Students develop text-message dictionary

Maltese became the 71st language to be made available in T9, the text-message dictionary, after a team of nine students from Junior College came up with the innovative idea.

Spiral, as the team is called, participated in this year's HSBC Young Enterprise Programme and won several awards including Best Product, Most Innovative Product, Best Use Of Technology and The Most Coveted Company of the Year Award.

The students are aged between 16 and 17 and none of them have a background in computing. After coming up with the idea, they learnt how to use the programming software Java to develop the product themselves.

After some teething problems, they needed to enrol the help of Robert Abela, a seasoned programmer, to finalise the application, which they then named Malti9.

Besides Malti9, Spiral had a second product, tents that could be set up automatically in under two seconds. These were imported from Brussels and became very popular with customers. The students were even asked to set up a permanent company to sell the tents in Malta.

But the team is more concerned with their original and much sought after Malti9 product. In fact, following some market research, they realised that they should stop selling it until they get feedback from mobile telephony companies in Malta because selling the actual licence might be much more profitable.

"The product was overlooked in Malta. Through market research we elicited people's need for T9 in Maltese. Many mobile phone users wished to send text messages in Maltese but found it too time-consuming to do so without T9," managing director Emma Beck, who first came out with the idea, told The Times.

Their plan now is either to sell the licence to mobile telephony companies or to set up a permanent company that would sell the application online.

The interest is there and the members of Spiral are keen to say that they have already been contacted by local mobile telephony company Go, which has shown interest in buying the licence.

According to Ms Beck the best thing about this product is that it can be tailored to other languages, including specific ones like medical jargon, so it has potential for even further growth.

Malti9 can also be used simultaneously with the English version of T9, enabling a bilingual dictionary that allows for code-switching.

Ms Beck said it took 100 hours to learn how to use the programming software Java and another 60 hours to develop Malti9.

For company secretary Roberta Galea the best part of Young Enterprise were the finals and everything leading to them. She said this really helped to build the team even more and to strengthen friendships.

Her advice to next year's participants is: "Don't give up and don't quit because, despite being a very time-consuming exercise, in the end it pays off".

Spiral will be flying to Stockholm, Sweden, this week to represent Malta in the European finals.

Young Enterprise CEO Karl Gouder told The Times that this year's product is one of the best they ever had and this augurs well for the finals, although the competition in Europe is becoming fiercer each year. "Hopefully we'll bring home the trophy this year," he said.