TheDataGirl

The Malta Innovation Summit was held on Friday, 12^th October 2018 at the Intercontinental in Malta. This summit boasted a large number of attendees coming from C-suite positions, particularly CEOs. The Malta Innovation Summit is an annual event focusing on Innovation, organized by Johan Zammit. The host of the event was the upbeat Peter Hopwood, a keynote speaker, pitch and public speaking coach.

 

Peter Hopwood warmly introduced Johan Zammit onto the stage. Johan Zammit is the organizer of the event and the Founder and CEO of Smart Studios. The first speech was given by the organizer who welcomed the attendees to the event, hinting what they should expect from the summit. The summit was expected to be a great opportunity for people to come together for networking purposes and to listen to talks by high profile speakers. Although most people understand what innovation is, different people have different definitions for the word.

 

Hon. Silvio Schembri was invited to partake in the Malta Innovation Summit. Hon. Silvio Schembri has taken a very involved role in the innovation process in Malta given his role as the Parliamentary Secretary for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation. In his brief introductory speech, he mentioned that 2018 was iconic as it was the year that Malta became the Blockchain Island.

Hon. Schembri mentioned a survey which enclosed that Malta has managed to double Innovation in the past year. This is encouraged and MITA has a programme set up, YOUSTARTIT, which encourages innovative projects to be initiated. Apart from this, MITA also has opened the Emerging Technologies Lab which acts as a hub to encourage people to share knowledge, set a new way of thinking and introduce new innovative practices. The newest hot topics which are of interest to the Maltese islands are Space mining, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and 3D printing. Hon. Schembri concludes his speech by saying that Malta needs more digital leaders who work together on creative startups.

 

Cris Beswick is an author, strategic innovation advisor, founder of The Future Shapers, Director of Culture Consultancy and Advisor at Wazoku. In his speech on Why Strategy, Leadership, and Culture Should Eat Breakfast Together, Mr. Beswick complimented Hon. Silvio Schembri on his speech saying that he has never heard a speech so bold about shaping an economy. Cris Beswick is the author of the book, Building a Culture of Innovation and proudly gave away his book to three lucky people, including the Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat.

Mr. Beswick stated that in this VUCA world, culture eats strategy for breakfast. VUCA stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. He pointed out that there have been several new companies which have made millions or billions in the past 5 years. Some of these are, Snapchat, Slack, The Honest Company, Jet and Dollar Shave Club. The industry is volatile because we never know who is going to disrupt and what challenges we are going to face.

There are differing opinions on whether or not a company is being innovative and encouraging innovation within the company. 75% of leaders believe they have a culture of innovation whilst only 37% of employees agree. Mr. Beswick’s definition of Innovation is that it must satisfy three conditions; it has to solve a problem, must add value to the customer and must make revenue.

In order to progress further, companies must be honest about the things they should let go of and think of a real-purpose driven goal. Companies need to link purpose and creativity so as to ask bigger and deeper questions. In many cases, this would require the need for experimentation since we would need to move unchartered territory. Mr. Beswick emphasises that we must always start which the customers’ needs and this should always be the starting point.

 

The Prime Minister of Malta, Hon. Joseph Muscat addressed the audience on the progress that Malta has seen in the innovative sector. Although Malta has improved, there is still a need for more women in leadership positions and the need for more equity in the workforce. Malta is striving to be an innovative country. Being the centre of the Mediterranean, Malta has the opportunity to be at the centre of innovation.

 

Jeff Staes is an Innovation Speaker and the Founder of Red Monkey Company. The humourous Belgian gave an eye-opening speech on what he calls, sheeping. Titled as No More Sheeping, Break the ‘Power Defect’! Mr. Staes’ speech entertained the audience with an empowering talk and his sheep imitation noises. Prior to speaking, Mr. Staes gave a disclaimer that he is not responsible for any discomfort during his talk.

Mr. Staes heavily criticized schooling, saying that it gives a very one-size fits all approach. We are in an information rich period, yet the need for schools is still a part of our everyday life. In his opinion, education is just 6 months of partying and two months of exams. He introduces the terms, 2D smarts and 3D smarts where the 2D smarts are those in the era of information shortage whereas the 3D smarts are those who have a luxury of information.

