.

Although a bit challenging to us, it is very important for the private sector as in this way they acquire disciplined, professional and experienced technical persons who can work according to industry standards. Although students might be well prepared academically from school, this does not make them prepared for what the market requires. Our challenge is to encourage more people to continue working with the agency by making it more attractive to work with us, continuously improve the working conditions and provide training and exposure. However, if we compare the amount of employees that leave the agency, these are always around 10%.

In your opinion which were the greatest achievements for this year?

It depends from which perspective you look at it. From a strategic point of view, I think that one of achievements was the partnership with Microsoft where we extended our alliance through an investment of €12.5 million. Through a general contract for all the Government Ministries and Departments, we benefited from the economies of scale.

Another strategic achievement was the launch of the strategy for mobile government. We consulted with the public, published a green paper and after further consultation drafted the strategy with a direction for the Government in its use of mobile applications.

We also launched the Cyber Security Strategy which not only affects MITA and the government, but other entities and the public at large. If we look at MITA's infrastructure, what was state-of-the-art yesterday, is not state-of-the-art today, so we had to invest heavily.  In the last three years we have changed the vast majority of our infrastructure within our data centre. Rest assured that the same thing will happen in five years' time with the equipment that we have installed now. 

Through these changes we had a lot of successful stories. This reflects on the fact that Government is relying more on MITA's services. For me it is an honour that Government is choosing us to deliver his services. Years ago, we used to tell our clients to make use of our services as per government direction. Nowadays, we tell our clients come to MITA only by choice and if they feel that we can provide them with the best service. Make no mistake; the workload did not decrease, but increased to a point that now we need to work only on projects which are of strategic nature.

We need our employees to be focused on high level assignments such as the drafting of strategies, solutions for large systems like those for the inland revenue department, for the social policy and other system where we can provide economy of scales and value for money. There are systems which will be divested to the Information Management Units within the Government departments which are building their own skilled workforce.

Because of the fast rate through which the IT industry is evolving, how can MITA help reducing the gap between the demand and supply of IT professionals?

You need to create a balance on two levels. As I already said, you need to control the demand and supply. MITA cannot continue doing everything by itself. A lot of work coming to MITA needs to be outsourced to the private sector. In fact, in the Programme Management Department only we have around €5 million worth of work outsourced to the private sector. You also need to control the demand by clearly defining which work should be assigned to MITA and which does not.

For example, for the next year MITA will be focusing on work that is related to mobile apps, work related to cyber security and work related to the EU Presidency.

The other important measure is to give priority to have continuous new resources joining MITA. We are tackling this through agreements with the University of Malta and MCAST so that students who have almost completed their studies commit themselves to join our agency once they finish their studies.

What is MITA doing to raise the interest in Information Technology?

We have started by changing our advertising process. Before we used the traditional media like newspapers and we would advertise using the same template every month. Now we are using more attractive methods which are also more targeted. On the newspapers, the adverts could be read by everyone while on social media we are reaching the younger generation and students. In this way we can also get immediate response through comments that are posted.

We are also increasing our presence during exhibitions by sending representatives to raise awareness about MITA. We also sponsoring student activities so that students get to know about the agency and understand its role. These include sports teams with whom we have made agreements to show our recruitment adverts on their websites and Facebook pages. We are using these methods to penetrate in the student areas.

How crucial is it to continue investing in the latest software and hardware to keep abreast with the latest technology?

Not only in equipment but also in skills. It is important to invest continuously in equipment to improve the efficiency. It is also important to consider the impact on the environment.

However, it is mostly important to invest in the upskilling of employees. The professional skills that are important today will be re-invented in three years' time as the technology evolves. Therefore, employees need to continue studying and get certifications. For this reason, we invest in training and certifications to keep abreast with the latest technology that is invented. 

Even where it regards software. With time, better software is available and you need to upgrade your systems accordingly. However, you also need to upskill your employees how to use new technologies so that they can be efficient in the delivery of their service.

