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The Malta Independent | Thursday 6 August 2015
MITA supports an EU initiative to ameliorate the criminal justice reforms in Uzbekistan Roderick Spiteri
Roderick Spiteri is Marketing and Communications Manager at MITA and editor of Malta Independent ICT feature
Adrian Avellino
T
his July, MITA, in liaison with the Courts of Malta hosted a study visit on the request of the GIZ GMBH. GIZ are one of the international partners in an EU funded project under the EU international Cooperation and Development (DEVCO) with the aim of the project being to support the criminal justice reforms in Uzbekistan. The delegation was lead by the Deputy Minister for Justice of Uzbekistan who was supported by a number of technical staff and legal specialists. The delegation showed particular interest and was impressed by the setup and design of the MITA Data Centre which holds, amongst other awards, a Tier III certification as both a constructed facility and also for design. During the tour of the data centre the resilience, failover design and physical security aspects were ex-
The Malta Independent ICT Feature
A
s part of an EU initiative, MITA has recently hosted a delegation from Uzbekistan and explained to them some of its ICT infrastructure at the Tier III Data Centre. MITA, together with the Courts of Malta also provided them with demos and information aboutn a number of information
systems that are currently in use by the courts and the police. Nine students are currently working at the MITA Innovation Hub at SmartCity Malta to create and develop three digital serious games – or games through which one can learn about a particular subject. The students belong to two teams who have recently been selected as the
winners of the Gamify-IT competition launched earlier in the year by the hub. For the second consecutive year, MITA is running its STEM Summer Club with the aim of reaching hundreds of children and give them the opportunity to participate in hands-on activities and experiments related to science, technol-
ogy, engineering and maths. All ICT Features are available on www.mita.gov.mt/ictfeature
All aboard the STEM Summer Club 2015! plained to the delegation. Subsequently the delegation was given a demo of a number of systems that are used by the Courts and the Malta Police Force in the area of criminal justice. A newly developed module that takes the approach of building towards an end to end offender management cycle was shown in detail. This system allows the processing of criminals from the crime report to the charge sheet and consequently the recoding of the criminal record on sentencing, therefore providing a more
comprehensive profile of a criminal. The work done on the interconnectivity of the courts case management system with that of the Attorney General’s office was also elaborated in detail with a particular focus on how this sharing initiative reduces duplication and encourages consistency of information across the different domains. Information was provided on the Common DataBase (CDb) initiative and how the availability of such a database serves as a tool to provide a better service to the cit-
izen in general and in particular to the area of justice. One typical example is the use of this database to find the contact information of relatives in response to a report that is filed at a police station, related to the status of an elderly person has not been seen for a number of days by neighbours. On the second day of the study visit the delegation toured the courts buildings in Valletta and was given a presentation of an electronic pilot project that is currently running in the lower criminal courts. A focus was placed
on how the notification service was reengineered to expedite case processing. One of the main benefits that have been achieved so far through this system is the reduction of the number of pending cases presided by the Magistrate in question. For more information on the EU funded project, visit http://crimjustuz.eu Adrian Avellino is a Project Manager, Justice and Police Programmes at MITA
1 summer, 2 teams, 3 games The ICT Feature goes to SmartCity Malta to meet Alex Borg and David Sant from the MITA Innovation Hub. They tell us about the latest initiatives organised by the hub and about the Gamify-IT competition. Finding alternative ways to engage and incentivise teenagers when learning is not an easy task. Besides educating children, teaching them skills and giving them the means to be life-long learners, education is an investment in the young to become tomorrow’s citizens and, why not, tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. MITA Innovation Hub manager, Alex Borg, says that, “equipped with the right approach and proper tools, students at MCAST or University level, can be encouraged to start their
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The Malta Independent | Thursday 6 August 2015
own business”. This is where, according to him, the MITA Innovation Hub (MIH), based in SmartCity Malta, can help. The MIH has been set up with the intent of giving students and start-up founders an opportunity to experience transformation of their idea into a tangible product or service in a real-life setting. David Sant, a Project Manager at MITA who mentors the startups said that last April a call for proposals, Gamify-IT, was published to build three Digital Serious Games (Digital SGs) to be developed at the MITA Innova-
tion Hub. Each team was asked to develop an innovatively designed digital serious game in one of the following thematic areas – the Gamification of Learning Sciences, the Gamification of National History and the Gamification of Information Security Awareness. The winning teams have been awarded a summer job and eventually a cash prize of €2,000. The thematic areas were selected after acknowledging the need to incentivise teenage students’ interest in challenging subjects like history and biology.