Mr. Staes added that passion and suffering do go hand in hand and to achieve success in life, there is an unavoidable amount of suffering. He pointed out, that he refers to the current workforce as sheep as 80% of us wait for the weekend. Work kills our light until we find another job and then the whole process starts again. We need to find a way to stop acting as sheep and keep our light on.

 

The creative Jeffrey Baumgartner’s talk on The dark side of creativity was light-hearted and fun. Jeffrey Baumgartner is an author and a cartooning innovationist. There is a fine line between being a liar and being creative and unfortunately, in today’s world, creative people tend to appear as the most dishonest. However, from Mr. Baumgartner’s point of view, creative people just see more options.

For a culture where the majority of people state that they encourage creativity, most people actually do not like creative ideas. Workplaces seem to discourage employees to come up with creative ideas and opt for the safest options. A business can never be considered innovative if this is the mentality that it follows.

Mr. Baumgartner says that companies need to encourage innovative ideas. His definition of innovation is when creative ideas are implemented to generate value. There are many different ways how one may encourage innovative ideas. One of these ideas is to have a stupid idea day every month which is basically a safe space for employees to come up with stupid ideas.

 

Patrick Child, the Deputy Director General at DG Research and Innovation of the European Commission highlighted the importance of the regulatory framework and brings Europe on the front of Innovation. Throughout the years, Europe has managed to put EU researchers in space.

Malta has quite an impact in bringing Europe to the forefront of innovation. Mr. Child complimented Maltese researchers, saying that there has been a significant improvement in performance and a vibrant ICT community. Malta is a modest innovator and needs to strengthen its science base to build a stronger link between business and science.

The European Commission can help Malta achieve its innovation goals by acting as an independent expert and continuing to offer the same financial support it has been offering Malta for the past 40 years. Malta has scored higher than average on the amount of successful and funded proposals. At the moment, Malta is building the National Aerospace Centre, which we should see in a few years.

 

Marc Buckley and Thimo V. Schmitt-Lord MBE gave the audience a very interesting and inspiring talk about how we can start businesses which make a huge difference to the Health and Food problems for the billions in need. Thimo V. Schmitt-Lord, MBE is an impact investor, innovation enthusiast and CEO at Bayer Foundations. Marc Buckley is a UN SDG Advocate, a World Economic Forum Expert and an International Speaker.

Thimo V. Schmitt-Lord MBE kept the audience at the edge of their seats to hear the problems that they have managed to solve. Mr. Schmitt-Lord MBE informed us that 70% of people with breast cancer in developing countries die due to a lack of screening. Research at Bayer enabled the introduction of affordable Breast exams. 75% of women opt out of cancer treatment due to hair loss. For this, they have developed Cold Caps which limit hair loss during chemotherapy.

In India, the highest number of breast cancer mortalities prevail. Dr. Frank Hoffman took this opportunity to train blind women to detect breast cancer. This gives blind women a chance of people part of society and having a job whilst also choosing the best people to detect breast cancer (lack of eyesight is known to enhance other senses). He managed to turn a handicap into an ability.

In Africa, 4 million people die of sepsis. For this purpose, a life-shift sterilizer which is solar driven and portable has been created. Brian Gitta has designed Matibab which is an opto-electronic diagnostic kit. This is basically a non-invasive malaria mass screening kit.

150 million people in developing countries do not have eye glasses. This limits their abilities to function normally within a society. Martin Aufmith has managed to created one dollar glasses which makes them more affordable and allows people to be able to go to work or school. Jan Schnitker has designed and created nano-electronic devices which detect the freshness of a food product so as to limit the huge food wastage our society faces.

We currently have a problem with overfishing. Only 10% of the fish caught are actually eaten. SafetyNet (a UK product) was designed by Nadia Laabs and Dan Watson to create smart lightening nets for selected fishery. Certain fish are attracted to certain lights so there is less chance of the wrong type of fish getting into the nets. These are currently being tested in the Philippines.

 

The negative impact that we as humans are having on this earth is astronomical. The amount of damage we are causing Earth is the same amount as 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs a day, for 365 days. Marc Buckley takes over the stage to explain this in more detail. He states that humans are using the atmosphere as a sewer. Although we are told that oil companies are the primary cause of global warming, the real primary cause is food.

