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The Malta Independent | Thursday 16 July 2015
Courses for 2014-2015 managed by FITA
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bout 40 students with disability have just finished successfully ICT courses organised by the Foundation for Information Technology Accessibility (FITA). These students were given a certificate by Hon. Evarist Bartolo, Minister of Education and Employment. The courses took place between October 2014 and June 2015 and covered different levels of ECDL courses, according to the needs of those who applied. Earlier today 37 certificates were given for attending the ECDL course and another four certificates for individuals with visual impairment that finished a basic course in ICT. During the certificate ceremony, Hon. Minister Bartolo thanked all entities that are responsible for
the Ministry of Gozo and Dar Santa Marta. Details of the courses that took place between 2014/15 are: Computer Awareness:4 Students Module 5: 6 Students Module 5 Advanced: 10 Students Module 6: 6 Students Module 6 Advanced: 5 Students Module 7: 6 Students
organising such courses. “The participants of these courses do not only learn ICT skills but they also develop other skills which strengthen their personality and
soft skills. To successfully finish their courses they worked hard and made sacrifices and this was evident in how proud they were with themselves today when they came to collect their certificate,” said Hon Bartolo. FITA works hand in hand with the Ministry of Education to organise ECDL courses, where they offer mentoring support to students who apart from formal training they require specific support as how to work the exam sheet. Apart from that, FITA has further support not only from the Malta Information and Technology Agency (MITA) and the Kummissjoni Nazzjonali Persuni b’Diżabilita’ (KNPD), but also from the Directorate of Lifelong Learning and MCAST’s Institute of ICT. Other courses take place in Gozo with the collaboration of
Summer Courses This is the second year that together with an agreement with MITA, ICT courses shall be held during summer. One of the courses held will be for people with intellectual needs whilst another one is aimed for deaf individuals. The intake for these courses is high and in fact they
are already over subscribed. Such courses would not be possible if not with the will and determination of students and dedication of their teachers. The Foundation would like to thank KNPD, MITA, the Directorate for Lifelong Learning, MCAST, Access Centre of Cospicua, Ministry of Gozo and the Gozitan Federation for People with Disability. Currently FITA is accepting applications for courses that will take place in due course. FITA is also reaching out to schools and learning centres which are interested in organising courses which are accessible to everybody. The contact person is Mr. Stanley M Debono: stanley.debono@gov.mt or on 2599 2048.
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ompanies may lose as much as €27,300 per employee per year due to inefficiency but collaboration technology can enable workers to connect and share information in realtime, driving measurable business results to compensate for this loss. These results and opportunities to improve line of business-specific KPIs were found in an IDCcommissioned study on the business value of social solutions. According to the research, workers are severely hampered by everyday tasks, including reading and responding to email and searching for and gathering information. This reflects a huge measurable cost in the inefficiencies of work. However, social collaboration tools can help facilitate faster, more informed decisions and improve the quality of the work that is critical to business success. “Organisations should look to provide seamless experiences to their users by deeply integrating collaborative applications within existing enterprise systems and processes,” said Vanessa Thompson, research director, Enterprise Social Networks and
up employee on-boarding by connecting new hires with recommendations for people, content and training, and deliver intelligent filtering of appropriate training and development information as well as detailed management of personnel information. • For customer service, facilitate an open and transparent dialogue with customers throughout the lifetime of their relationship with a company. • For marketing, connect marketing teams with data from business users, customers, partners or suppliers to help reduce marketing costs and increase response time. • For sales, connect internal teams from across the company, ensuring rapid resolution of issues to speed sales cycles and improve the quality of the customer interaction, all while reducing costs. Collaborative Technologies, IDC Research. “The ability to link employees, partners, suppliers and customers together in order to deliver right time information and context to interactions is at the epicentre of competitive differentiation.” Collaboration is especially im-
portant for the lines of business in an organisation, which face unique challenges and have stringent KPIs to meet. As part of the study, qualitative research white papers were developed for several lines of business - sales, customer service, human resources and marketing - to sum-
Roderick Spiteri
Roderick Spiteri is Marketing and Communications Manager at MITA and editor of Malta Independent ICT feature
marise what is most important to each and how collaboration platforms can help meet their KPIs. The study found social collaboration platforms can meet lineof-business challenges in the following ways: • For human resources, speed
One such tool is SAP Jam - a collaborative platform that works across the business. It can help to measurably drive real results, while supporting the work processes and applications with work patterns for each specific line of business.
The Malta Independent ICT Feature
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ne of the benefits of technology is that it can be adapted for everyone; including those with different abilities. The Foundation for IT Accessibility has just finished a set of ICT courses, including ECDL as well as basic ICT skills. In total, 41 students have successfully completed these courses.
A new study by IDC found that companies may be losing thousands of Euros per employee per year due to certain inefficiencies. On a positive side, the study found that costs can be recovered by implementing specific social collaboration tools; which can also help employees deliver better work. Smartphones are the practically
Consumers aware of Android vulnerabilities but take no action
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Social collaboration improves business value and helps recover sunk costs
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The Malta Independent | Thursday 16 July 2015
hile the majority of consumers are aware of potential malware attacks on the Android platform, and overwhelmingly understand the critical importance of mobile security, they are surprisingly not taking the necessary steps to protect their mobile devices. This was revealed in the ‘Android Security Survey 2015’ conducted by 360 Mobile Security Limited, a developer of mobile antivirus and performance applications. The random survey highlights consumers’ knowledge, interest and buying habits around Android-specific security applications (apps) and found that: More than 90% of respondents noted that mobile security is “very important” while twothirds of them are aware of weak-
nesses on the Android platform. Top concerns for Android mobile users included untrustworthy apps (27%); online payments (20%); and hackers (13%). Additional concerns were single sign-on, Wi-Fi connection, personal data leakage and others. Nearly half of the respondents currently are not (or unsure if they are) using a security app on their personal smartphone device, noting that approximately one-out-of two people didn’t know they needed an app. More than 80% of respondents want to spend less than $4.99 on a security app while 44% of respondents do not want to pay any fee for the app. Yan Huang, COO of 360 Mobile Security, said, “The survey results are a good reminder that while today’s consumers are aware of threats to the Android
platform, most are not leveraging the tools and apps needed to protect themselves.” In her Internet Trend 2015, Mary Meeker, partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, pointed out that, “Adware grew 136% to 410,000 apps between 2013 and first three quarters of 2014, giving attackers access to personal information such as contact, which can subsequently be used to launch phishing attacks.” Given that mobile devices are increasingly used to harvest data, it is a concerning fact that oneout-two people didn’t know they needed a security app. It is therefore those security firms’ responsibility to draw people’s attention and help protect their personal data. To learn more about the 360 Security app, visit: http://360overseas.com/en-us
in everyone’s pockets and we use them for every aspect – be it for work or personal reasons. A new survey found that whilst the majority of Android consumer are aware of certain vulnerabilities (and we will see which aspects are the most concerning), many of them do not take any action to address these weaknesses (and some of them do not even know
that they can or should take action). All ICT Features are available on www.mita.gov.mt/ictfeature