Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1161128
29.08.19 12 OPINION George Mangion O ne may ask: will Malta gain from the wave of popularity that is gripping the ubiquitous sector of AI and robotics. e answer is found in the impending age of smarter robot- ics - these will certainly have a profound impact on traditional manufacturing; for example, our health sector will soon inte- grate robotics into the sphere. As a simple introduction to AI - one can say that it thrives best by combin- ing large amounts of data sets with fast, iterative processing and intelligent al- gorithms. is allows the AI software to learn automatically from patterns or features in that vast data sets. Many are fascinated to read latest AI topics in the mainstream news. It is no exaggeration that, AI has be- come a catch-all media term that refers to any computer program that auto- matically does something. Yet in this fast-moving age, people make referrals to AI without actually knowing what it really means. ere is often a public debate on whether it is an evil or a panacea for humanity. Put simply one may explain, that in Malta this technology once it is embraced by investors will spearhead novelties in the manufacturing sectors and improve competitiveness in our de- clining trend in the exports of goods. With hindsight, we note how Malta started last year to toy with the novelty of the Blockchain technology - one that gave birth and support to virtual cur- rencies. It passed a number of laws to regulate the blockchain and its derivative servic- es. It is all a matter of trust. Having just about exploited the celeb- rity of blockchain, Muscat the prime minister, was euphoric in his New Year message, said inter alia, that we may switch our sights to try scaling the mountain of AI - a sector that in USA and China, we find tech giants which pour billions of dollars annually in re- search and development. Mindful of the legal and technical minefield that lay ahead the govern- ment formed a committee of experts to help design and draft parameters lead- ing to a consultation paper to collect views of experts in the field of Artificial Intelligence. It is an open secret, that government is keen to be seen helping innovation and would like to see Malta becoming a jurisdiction that attracts talent from all over the world. Artificial intelli- gence and robotics are two "overnight successes" that have been decades in the making, and their intersection will soon change a multitude of industries. e evolution of smarter AI and more versatile robotics has helped both tech- nologies to push past repetitive tasks to take on adaptive and more intelligent applications. In the coming years, the result will be nothing short of revolutionary par- adigm shifts. e impending age of smarter robotics will certainly have a profound impact on traditional manu- facturing; for instance, the health sector in Malta will soon make use of robotics to allocate medicines to patients and as- sist in useful operations taking place in the operating theatre. is initiative will spearhead other uses in the manufacturing sectors and create interesting scenarios in areas of productivity, safety, service, transpor- tation, land registration and police re- cords. Autonomously driven cars and drones are both forms of advanced robotics, and they will pave the way for more specialised services that will speed pro- ductivity. ey will impact every area of our lives. As was the case of the internet revolu- tion, some of the novelties will happen in a gradual, evolutionary way; some of it will happen in a sudden, revolution- ary manner. Apart from the fast moving AI scene and back to DLT technologies, we can predict that if and when they become mainstream, more investment will be attracted to Malta. One hopes that no effort is spared by the authorities to attract banks that are friendly to virtual currencies, since at present, banks in Malta do not support Bitcoin although efforts are in the pipe- line to attract newcomers. It is good to note, that PKF has committed itself to making a pro bono contribution to pro- mote Blockchain in Malta. is culminates in developing bitpod, which in the near future will function as a quasi-lab and can involve a live pro- ject dedicated to fuelling research and development with a special accent on the emerging fusion between technolo- gy and the financial world. One hopes that sponsors will be forth- coming to assist in its internalisation. Commenting about DLT and PKF's commitment to invest in this technol- ogy, the writer is of the opinion that, "Distributed ledger technology and vir- tual financial assets will play an impor- tant role in the experiment. e bitpod experiment, will include a technical publication showing a compilation of the findings, observations, conclusions and results. In addition to the bitpod facility, complementary BitBlock ses- sions have been showcasing a series of working sessions in a casual format, once again aimed at provoking thought, ideas and novel discussion with local as well as international patronage". PKF Malta is organising its seventh bitpod educational webinar on the strength of the previous six sessions held over the past months and which have proven to be popular especially amongst industry professionals. e next session will be held on 4 Sep- tember 2019 at 11.00hrs CET featuring Dr Vince Vella, CTO of Computime Software, BRSAnalytics and CTLabs. e title of the session will be "Transac- tion Monitoring and Learning to Slow Dance with Machines – Part II" and will be hosted by Dr Marilyn Formosa, Head of Legal at PKF Malta and co-founder of bitpod. e webinar will follow up on the theme of the first session but will go deeper into specific Anti-Money Laun- dering (AML)-related machine learning use cases. As an introduction, Dr Vella also lectures within the Department of Artificial Intelligence at University of Malta, mainly responsible for the MSc AI – Fintech stream. His main areas revolve primarily around Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Computational Finance, particularly in the areas of AI Managed Funds, decentralized AI utilizing smart contracts and regulatory frameworks such as AML. e bitpod webinar will be accessi- ble either through PKF Malta's web- site via this link: http://bit.ly/30yQzvw or through the firm's Youtube channel via livestream. Dr Marilyn Formosa commented: "ese webinars are an offshoot of our home-grown bitpod concept, launched earlier this year. She added that bitpod promotes Malta as a jurisdiction of choice through relation- ships with its international contacts active in the start-up field, some based in Silicon Valley & other international silicon/crypto valleys. PKF received great feedback on our first six sessions as well as several sug- gestions on topics to cover in our future bitpod webinars. Our last session in July featured a Malta-based crypto operator where we welcomed Mr Adrian Kreter (see picture) co-founder of Instacoins, a Malta-based Bitcoin brokerage firm that is minded to apply for a license un- der the new VFA Act" she said. If readers have a topic of interest they want to discuss we invite them to kindly contact Dr Marilyn Formosa on mari- lyn.formosa@pkfmalta.com Expanding the concept of bitpod George Mangion is a senior partner of an audit and consultancy firm, and has over 25 years experience in accounting, taxation, financial and consultancy services. His efforts have seen PKF being instrumental in establishing many companies in Malta and ensured PKF become one of the foremost professional financial service providers on the Island