Information Technology is a sector where it is important that you make continuous investment. If you buy a laptop and related IT equipment, their lifespan is of three to five years, not more.

What will be MITA's role during Malta's Presidency of the Council of the European Union?

We already had several roles related to the Presidency, namely the management of contracts related to IT which are not necessarily implemented by MITA.

We were also involved in the accreditation system for the delegates and the journalists who will be attending for the events that will be organised during the Presidency. The information needs to be screened by security officers and then inserted in the system where they are checked for eligibility. MITA actively assisted in the procurement of this system which was then hosted at MITA's Data.

Another aspect which was very important for MITA was security. We invested heavily to make sure that these systems are secured and also gave priority to the security aspect of the infrastructure both at the Presidency building in the Grandmaster's Palace in Valletta and at Dar Malta in Brussels.

We also implemented a tele-conferences rooms with the required facilities that provide the possibility of having two meetings occurring in two different places but look they are being organised in the same place.

In the next six months we will be supporting all these systems, while providing technical support that will be requested. MITA also sent two employees in Brussels to provide their support there.

At the same time, MITA should also be working on the implementation of the Mobile Government Strategy. What should we expect next?

It is time to walk the talk. There are three major milestones, the first of which is to release the Launcher in March 2017. The launcher is the base through which all the mobile apps will be accessed and launched. With the launcher, we will also release the first set of mobile apps that are focused on information. In all there will be more than 15 mobile apps that will be launched in the first term.

The second milestone is to release another number of mobile apps by March 2018. This time, the apps will have the facility to connect you to databases in which you can input your data, ask for information and make financial transactions. Due to this feature, the apps will have to be more secure and complex.

The last batch will be launched in December 2018. These apps will be focused on providing tools for the public officers. Public officers currently use their laptops or computers to do their job. However, there are a number of officers that need to do their job on the spot but at the same time stay connected to their network and systems. Through these apps, they will be able to check the information on their systems and input the information they get on the job.

Prior to the launch of the Cyber Security Strategy our country was still operating in a particular direction. What effect does this strategy have?

The more time is passing, the more we depend on IT. If twenty years ago anything happened to something related to IT this would not have a large impact. If it happens today, it can stop a whole country. If anything happens to our data centre, the Maltese Government would be impacted heavily; and the impact will be even greater as more time will pass.

If we look at the news about what is happening in other countries, the focus is on cyber security. Some say that in the future we will not have wars on the battlefields but digital wars where a country is damaged by the shutting down of its systems. We have seen recently that a large number of big companies had their data hacked.

We must also understand that nowadays hackers do not intrude into systems for fun. It has become a business financed to attack specific companies and large infrastructures. We are also in a situation where the attacks can be state financed.

We are giving Cyber Security its due importance. In fact, we drafted a strategy, under the direction of the Ministry and its Permanent Secretary, based on six major goals. The most important goal is to raise awareness among the citizens. Some people do not even know how to protect themselves online, leaving their password visible or share it with other people. We need to spread the awareness among all levels of the society, ranging from children to housewives, men and women and also among the elderly. From next year, we will be launching an awareness campaign, first of all among the public officers to understand where they should be careful regarding cyber security. The campaign will then be spread on a national level through billboards, TV and radio adverts to inform citizens how they should be cautious about cyber security. Education is the best means through which you can defend yourself in cyber security.

What can MITA do to increase the interest in specialising in IT?

First of all, I think that we should increase the female interest in IT. If we look at our agency, we have 75% males against a 25% of females. It should not be like that. We want the percentages gap to recede. There is no reason for women not be inclined to work in IT. In fact, they should be more attracted to IT than other sectors like construction. In the IT sector, it makes no difference if you are a man or a woman. We have top notch women who work with us. We have also seen through our recruitment process that only one women applies for a job with MITA with every five men that apply.

For the rest, we need to make it more attractive to work in IT by using modern systems which are closer to social media, such as analytic tools.