Agriculture is the world’s oldest economy, marking over 12,000 years. In Puerto-Rico, it takes the people 4-6 years to rebuild their agriculture but the people need to eat now. Another problem is the arrival of the Earth Overshoot Day. This is the day when ecological resources will not be enough to meet human demand. We currently need 1.17 global hectare per person and considering that the world loses 23 hectares per month to damage, this is a lot.

Researchers are encouraged to start innovative projects and businesses which are in line with the world’s needs, be it to aid health, food or even help the agriculture and atmosphere of our planet earth.

 

Malta is already known as the Blockchain Island. Dr. Andre Xuereb encouraged the attendees to look into why Malta should become the Quantum Island. Dr. Andre Xuereb is a quantum physicist in Malta. Dr. Xuereb emphasized the importance of keeping some data secure and safe before adding reasons why quantum computing may help several sectors. It is currently infeasible to monitor earthquakes in remote locations. With quantum computing, this could all be done more easily. QuantumComputing provides an opportunity for Malta. Unfortunately the biggest factor holding Malta back is the lack of funding in this sector.

 

Dr. Chris Cardona gave a short address to the attendees at the summit. Dr. Chris Cardona is the Minister for the Economy, Investment and Small Businesses. Dr. Cardona believes that there is a need to understand the culture and the mindset of Malta to predict how the economy will become. He encouraged the Maltese citizens not to be afraid of taking a leap to jump onto the next wave. It is encouraging to see that students have come out of school aspiring to be entrepreneurs.

 

Simon Azzopardi was the moderator of the first panel discussion of the event, C-Suite’s Role in Innovation. Mr. Azzopardi is the CPO at Sherpa and the President at Silicon Valletta. Joining him in the panel are, Sonia Hernadez, Dan Robinson, Marco Vassallo, and Emanuel Darmanin. Mr. Azzopardi states that the focus should be on optimizing processes and changing the culture at C-level.

 

Sonia Hernadez, the CEO at Vodafone Malta encourages CEOs to become curious from a top level. She claims that she enjoys sitting down at the call centre and understanding their needs by asking them questions and listening to them. It is vital that the customers’ needs are put first and to make the best use of different talents and skill sets. It is important that we help to change the culture of the environment.

 

Dan Robinson is the Head of Retail Banking at HSBC. It is important that we cater for customers’ needs, for example, in the case of the older generation, it was found that these people do not like passwords. In these cases, HSBC has introduced touch ID. This is a classic case of listening to the client.

 

Emanuel Darmanin is the Head of Strategy and Business at MITA. There is an important need to use new technologies because if you do not, the company ends up with older products. Mr. Darmanin raised the question of whether we are using technologies to aid operations or if they are inhibiting the balance between what is operational and what is not.

 

Marco Vassallo is a Partner of Emerging Technologies at KPMG Software. Mr. Vassallo stressed the importance of having short 5 minute technological bites to give a basic idea of the technologies used. This gives the best amount of time to give a short idea of the technologies being used. It is important to keep boundaries, use the right framework and the right business models.

 

The youngest attendee, 10-year old Andre Micallef asked his parents to get him a ticket so he could attend the summit. He was unexpectedly asked to come onto the stage to share his thoughts. Aspiring to be a successful entrepreneur, he has several ideas to create his own inventions and hopes to go to Silicon Valley when he grows up. He feels that his peers at school do not understand his dreams of owning a business and already has several business ideas. He offered the attendees the opportunity to work for him in the future.

 

Jonathan Mizzi is a London-based Maltese architect and the founder of Mizzi Studio. Mr. Mizzi gave us an interesting talk, Neo-Futuristic Architecture: The Way Forward for Malta. He is a firm believer that innovation is the mother of necessity. He proceeded to quote John Lasseter from Pixar, ‘Art challenges Technology and Technology aspires Art’. Mr. Mizzi finds his inspiration in his work from natural, biomorphic designs. Mr. Mizzi concluded that a limited budget does not mean that you need to limit your imagination.

