IT Professionals Week is a local version of IT Professionals Day, which began its journey in Ireland in 2015 with a seminar hosted by the ICS Foundation – supported by the European Commission and leading Irish CIOs, CEOs, education and policy leaders.

In 2016, the eSkills Malta Foundation hosted a round-table discussion on professional standards attended by leading academics and business directors. In the same year, the Latvian Information and Communications Technology Association hosted a scientific conference and technology workshop led by experts from leading IT companies and university representatives, with over 700 participants attending in person or online through live conference streaming.

The IT Professionals Day custom is a celebration of the IT profession and gives something of value towards it. It was soon converted into an IT Professionals Week, or period, by many other organisations in Europe and the world, because clearly a day is not enough.

The celebration can include events targeted to students with the aim of appreciating the profession or encouraging them to join a career path in IT. The day is also aimed at the IT professional to commit to a code of ethics or to join an IT institution, for continuous professional development by availing themselves of special offers of training or seminars being given during the IT Professionals period, or simply to contribute to the profession and society by offering time to increase the ICT capacity to a targeted group.

This year Malta celebrated IT Professionals Week by organising various events targeting different groups and collaborating with several partners. It was a big success.

Most small businesses in Malta lack the skills and knowledge to be able to sell their products and services online

The foundation collaborated with Google and the National Skills Council for the launch of the Google Workshop training platform at the Malta Hilton. This free online training is targeted at start-up companies, SMEs or anyone who would like to expand their digital marketing knowledge and online digital skills. Most small businesses in Malta lack the skills and knowledge to be able to sell their products and services online.

The foundation launched the ICT Skills Audit 2017. This study had been going on since the last quarter of the previous year. The foundation also collaborated with Fast Track into IT from Ireland to investigate the skills required by ICT companies (including iGaming, banking, insurance and retail), research the current local education and training provision for the same sector and report on the findings. The report gives important recommendations that stakeholders should consider to implement in order to decrease the existing digital skills gap endangering our digital economy.

A series of technology talks also took place on ‘Virtual reality in education’ – by Alexiei Dingli from the University of Malta, ‘How cryptography made eBusiness possible’ – by John Abela from Ascent Software, ‘The blockchain according to Robin Hood’ – by Steve Tendon from Tameflow Consulting and ‘Preparing for IoT’ – by Edward Portelli from Microsoft Malta.

Last month the foundation invited Mark Micallef and Chris Porter from the University of Malta and Angelina Samaroo from the UK to talk about software-testing ideas and concepts. Although software testing has drastically increased in Malta over the past seven years, this has not been complemented by the right professional development and leading certifications in the area, such as the International Software Testing Qualifications Board. A discussion was carried out following a series of presentations.

The IT Professionals period ended last month with an important event aimed at women in ICT. Over 20 women and a few men discussed gender issues in the ICT profession. Currently there is a large gap in Malta and the whole world of women taking up an ICT (or STEM) career. This is due to many factors, including culture, schooling, industry initiatives and policies in general. The Foundation’s Women in ICT was launched with several objectives towards balancing the gender gap.

The IT Professionals Day, or Week, or Period, has been a success because various professionals and people within society are willing to make a conscious effort towards this beaming profession for a short period.

This seems to be giving a boost to the IT profession and reminds us of its importance in society and industry and the importance of the mostly unsung heroes who work in the profession.

Carm Cachia is executive coordinator, eSkills Malta Foundation.

The eSkills Malta Foundation is a partnership of representatives from government, industry and education that aims to advise government and stakeholders on matters related to the national eSkills policy and contribute to the expansion of ICT educational programmes and related initiatives.

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