Milestones Of 2000

14

MITTS LTD ANNUAL REPORT 2000

MILESTONES OF 2000

MITTS Ltd is a technology-oriented organisation, providing high-level technology services - the Malta Government Network (or MAGNET) the Internet and Electronic Mail (e-mail) among others - to the Government through a resilient and robust infrastructure. Compelled to ensure that its infrastructure is state-of-the-art, MITTS Ltd has embarked on a re-investment programme, with the first phase consisting of the over-hauling of the Internet and Remote Access infrastructure. Moreover, last October, the MITTS Ltd Board endorsed the investment in capital projects such as Storage Area Networking (SAN) technology, Enterprise Management Architecture (EMA). e-Government strategies in the advanced Information Societies have identified that the major catalyst for the attainment of e-commerce is the establishment of eProcurement for public contracts, tendering and procurement. MITTS Ltd as the IT service provider to Government has as a purchaser the critical mass to facilitate the attainment of Government’s goal to transform Malta into an Information Economy by championing eProcurement. In this regard, the MITTS Ltd Board commissioned in 2000 an internal business study to assess the introduction of e-Procurement for MITTS Ltd related

procurement. The e-Procurement system will render procurement more efficient and enhance relationships with MITTS Ltd clients and suppliers as it will lead to improvements in terms of prices, quality, delivery lead times and methodologies whilst improving transparency, traceability, accountability, and retaining ISO 9000 certification. STRATEGIC CLIENTS

The Education Division within the Ministry of Education embarked on challenging project to provide Internet in all Government State Schools. The strategy adopted by the Education Division through its Information, Communications and Technology Centre (ICTC) was that it commissions MITTS Ltd to set up Internet connectivity in 50 schools by March 2001 to be connected to MAGNET by either ADSL or cable modem links. These connections will be inter-connecting approximately 1340 students' PCs and 100 schools administration PCs to the MAGNET. The main objective of the provision of Internet in schools is to broaden student’s communication and research capabilities. The project is also seen as a powerful medium to transform 180 schools across Malta and Gozo into access centres for e-Government related services. Following the successful completion of IT infrastructure works in Primary State Schools (Years 1, 2, 3 and 4) the Education Department in 2000 commissioned MITTS Ltd to equip all Year 5 and 6 classrooms (9 to 11 years) with IT infrastructure. For Year 5 and 6 a total of 400 classrooms, each consisting of 10 data outlets were installed thus, reaching a total of 4,000 network points. The Local Area Newtorks (LANs) implemented in these schools will allow future Wide Area Network (WAN) inter-connectivity within the Education portfolio. To date, the total number of networked classes in the primary education sector is 700, this being 65 per cent of the total number of classes available in this sector. The Education Division, in its endeavour to provide maximised IT knowledge, embarked on the provision of around 700 computers, 200 laptops, 200 printers and other audio-visual equipment. These were distributed to all Year 5 classes during last year, whilst an additional 9 computer laboratories have been installed within the secondary education sector. Each lab has been equipped

with 16 PCs, printing facilities, networking and a Visual Display Unit for teaching purposes. IT is now being used as an effective tool for the teaching of computer studies, social studies and mathematics. It is envisaged that the same amount of hardware will be rolled out during 2001 for the Year 6 Primary State Schools.