ADDRESS BY THE MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS

Mr President, Colleagues,

Up to a few years ago, the letter 'e' represented a simple vowel within the different alphabets that are used world-wide. This simple vowel is, nowadays, very often being followed by other words. The terms e-mail, e-commerce, e-business, e-talk, e-engineering are becoming more and more important. It seems that there is no limit to the number of terms, beginning with an 'e' that will be used in future, together with those already in use.

William Safire had this to say about today's technology:

"With the introduction of Internet and its peripherals such as e-commerce, e-chat, phone vision etc, interpersonal correspondence is past history. The purple passage of prose and tear-stained pages of love letters, have been replaced by noises, heavy breathing and grunts. Today we do not even require to laugh or sigh, for today we can wave to say hello, wiggle our fingers to express affection, raise our eyebrows to ask "what's new" and get a shrug for a reply, then sign off with a smile and a wink."

It is very probable that within a few years a number of other activities will have to be included to the ones above, when describing technology.

It is natural that electronic engineering is another sector that moves with the times. Internet's developments have been able to reduce distances, and to open the doors upon a world library. It enables the exchange of ideas, from different poles of the globe, within minutes. It also creates contacts with persons and organisations that were unknown to each other.

Malta cannot be left out of this ever increasing means of contact and activity. If anything, I believe that we should try to be at the forefront of the different developments that are taking place within the different technological areas.

We can enjoy these facilities, the benefits of this Technological revolution mainly because some years ago the foresight of the government at the time saw it as a top priority to invest heavily in Telecommunications. This investment brought about a variety of possibilities for the end user. Since then, however, a larger number of developments have taken place. We cannot simply state that our systems are ‘state of the art'. We have to make sure that whatever changes take place around us are introduced over here as well.

It is always important to remind and analyse what would have been Malta's position today without the investment that took place over the past years. Imagine where we would be standing now with the mechanical switching systems we had at the end of the 80's.

What would have been the situation today in the light of the speed with which developments have taken, and are still taking place, today.

What would have been the situation in the educational level of the engineering Profession? What would be the situation regarding the new opportunities to introduce courses in Computer Engineering? Would we have been able to create job opportunities in the electronic and computer engineering professions? Without our own local changes, our society would have been a different one. Most of us remember the days when computers were, in practice, banned from being imported. A simple question, regarding the number of p.c.'s on the island today, and the number of people who are directly employed in the various computer related job opportunities is enough to prove how much Malta has changed over the past few years.

Now, we are on the verge of a different, perhaps more important change in the communications world. The publication of the Communications Authority Act, together with the programme of liberalisation in the communications field will definitely bring about a new challenge to our service providers. At the same time I am sure that this change will bring about a large number of job opportunities together with a never ending number of incentives to the end users of these services.

I believe that these changes will, within a few months, provide various new opportunities for all of us. I believe that these changes will open up a variety of opportunities for the future, faster, developments that will be taking place in the various technological fields.

I believe this will happen because we all know, that one factor that will promote the developments of students "process" skills is the widespread use of multimedia, world wide information networks particularly through Internet. Using this resource, students can now access new information, and new coursework, as well as interact with other students, researchers, practising engineers in industry, in government and experts from around the world.

These challenges in the educational field have added more interest both in the teaching and learning environment. It has made engineering education more attractive to both students and the faculty.

However, it is important that the latter is given the tools and opportunities to stay up to date, to improve and upgrade curriculum and to provide facilities for research and development of the new technologies.

A case in point is civil engineering, where the need to have qualified road construction professionals, particularly here in Malta, is very sorely needed at this time and place. Fortunately the presence of the two German experts from GTZ has made it possible to provide our students in the civil engineering department with the possibility to attend courses on new methods of Road Construction and Traffic management.

On the other hand already serving engineers in all fields of the engineering profession must also keep abreast with technological advancement both in the use of information technology and its potential application utility. Refreshing courses should be periodically held in order to offer practicing engineers with the possibility to upgrade their own knowledge, qualifications and capabilities.

The faculty of engineering should be the catalyst to create innovative advanced degree programmes, including hands-on practice oriented degrees. These should not, however, be limited to the technical aspects, but should include knowledge of financial and accounting processes, technology policy, management and decision making.

In this way our future generation of engineers would also be better prepared as managers, competent in analysing costings, time frames and work plans of particularly large projects.

The faculty of engineering should also collaborate with the industry, in order to develop innovative ways of providing career-enhancing programmes, which should be facilitated by these new communication technologies.

There should also be programmes oriented initiatives, to create a wider spectrum of technology and skills transfer by exchanging ideas and resources between faculty students, Technical Institutes, Government and the industry. Particularly, engineering students should be given larger periods of work phase in the industry for a more hands on experience.

The electronic age we are living in should encourage us to utilise this facility to increase the department's research possibility.

We have little possibilities to spend resources on research, experimentation and documentation, With the technological advancement of today, with the possibility of information sharing, we need not worry with having fully fledged Research Departments, but we can easily share in International research programmes such as Socrates, Leonardo and other European study programmes, which eventual E.U. membership would greatly enhance our profession.

For those of us who have followed yesterday's news we came across a news item mentioning the publication of a White Paper regarding ‘legislation for the good governance of information technology'. This White Paper will concentrate on three bills which in my opinion will affect the way in which information technology will develop in our country. The bills will deal with (I) Electronic Communications and Transactions, (ii) Data protection and Privacy and (iii)Computer Misuse. I believe that your organisation should be one of the first to comment on the content of these bills.

Mr President, colleagues, the Chamber of Professional Engineers of which you are members has a responsibility to be the catalyst in this developing technological scenario. It should promote, encourage and participate in creating innovative, academic and practical standards of the highest levels in order that present and future engineers will be able to meet, and compete on the same levels of foreign, particularly, European Engineers.

With Malta becoming a full member of the European Union, our local engineers can participate and compete in tendering projects abroad much more than is possible today.

The opportunities are there, and it is up to us all, to make the best use of them. I have no doubt that Maltese engineers are able to face and make the best us of the technological challenges that we will be facing in the coming months and years. We will be having much bigger opportunities than we had in the past.