I was recently invited to a roundtable discussion with the Director-General of the European Commission Directorate for Communications Networks, Content and Technology Robert Madelin. The main topic of discussion was the digital agenda set by Brussels, the new targets being set for 2020, and the investments required to ensure we have an adequate level of e-skills required to make this happen.

We now need to embark on the next journey... one based on a new vision

One of the points I made, and feel strongly about, is that Europe has rather missed the boat in the information age that has developed in the last few decades, and has failed in positioning itself at the forefront of technological innovation. In particular in information technology, all the leading companies today come from outside Europe: Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, HP, Google, Facebook, Twitter, IBM, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Cisco, Juniper all hail from the US or the Far East. With the exception of SAP, I can hardly think of any other European company which has made it big in the field.

There are several factors why this has happened, and which need to change if we want to reclaim a stake in the next 25 years. The first and most important, and perhaps the one we are lacking most, is political vision. We need our European politicians to not just look at ICT as a means to achieve, but as an end in itself.

We need our politicians to spend less time arguing about banks and the economy, and spend more time realising the vision that only through technological innovation can Europe compete effectively in a global economy. We need a clear, agreed vision that will focus the EU to achieve this aim, and move on from being content with ticking boxes relating to broadband penetration targets, to truly building a knowledge economy.

Once this vision is in place, we then need to focus on a strategy across the board, on how to get there. In the early 1990s, Europe had taken one big stride in this direction with GSM, which for a time made Europe a leader in mobile technology. Ericsson and Alcatel are two European technology companies which are still enjoying some of that success.

No one can argue that the investment through research and development programmes, such as the Framework Protocol programmes, has not been there. But especially in the field of ICT, the results speak for themselves. Very few programmes have resulted in breakthroughs which have led to global reach of product. So we need to review these, and how they are working.

It is also clear that for some reason, European academic institutions, are not delivering the amount of innovation and cutting edge technology, which are required to create a fertile landscape for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to take the product to a next level. This is a hard one to tackle, as I suspect it is rooted in a European culture of academic excellence based on the arts and culture rather than technology and innovation.

But now there is competition, not only from the west, but also from the east of our continent. The US is driven by innovation, Japan was built on it. Even tiny Israel, with all its political and security issues, has managed to build a focus on technology.

Malta has continued to build on its ICT strengths and skills. This has come about because of the belief by industry and the Government that we can make ICT a main driver of our economy. Since the early 1990s, when industry, academia and the Government got together to develop the first National Strategy for IT we have never looked back, and today we have had a good measure of success, considering our size and market limitations. There are thousands employed in ICT today, with a good number of local companies doing business beyond our shores.

We now need to embark on the next journey, one which takes us from the current state of play, to one based on a new vision. Like the rest of Europe, we too need to have a vision in which ICT and technology play a core part in making us the best at everything we do.

This vision needs to be driven by an education system, in which we manage to embed technology and innovation at all levels. Whether it is financial services, tourism or maritime services, we need to make technological innovation the driver which gives that edge. This needs to be a vision agreed upon by all stakeholders, championed by the Government and driven by industry.

Keith Fearne is chairman of the ICT Business Section of the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry.