The Federation gives importance to both the health and economic issues affecting Malta as it’s impossible to separate the two from each other. This has been made absolutely crystal clear to all who have been caught up in this Covid-19 pandemic. MFPA believes that in order to have a strong economy we need to have a healthy workforce. Therefore, now that the country has moved to a second phase in the handling of the crisis, the competent authorities must ensure that initiatives to relaunch the economy are not introduced prematurely and do not counteract the successful public health initiatives implemented to date. A continuous risk assessment will ensure this. The Government must ensure adequate control and enforcement systems to monitor the economic activities it is re-introducing, while keeping in mind the good practices within infection control measures introduced by the Superintendence of Public Health in trying to keep the numbers of infected persons to a manageable number.

It is of paramount importance that researched and informed advice from healthcare professionals is heeded. As professional associations, it is our primary duty to speak in the interest of the general public, and hence to present expertise for the good of society. MFPA calls on the authorities to strengthen their dialogue with such organisations, so that decisions taken will be in the best interest of the general public.

It is important that the public receives one unequivocal strong message from the authorities. Infection control experts are claiming that the risk of increasing the workload on healthcare, by relaxing certain measures, is still present. Therefore, at a time when people are learning how to manage their lives and their needs in this new norm, efforts should concentrate on educating the general public on the importance and awareness of what protection and staying safe entails at this very important time of transition.

The Federation hopes that a good and balanced compromise between economic and health issues can be reached, and put into effect, so that we can come out of this pandemic as strong as we can.

The post A strong economy needs a healthy workforce – The Malta Federation of Professional Associations first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

If one runs a Google search for the word “innovation”, the world’s number one search engine — and portable operating system provider, and email services provider, and video streaming platform provider, etc — will list more than 4.1 billion results in a fraction of a second — 0.6 sec to be precise. Astounding result for a passion project that started from a garage a bit more than two decades ago.

Since then, the online world has reshaped how we think about our lives and businesses alike. Innovation — or (the use of) a new idea or method, according to the Cambridge Dictionary — has come a long way since the wheel was invented, or the first Ford Model T hit the streets rolling rather loud and slow.

Fast forward to today; innovation appears to be both an end result and also a practice. “As a practice, innovation to me is about understanding ourselves as living systems in constant cycles of creation and closure whereby we see the closing of a phase as feeding into a new one. We make our organisations and businesses more resilient if innovation is an embedded and ongoing practice. There are techniques and methodologies with which organisations can ensure a continuous cycle of innovation,” Tatiana Glad, founder and director of Impact Hub Amsterdam, tells Business Malta.

Kicking off at 08:30 in the morning of 10 October, the Co-Design Session will be organised by the ENISIE Project which is funded by INTERREG Italia – Malta Programme, as part of the Malta Innovation Summit 2019.

Innovation can be driven by “creating both safe and provocative spaces for people to think out-of-the-box […]”

For innovation and design, out-of-the-box thinking has increasingly become a skill of importance, even if the notion is becoming commonplace for some. Still, how can innovation be driven? “By creating both safe and provocative spaces for people to think out-of-the-box and experiment with putting new ideas into practice,” according to Ms Glad. “As well as honest conversations about failure! External facilitators can help keep the innovation workshops neutral and unbiased in order to maximise the contribution of the diverse contributors,” she adds.

It is a commonly accepted fact that great ideas are rarely sparked in a vacuum. Dialogue and open discussions can lead to the inception of intriguing brain pickings and provide the social network for collaborations developing a bold concept into reality. “My team is currently focussing on spurring innovation in specific societal issue areas and working with diverse stakeholders in an ecosystem approach. Just as the expression says ‘it takes a village to raise a child,’ we believe it takes an ecosystem to raise an innovative idea or startup. We do this in the areas of food, inclusion, circularity and plastics, as well as city-wide with the city of Amsterdam,” Ms Glad tells BM.