 

The attendees were then invited to participate in a Hands-On Innovation Workshop. This year’s Workshop asked the people to find a solution for the lack of exercise on the Maltese islands. All attendees were split into groups and were given an assigned leader. The attendees were guided step-by-step on the process to implement the Business Modelling Canvas. The Workshop was guided by Anamaria Magri Pantea, the Founder and Managing Consultant of Ascend Consulting and Dr. Stefan Buttigieg, a Digital Health Consultant.

 

Dr. Marc Anthony Azzopardi is a Researcher and Academic of ASTREA at the University of Malta. Dr. Azzopardi gave a talk on a subject which never fails to impress a crowd, outer space. In his talk, Conquering Outer Space From Malta, Dr. Azzopardi stated that we are not making the most from our workforce. We need better brains, to move away from repetitive tasks, research in areas which benefit the country the most, even in sectors where Malta might appear to be a latecomer.

Malta is partaking in many innovative space projects. Dr. Azzopardi mention Sputnik, which is a Maltese company which used to repacking mobile phone technology in satellite. Another project which Dr. Azzopardi mentioned is the PocketQube. PocketQube is Malta’s first pico-satellite. There is significant sophisticated prototyping taking place in Malta.

 

We cannot have an Innovation Summit in Malta without mentioning Blockchain. The next panel discussion was the Blockchain Panel. Julian Azzopardi, the CEO at Jaye, lead the discussion. Joining him in the discussion we have Steve Tendon, Dr. Joshua Ellul, Mikko Puhakka. Unfortunately, Anton Dalli was invited to take part but could not be present at this event.

Steve Tendon is a Management consultant, Adviser, Speaker, and Author. Dr. Joshua Ellul is the director of the Centre for Distributed Ledger Technologies at the University of Malta. Mikko Puhakka is an advisor and mentor in finance. Anton Dalli is the Director at Blockchain Advisory Ltd.

 

Dr. Ellul made several interesting points about where Blockchain is needed. Considering that the main benefit of Blockchain is trust, there needs to be a better understanding of where to instill trust and where to take trust away. Blockchain introduces the notion of not needing banks for day-to-day functions. He questions whether we even need banks

anymore and that they may be removed from the equation.

Blockchain is quite a new area and there is quite a lot which is still unknown. Regulation needs to evolve with Blockchain technologies as it is still an evolving technology. Another point that Dr. Ellul raised is the problem of identity and the Internet of Things. Internet of Things is the concept where all devices which could be connected, would be connected to the Internet. In the case of having a package delivered to a person’s door, can we trust our sensors to sign off a package?

Dr. Joshua Ellul states that there is a lot of misinformation circulating about what the Blockchain is and how and when it should be used. For this reason, the University of Malta has a new Masters programme, Masters in DLT and encourages people from different disciplinaries to join and gain a better understanding of DLT technologies.

 

Mr. Puhakka brings up the very valid point that it is unclear who would lead in new technologies such as Blockchain as the leaders of new technologies is quite unpredictable. He also notes the evolution of Open source and the progress it has made. Mr. Puhakka believes that Blockchain will be a disruptor in the financial sector.

 

Mr. Steve Tendon compares Blockchain to an elephant, being that it never forgets. Blockchain has the benefits of being global, you can reach it from anywhere, there is no censorship and nobody can tamper with any data on it. Mr. Tendon said that there is real potential for when central authorities block payments (even from Paypal) as this type of authority is not possible on the Blockchain.

He questions whether there is a future for the possibility of integrating Facebook even though Facebook despises Blockchain. However, it would be quite interesting to see. He points out that it will be interesting to see how Blockchain will evolve. Time will tell but research in DLT and Blockchain technologies is needed to see this technology progress further to its full potential.

 

The final segment of the Malta Innovation Summit was the Startup Pitches Innochallenge where a shortlisted number of innovative startups have 6 minutes each to defend their projects as potential winners of the cash prize towards their startups. There were 6 startup pitches; LearnD, Greenstack, Allura, iSmart, Karmafy, and Registrator. The People’s choice award was awarded to LearnD whilst the juror’s pick was iSmart.

 

Mr. Johan Zammit, the organizer of the event, thanked all the sponsors, employees, family, friends, speakers and attendees for helping to make this happen. Mr. Zammit then invites all attendees to the Malta Innovation Summit 2019. Networking drinks followed the event.