Imagine being unable to touch a keyboard but free to design websites using just your voice. Imagine a programme that automatically listed everything on your favourite topic.

Imagine a square kilometre of telescopes run by software based on how things evolve.

These ideas were presented at the fourth Workshops in ICT (WICT) workshop, organised by the Faculty of ICT at the University of Malta on March 21 and 22.

WICT is the faculty’s major yearly and is organised to help staff and students remain up-to-date with the latest research. Such networking helps the exchange of ideas and the creation of long-lasting ties for future collaborations.

This year’s workshop attracted speakers from Germany and China. Jonathan Li from Xiamen University in China gave a talk about tracking oil spills by radar. The Horizon disaster in April 2010 shocked the world with the huge impact oil can have on the lives of people and the environment. The research by Prof. Li and his team has resulted in a technology called MarineSAR that looks for dark spots on radar images taken from space. This has made radio detection more efficient and accurate, which is helping find oil spills faster.

Speakers from the Malta Information Technology Agency gave several talks including information about the agency’s research in the use of social media by government to provide better public outreach.

Such input helps university listen to, understand, and then adapt to the needs of Malta.

The main sponsors for WICT were MITA, the eSkills Alliance, and several industrial gold sponsors including Bit8 Ltd, Microsoft, Computime, and CCBill EU.

www.wict2012.eu