Impact Hub Amsterdam, as part of the global Impact Hub network of impact entrepreneurs and innovators with more than 16,000 members in over 100 cities around the world, invests great effort in making change happen. The hub says it facilitates entrepreneurial solutions to society’s biggest challenges, supported by access to its network and business expertise. Additionally, the hub can provide resources and capital in need, organises events, hosts a collaborative working space, and runs a series of accelerator programs. 

Driving innovation

Lately, Malta has been positioning itself as a real innovator on the brink of the European continent. Since 2007, the country has become one of the leaders in terms of regulating and supporting online gambling development, and more recently, with enhanced focus on blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, crypto, artificial intelligence, digital games and eSports, as well as progress related to medical cannabis, the island nation is making efforts in the field of state-of-the-art innovation. “There is real on-the-ground commitment such as The Malta Innovation Hub at the Malta Life Sciences Park as a provider of support services to stimulate social innovation among Maltese stakeholders,” Ms Glad says about Malta’s role in innovation.

Despite the 21st century delivering such a fertile ground for innovation, projects will bump into difficulties down the road. One of the most important challenges, Ms Glad says, is how to translate a bigger vision for positive change to the society into a product or service that meets real needs. Then the next challenge is to “access the capital it requires at various stages of its growth trajectory without compromising on its values. From the innovation point of view, established enterprises and public services need to be open for innovation from outside sources. Innovative SME are more agile to develop innovative products, processes and services and a pilot contract for such innovation within the established organisations can have a real impact,” she says.

No matter how good an idea is, however, if it finds no surrounding support it might not blossom into a working project. “The lack of support or space for experimentation, coupled with an impatient demand for results or return” can undermine innovation easily, Ms Glad says. “It is important to have support for innovation within an organisation through regular innovation workshops. Participation in innovation workshops needs to include staff, shareholders, customers and community representatives to ensure a successful, positive social impact. Innovation sometimes needs time to follow its natural path and allow something surprising to emerge,” she adds.

Nevertheless, Ms Glad has a strong message to all the startups that are caught up in the storm of pressure by high expectations and myriad of chores to be handled to make their project operate and deliver added value at the same time. One should “not be afraid to collaborate with others whether they be peers that help you learn faster together or partners who can bring valuable know-how and resources to the table. Don’t go at it alone,” Ms Glad concludes.

The post Innovation as ongoing practice can support resilience in businesses first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

The SUM foundation is a public organisation and is to be run by a board of administrators, where the Maltese government will be represented by Malta Investment Management Company Limited (MIMCOL) as a creator of the foundation.

In order to position Malta as an ideal location for the creation of startups, entrepreneurship and innovative ideas, the SUM foundation will be a major policy driver in the implementation of the national start-up strategy, the government expects.

“Malta’s economy has changed and will continue to change thanks to our hard-working entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs create jobs, contribute significantly to economic growth and boost innovation. Fostering entrepreneurship must become a visible part of the government’s economic policy,” said Mr Cardona.

The main objectives of the foundation will be to promote, research and analyse startups, and invest in the creation of an entrepreneurial culture. The foundation will advise the government through feedback and information gathered from the general public and from stakeholders, in order to improve and promote Malta’s entrepreneurial journey through various stages. Starting from awareness, all the way to ideation, enterprise initiation and development, international networking and growth.

“We are confident that this will allow for sounder policy-making and improve Malta’s standing as an attractive place to set-up and grow a business,” Mr Cardona said.

Although the startup ecosystem in Malta is in its infancy, the foundation will propel its development putting strategic efforts in areas which can effectively yield to the creation of more start-ups, and tackle known challenges such as the lack of venture-capital culture and access to finance, as the DOI press statement says.

“Fundamentally, the SUM Foundation will be a learning organisation that supports innovative entrepreneurship and the community behind it. We believe that enormous potential still lies locked and undeveloped in our economy,” added Mr Cardona. “We know that entrepreneurs must lead the start-up community.”

The post Minister Cardona launches the ‘Start-Up Malta Foundation’ first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.