Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/929711
47 Events maltatoday SUNDAY 21 JANUARY 2018 Vassallo Group employees dress down for charity MORE than €7000 collected by Vassallo Group management and employees as part of their annual dress down initiative were presented to the President of Malta in aid of the Commu- nity Chest Fund. Employees working with various companies within the group namely Vassallo Build- ers, CareMalta, CaterEssence and Vassallo Group Realty par- ticipated in this initiative. Apart from the dress down day various side initiatives were organised by groups of employees to beef up the sum collected. The money was presented to President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca by Charlo Bonnici, Di- rector of HR and Communi- cations of the group accompa- nied by other members of the group's HR and events teams. Members of the group's HR and events teams with President Coleiro Preca, from left to right, Maria Christine Pillow, Christabelle Tabone, President Coleiro Preca, Charlo Bonnici, Leon Xuereb, Karen Dingli and Fiona Spiteri Top business leaders to judge EY Malta's Entrepreneur of the Year™ Award GASAN Group Chairman Joseph Gasan will chair the panel. He will be joined by Alfred Pisani, Corinthia Group Chairman and winner of the 2017 award, Bernie Mizzi, director, Chiswick House School and St Martin's College; Andrew C. Beane, CEO, HSBC Bank Malta plc; Frank V. Farru- gia, president, Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry; and Paul Abela, presi- dent, GRTU. Nominations for the 2018 Mal- ta EY Entrepreneur of the Year™ Award will be accepted until 9 February 2018. The competition is open to entrepreneurs from all sectors, established and new. To be eligible, nominees must either be Maltese or have been operating a company based in Malta for at least two years. Any- one, including employees, com- pany advisors and financiers can nominate an entrepreneur, with the latter's consent. Many of the nominations come from the en- trepreneurs themselves. To determine the winner the in- dependent judging panel, which features some of Malta's most high calibre business leaders, will be interviewing shortlisted nominees on their entrepreneur- ial spirit, financial performance and business growth, personal integrity as well as on the inno- vation and future prospects of their products and services. The EY Entrepreneur of the Year™ Award was launched in the US in 1986 and has now spread to 165 cities in over 60 countries. It is the world's biggest and most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs and the only one with a truly global dimension. The Maltese winner will be flown to Monaco to compete for the grand prize, the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year™ Award. The event brings togeth- er national winners from more than 60 countries, selected from a pool of over 5,000 nominees. Entrepreneur of the Year™ alumni include some of the most influential, innovative and exclusive entrepreneurs in the world; Guy Laliberté, the found- er of Cirque de Soleil, Amazon founders Jeff Bezos and Reid Hoffman, Formula One's Eddie Jordan, Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page and Howard Schultz of Starbucks to name a few. Ambitious young entrepre- neurs can apply too. The EY Ris- ing Star Award will be presented to a contender running a high- growth business that is generat- ing excitement in the market. The winner of this award will also attend the World Entrepre- neur of the Year™ event. The independent judging panel for EY Malta's 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year™ Award has been confirmed The EY Malta Entrepreneur of the Year™ Award winner will take part in the World Entrepreneur of the Year™ Award taking place in Monaco in June The new Home Loan offer by BNF Bank IF you are buying your first prop- erty or thinking of changing your existing home, then the Home Loan offer currently available from BNF Bank is the best for you. BNF Bank offers a tailor-made package with numerous benefits for you to purchase the home that you have always dreamt of. Customers can make use of this loan for the purchase, construc- tion, completion, reconstruction, alteration or improvement of the property being purchased. Because the company knows that their clients' requirements do not stop there, BNF Bank's offer includes the possibility to finance the purchase of a kitchen, solar water heaters, air conditioners and photovoltaic systems which will be installed on the property being purchased together with an optional additional loan to fi- nance personal requirements any customers may have, subject to specific terms and conditions. "This Home Loan Offer has been purposely designed to ad- dress the different and unique needs of our clients in the most affordable way currently available on the market. We believe in easy and transparent banking, that makes the banking experience of our clients a more pleasant and affordable one," Melvin Pellicano BNF Bank's Head of Business De- velopment said. "BNF Bank understands that, whether the client is buying a first home or changing an exist- ing house, is a very important in- vestment decision. Through the new Home Loan Offer our clients can truly understand that it is in their best interest," he concluded. Research around the campfire THE sustainable energy race, the fiery battle between science and law, free energy for all, vid- eo game balance, and ALS. All this and more in the latest issue of THINK magazine. Ideas are like sparks that can set off a roaring fire. This edition of THINK high- lights the innumerable f lickers tended by an army of research- ers at the University of Malta (UM), all of them feeding into the almighty blaze of innova- tion. Prof. Ing Luciano Mule' Stag- no has breathed new life into a dilapidated lab in Marsaxlokk and turned it into the recently- inaugurated state-of-the-art Solar Research Lab. His mis- sion is to perfect silicon in so- lar cells for use in increasingly efficient solar panels that could have a substantial impact on the worldwide sustainable en- ergy market. When talking of efficiency in sustainable energy, the FLASC project spearheaded by Dr Ing. Daniel Buhagiar and his col- leagues must be discussed. Cur- rently, energy garnered from renewable resources needs to be used immediately or it will be wasted — ideally it has to be stored. Using principles tied to compressed air energy stor- age, the group might be on the verge to unlock the secret to a problem that has plagued re- newables. Taking things a step fur- ther, Dr Nicholas Sammut and his team are part of the team building the Tokamak, the ma- chine at the centre of the €17 billion International Thermo- nuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project in Switzerland. Should they be successful in ig- niting a miniature sun through nuclear fusion and harness the energy output, they will be able to produce reliable electricity with virtually zero pollution. The answer to all our energy prayers. Prof. Simone Borg outlines the fiery battle that rages on between science and the le- gal world and why it even ex- ists. While advances have been made to combat climate change through action, every win seems to take more effort than it should, and it all lies in the differing goals lawmakers and scientists have. Other research coming out of the UM is as varied as ever. At the Institute of Digital Games, researchers are focusing on balance in video games. The issue also looks into ALS treat- ment development in Malta and a local company whose mission it is to impart coding skills and critical thinking to our children. On top of all this, THINK Is- sue 22 also contains articles on new technology that could help dementia sufferers, an app that could make law yers' research work more efficient, and art therapy.