PwC is launching an academy to offer training at all levels of IT, drawing on the resources of Key IT Group, a training company with 11 years of experience which it acquired last year.

PwC has had a fully-fledged training academy at its premises in Qormi since 2010, headed by Lisa Pullicino, dealing with business and finance, which has already trained 3,800 professionals.

It will now add a range of standard or customized IT courses to be able to offer individuals and corporates training either on site or in-house.

The IT Academy will be led by Steve Casaletto of Key IT, but will be branded as the PwC IT Academy.

PwC partner for technology George Sammut said that companies were now much more aware than they used to be about the role of IT in their firm, and realised that they could either upgrade the skills of their own staff or outsource.

“The bottom line is that they need to ensure that they are choosing the right solution and that the IT solutions are being fully exploited not only vertically but horizontally across the organisation. There is plenty of evidence to show that most people use barely 10 per cent of the functionalities of even basic programmes,” he said.

Ms Pullicino said that the academy was based on the principle of offering attendees something more than just certification.

“We want to make sure that something ‘sticks’, which we do by being very selective with trainers and looking not only for expertise but also delivery skills and charisma,” she said.

The first courses – on ethical hacking – are already underway, with others planned on forensic hacking, enabling attendees to identify weak areas of security as well as to identify intruders should these manage to get into the company’s systems.

The company has also teamed up with EC Council, which offers certifications related to disaster recovery, secure programming, e-business and general IT security knowledge.

www.pwcacademy.com.mt