This was done after discussions with the Directorate of Curriculum Management from the Ministry for Education and Employment, Heritage Malta and MITA’s security department. After the call was published, an information and networking event was organised in May with the purpose of helping interested gamers to understand the concept behind the challenge, as well as to get in touch with other participants and together build a great team and a winning proposal. Five proposals were submitted from four different teams. The winning teams were ‘SquareScope’ and ‘Oddingo’. The teams are made up of four and five students respectively, all having a different academic background. SquareScope are working on a game about the Great Siege titled ‘To the Bastions!’ while Oddingo are working on two games, ‘Staterra’ and ‘Netizen’. The three games will target secondary school youths, who will be able to download them on their home computer or tablet. Alex Borg emphasised that students will be mentored by various experts from the Institute of Digital Games from the University of Malta, the Malta College
for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (MCAST), the education ministry’s Curriculum Management directorate, Heritage Malta and MITA itself. These experts, he asserts, will be able to offer all round help to the students. Besides mentoring the teams from the project management and business aspects, the MIH management team does all the brokering with the external mentors. Weekly meetings are scheduled to monitor progress, identify issues and maintain tempo. “Experiments of this sort, are unprecedented for Malta”, says Alex, “we have created a framework which gives startups an opportunity to develop their first product and gain their first client. It is then up to them to build further on their first success and refine their products for other markets. We are now ready for a very challenging year ahead of us, during which we will be helping more talented individuals seek self-employment through the innovative application of digital technologies to real world problems”. For more information about the MITA Innovation Hub visit, mitainnovationhub.gov.mt
ducing young minds to the exciting world of STEM studies and careers at an early age is crucial in sustaining the growing STEM economy. Hundreds of children participating in the STEM Summer Club have embraced this unique opportunity to acquire new STEM and enhance their self-confidence and problemsolving skills. Such experiences will also help them tackle chal-
Karen Hautala Hili
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reat things are planned for this summer’s STEM Club, now in its second year. This summer, more than 450 children ages 7 to 13 are learning more about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) through fun, hands-on activities planned in summer schools around the island. Building rockets, programming robots and doing scientific experiments are just a small part of the fun. Summer schools working in collaboration with the MITA STEM Summer Club include the Inspire Summer Club, the University of Malta Kids on Campus Club, Klabb 3-16/ Skola Sajf in Pembroke, Zabbar, Mellieha, Mosta and Qormi, the ETC Childcare Centre, Splash Kids Club, Learn and Play Summer Kids Club, St. Joan Antide Summer Club, Qawra Dawra Durella Club, the Cottonera Access Centre and the Archbishop’s Seminary Summer Fun Club. St. Martin’s Institute of Higher Education, Computer Domain, STC Training, Holistic Institute of Technology, and the Kids@PwC
programme have partnered with MITA in this initiative to offer technology sessions to STEM Summer Club students. Topics include creative computing, cloud computing, game development and robotics. The ultimate goal of the STEM Club is to inspire students to become Malta’s next generation of innovators, inventors, ICT gurus and engineers. The Club has the potential to improve the studies of more than 450 students of all ages and social backgrounds. The Club will help them in their study of STEM subjects, whilst strengthening Malta’s future talent pool. The STEM Summer Club provides a positive and fun experience for the children and also encourages them to consider STEM as a viable choice of subject. Engagement of students in hands-on, fun STEM activities promotes critical life skills like creative thinking and problem
solving. Project-based learning and instruction in the classroom boosts student engagement and brings the subjects to life by enabling children to see how STEM is used in real life. As a result of the positive feedback received during the Club’s first year, the number of participating summer clubs and students this year has more than doubled. Initiatives like the STEM Summer Club are critical to the creation of a future workforce with STEM skills. STEM workers comprise about onethird of overall high-tech industry employment, or 15 percent of total high-tech jobs. There are thousands of jobs in the STEM sector, but not enough skilled people to supply the constantlyincreasing demand. The current and future supply of STEM skills is critical to the development of knowledge-intensive economies and European competitiveness for Malta. Intro-
lenges at school and in life more effectively. To learn more about the STEM Summer Club visit: https://www.mita.gov.mt/stemclub
Karen Hautala-Hili is Project Leader with the Digital Outreach Unit at MITA