A Maltese e-Skills Demand and Supply Monitor is to be developed by the Malta Information Technology Agency and the research institution INSEAD eLab. The monitor is to gauge the present and forecasted availability of e-skills and how this matches the anticipated demand from the industry.
Bruno Lanvin, executive director of INSEAD eLab and Nils Olaya Fonstad, who authored the 2010 INSEAD eLab Skills Report with Dr Lanvin, outline the opportunities and challenges of developing e-skills in Malta and how these impact the country’s competitiveness.
What are the critical factors when conducting similar undertakings in other countries? Will such factors also apply locally and how will these be addressed?
The most critical success factor that we have found from past experience is continuous and constructive engagement between leaders from academia, industry and the public sector. Without a strong network, key stakeholder groups fail to learn from and coordinate with each other and consequently waste precious resources.
At times, it is not easy to maintain constructive dialogue across stakeholder groups with competing interests, however when managed fairly, the process can result in truly innovative outcomes. A key ingredient of success is also that each of those stakeholders must be able to identify in the study elements that matter for their own respective agendas, and a tool for action.
What are your views on the work of e-Skills Alliance Malta and how do you think this work will influence the e-Skills Demand and Supply Monitor?
E-Skills Alliance Malta is a fundamental mechanism to ensure that, in Malta, all stakeholders contribute together to understanding what skills are needed, how they can be generated, attracted and maintained, and how such skills can be mobilised and combined to foster innovation and competitiveness at the national level.
Given the rapid pace at which new technologies are created, it is essential that leaders from academia, industry and the public sector continuously engage to reflect, experiment and learn together, and identify priority areas in which they can take action together. E-Skills Alliance Malta recognises that neither stakeholder groups nor organisation alone can shrink the gap between demand and supply of e-skills.
Similarly, developing the Maltese e-Skills Demand and Supply Monitor will require the collaboration and coordination of leaders from academia, industry, and the public sector. Both efforts will undoubtedly contribute to each other’s success.
A study conducted by INSEAD on the provision of skills for an innovative and sustainable Europe showed that a large part of the variation in the global competitiveness is down to skills. How will the e-Skills Demand and Supply Monitor help Malta identify its e-skills shortages and increase its global competitiveness?
Available data shows that, among the factors of productivity (capital, institutions, technology), human capital is by far the one that is the most strongly correlated to competitiveness. In the case of Europe, e-skills gaps represent a particularly significant challenge. Malta’s e-Skills Supply and Demand Monitor is a critical tool for analysis and action, which is likely to attract the attention of other members of the European Union.
The educational institutions have a fundamental role in satisfying the demand of companies for e-competences. What is the monitor’s role in this and how will it guide institutions to ensure that the e-skills demanded by the industry are being addressed?
We believe that – in Malta as elsewhere – a wide set of educational institutions share the responsibility to provide the e-competences that companies need: from those who help develop digital literacy during compulsory education, to colleges and universities, to organisations that provide educational opportunities for those already in work and for life-long learning.
However, the rapid pace of technological progress makes it very clear that no company can expect that any recruit coming out of the education systems will have the skills required for the totality of his or her professional life. Education and the acquisition of skills have become a life-long process, in which academia and business have to play their part. Past e-Lab research has described in particular how such collaboration is needed to constantly upgrade and update curricula.
Malta is a small country. Demographically, it cannot compete with the supply of graduates being churned out in India, for example. However, in terms of strategic actions, how will the e-Skills Demand and Supply monitor guide local policy makers to ride on the value-add opportunities? From your experience, what kind of opportunities should Malta target in its quest to promote itself as a centre of excellence?
When looking at the skills picture from a global geo-political point of view, one needs to keep two fundamental facts in mind. First, large countries such as India and China can hardly provide the skills required by their own pace of growth and development.
Secondly, in a context of rapid technological and economic change, agility is a key ingredient of success. Both of these facts play to the advantage of smaller economies, which have proved able to steer their resources (including skills) towards ‘global niches’.
Once such niches have been identified, an instrument like the e-Skills Supply and Demand Monitor takes all of its value, since it allows stakeholders to focus their energies on the rapid generation of the skills required to be successful on global markets. Malta can excel in several key areas, already well aligned with its factor endowments and overall strategy: tourism, financial services, but also digital contents and sector-specific services (in pharmaceuticals, bio-technologies, and agriculture) should certainly be considered in that context. It will also be important to identify the synergies which Malta can benefit from in its effort to be a hub for excellence: western and/or southern Europe, the Mediterranean, should be regarded as possible bases to develop critical mass.