The Commonwealth Network of Information Technology for Development (COMNET-IT) teamed up with MITTS Ltd in delivering a two-day seminar to all the top officials of the government of Bermuda during the last week of July on business planning and IT projects.

The government of Bermuda had issued an international request for quotations in May and it was adjudicated to the Malta team.

Prior to the seminar, the Maltese delegates were also involved in a series of knowledge-sharing meetings with the Bermuda IT office, the Cabinet IT secretariat and the permanent secretary of the Bermudian Ministry of Finance, Donald Scott.

Mr Scott launched the seminar stating that great importance was being placed by his government on effective business and IT planning, including the introduction of the zero based budgeting concept across government, and mentioned that the choice of COMNET-IT/MITTS Ltd was based on the premise that the Malta team could relate such an important subject within the context of a best practice model that was adopted in a small island state such as Bermuda.

Commenting on the assignment, Reuben Portanier, department manager (strategy and business development, MITTS Ltd) said that "the focus of the Malta team was that of presenting the government of Bermuda with a knowledge-sharing experience, specifically using the Malta IT experience as a best practice model, rather than delivering a theoretical approach to business planning within a public service IT environment.

"This approach generated a lot of interest within the government of Bermuda; 60 of their top officials attended, including permanent secretaries, the Chief Justice, the chief architect, the chief engineer and cabinet office.

The feedback at the end of the seminar was extremely positive and we believe that we have gained an interesting acknowledgment of the Maltese ICT capabilities that could potentially generate interest for the Maltese ICT sector as a whole."