Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1088108
17 INNOVATION maltatoday | SUNDAY • 3 MARCH 2019 THE Centre for Distributed Ledger Technologies at the University of Malta (UM) is seeking to attract stu- dents through a scholarship scheme kindly made avail- able by the Malta Informa- tion Technology Agency (MITA). The scheme was estab- lished through an Agree- ment between UM and MITA, and was launched on 28 August 2018 in the presence of the Parliamen- tary Secretary for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation. The scholarships form- ing part of this scheme will enable students to read for Masters and Ph.D. pro- grammes which focus on Blockchain and Distrib- uted Ledger Technologies (DLT) within any appli- cable discipline and pro- gramme offered at UM (subject to eligibility terms as per www.um.edu.mt/dlt/ scholarships). Applications for this 2nd call for scholarships close on March 18th at midnight (Central European Summer Time). Applications for taught masters must have a direct Blockchain and Dis- tributed Ledger Technolo- gies component of at least 30 ECTS, and the associat- ed dissertation must focus on Blockchain and Distrib- uted Ledger Technologies. For Masters by Research or Ph.Ds the primarily re- search focus must be on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies. On Monday 4th at 6PM, an information session will be held within the Faculty of ICT at the University of Malta. For further in- formation please see the Facebook page "Centre for Distributed Ledger Tech- nologies" or the event page: http://bit.ly/2TjcciV During the session infor- mation on our Master in Blockchain and Distrib- uted Ledger Technologies will also be presented. The programme targets those aiming to specialise in the various related disciplines including: ICT, Law, and Business and Finance. For further information visit: www.um.edu.mt/dlt or contact via email on: dlt@um.edu.mt or on: +356 2340 3543 Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies scholarships Abela was quite satisfied with the results of this endeavour: "This is not the first time that the Department of Artificial In- telligence within the Faculty of Information and Communica- tion Technology has collaborat- ed with MITA and over time this collaboration has strengthened with the result that students get a richer experience. As they say, 'Data is the new oil', yet at times it is not easy to find readily avail- able datasets." He said that simi- lar activities help to immerse students in identifying real prob- lems when using such simulated data. The experience is more tangible and thus more relatable. The students were also excited and eager to get their hands-on powerful tools to be able to ex- ecute their work. Natalia Mallia and David Far- rugia, two of the students stat- ed that "Working with MITA has given us the opportunity to responsibly experiment with popular Cloud Computing ser- vices, such as Microsoft Azure, and understand the competen- cies and potential that these services have to offer. We were also made aware of how data can be manipulated and visualised in unique and creative ways to show entities' useful information that would have otherwise gone unnoticed." Another student said that "It is an exciting time to work with data. The generation of data is con- stantly increasing, just as the ability to analyse it and work out how it can be used for so- cial gain is constantly improv- ing. It can now be utilised as a problem-solving tool that offers unparalleled social insights and collaborating with MITA made the analysis of data all the more accessible." Best project award MITA believes in encouraging the development of professional skills in emerging technologies and thus the best project was awarded with the opportunity to attend a conference in rela- tion to Data and Artificial Intel- ligence. This project solution focused on the visualisation of finan- cial statement items and ratios across economic activities using graph mining techniques, with economic analysts being the target end-users. The student behind this project, Joseph Azz- opardi provided some further insights on his experience: "MITA has given us a great op- portunity to practise the graph and data mining techniques learnt in class at UOM, to tackle a problem at an industry level. To this effect, MITA provided a challenging dataset and cutting- edge tools for developing of the solution. This project was tackled by transforming the provided dataset into a knowledge graph, where a user interface was de- veloped for the end-user to eas- ily extract and visualise the data and its relationships. The provided dataset and tools allowed us to develop more re- alistic solutions based on real- world data, therefore, tackling an industry requirement using lead- ing cloud-based technologies." Benefit of such events and future collaborations Sparkles can fly when one brings together good people with great ideas. That's the thinking behind MITA's activities and the array of collaborators involved. Whilst everyone wants to win, the benefits of such an event goes beyond that. When people from different professions or backgrounds discuss how they approach the same problem, it can generate fascinating ideas and provoke healthy debate and discussion – the benefits of which lasting long after the Da- tathon concludes. What's more, concepts pre- sented during the event will be developed further with the aim of future collaboration with the department and/or the students themselves. Such academia and industry collaboration promotes research and development, which in turn enables innovation and creativ- ity; thus, playing an important role in the investigation of new and emerging technologies. currency