The 2017 edition of Budding Rockstars was held last week at the Hilton Malta Hotel, St Julian's. The event was attended by 150 Form 5 students and more than 50 educators hailing from 40 schools in Malta and Gozo.

Budding Rockstars is an innovation event by the Malta Communications Authority, forming part of a wider set of activity undertaken by the Authority, aimed at exposing young persons to technology entrepreneurship. The event targeted the highest academic achievers from across all public, church and private schools in Malta and Gozo. The event provided students with an opportunity to interact with emerging and established tech entrepreneurs and to gain valuable insights on the key characteristics of entrepreneurship. Moreover, participants were encouraged to learn about and consider tech entrepreneurship as a career path.

Various speakers shared their story with the attendees. Erik Bergman spoke about the emotional journey of co-founding Catena Media, a company nowadays valued at €500m. In a frank discussion, Dr Angelo Dalli, serial entrepreneur, Keith Fenech from Revulytics and Peter Grech, CEO and co-founder at BRND WGN, discussed their experience of starting up and growing a successful venture. Despite the different trajectories in their entrepreneurial venture, all agreed that perseverance plays a key part in success.

Rachel Cachia and Martina Zammit, co-founders at V Squared Media, noted how strong teamwork is essential in any entrepreneurial adventure. Mark Brooks, CEO at Courtland Brooks, stressed the importance of building one's network and how having strong connections is critical to an entrepreneur's success.

Other speaking contributions were made by the students from Flair and Intact, winners of the Jaye Company and Start-up Programme, respectively. Both teams recounted their successful Junior Achievement Young  Enterprise experience and encouraged the attendees to learn entrepreneurship hands-on.

In another contribution, Zach Ciappara, spoke about his experience launching FreeHour, a Mita-backed start-up, providing an app that helps students connect with each other on campus during their free time.

Throughout a hands-on workshop, coordinated by the Edward de Bono Institute, students were exposed to creativity and innovation techniques aimed at facilitating idea generation in a business context. Students worked in groups to develop novel business concepts that applied ICTs and addressed a problem.

Ideas were afterwards exhibited, voted upon and the teams with the best three ideas were invited to pitch on stage in the final phase of Budding Rockstars.

Silvio Schembri, parliamentary secretary for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation visited the event and met with the students. Schembri stressed that both parents and educators must instil in the young generation, a culture in which those who fail will get up and try again. Schembri remarked that the young generation must be encouraged to risk and convert their thoughts and imagination into commercial ideas. Finally, he stressed that more efforts are required to further nurture the idea of setting up a start-up among the young ones.

In a video message, Evarist Bartolo, Minister for Education encouraged the young audience to stop fearing failure, dream big and pursue adventure, while accepting that hard work lies ahead of any success.

Other messages were sent by the MEPs Dr Miriam Dalli, Roberta Metsola and Marlene Mizzi. The MEPs called for further entrepreneurship while each reserved specific words of encouragement for more ambition among girls. In view of the low participation of women in tech, girls were encouraged to step forward and aspire to become leaders of tomorrow's digital scene.

Judging for the final "pitch competition" was handled by Dr Leonie Baldacchino, University of Malta; Jarek Bialek, Start-up Weekend Malta; Alex Borg from Mita Innovation Hub and Julian Azzopardi from Junior Achievement Young Enterprise. The judges noted how the business idea is very important, but it is ultimately the execution that matters the most. Whereas a strong idea could help the business to grow quickly in the early stages, it takes a strong team to sustain such growth and secure the business long-term.

Dr Edward Woods, chairman at MCA, thanked all speakers, partners and educators for making the event another great success. While highlighting the Authority's efforts in digital skills, he stressed the importance of inculcating from a young age a mindset that defies the status quo and that seeks new opportunities through technological innovation.

Budding Rockstars was organised by the MCA, in collaboration with the Edward de Bono Institute and the Directorate for Educational Services. The event was supported by the Secretariat for Catholic Education, Junior Achievement Young Enterprise, the BeSmartOnline campaign and Zest Malta.

The MCA has set up a Facebook page www.facebook.com/BuddingRockstars for Budding Rockstars to serve as a platform for further engagement.