Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1350550
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 14 MARCH 2021 14 COMMERCIAL A perfect match? MITA bring employers and students together PAUL COCKS MITA'S Student Placement Pro- gramme (SPP) is an annual, mu- tually beneficial programme for ICT and ICT-related students and employers of all sectors during the summer season. The programme aims to reduce the mismatch between supply and demand for ICT skills in the Maltese labour market. Andrea Mallia, Senior Ex- ecutive from MITA's Digital Outreach team, explained that the SPP provides work experi- ence for the students while em- ployers benefit from having an employee on a trial period and having their wages subsidised. "The SPP covers a maximum of 330 hours over a period of 11 weeks in summer," she said. "Placemements nomally start in the beginning of July." Flint is an Augmented Reality (AR) startup set up in 2019 and has since participated in the SPP every year and plans to do so again this year. Incidental- ly – or probably not – the two company's co-founders, Zoe Gatt and Nicolai Callus, partic- ipated in the programme when they were University students. Gatt, the company's CEO, told MaltaToday that as stu- dents, she and Callus had al- ready verified the value the programme brings to the table. Now, as employers, they knew that students would bring fresh and useful ideas to their busi- ness. "These students bring an add- ed vibrant buzz to the office," she said. "And of course, as a startup, the programme also helps us with payroll." 2020 of course presented a lot of problems as the COVID-19 pandemic brought all business to its knees. She and Callus chose to take minimal funds fom the com- pany, because COVID put the company in a precarious situ- ation, leading them to reinvest what they earned. "Having the SPP cover part of the payroll was a massive help and it helped us grow even un- der such dire circumstances," Gatt said. The wage reimbursement is fast and easy, she said. "It's a simple case of submitting an invoice and receiving payment within two weeks." And for a startup like Flint – as for other businesses used to not being repaid for servic- es for months – that too is an added bonus of participating in the programme. As to the experience of stu- dents participating in the pro- gramme, Gatt said that the employee that they had chosen last year was already a grad- uate. That student impressed Gatt and Callus so much that she is now a full-time employee of the company. And that in itself is part of what makes the programme so successful: employers and stu- dents learn about each other and build a relationship, lead- ing many companies to ask for the same student year after year. Mallia said that around 500 students apply to join the pro- gramme each year and MITA endeavours to find a placement for all applicamts, thus far suc- cessfully. The programme is open to all full-time students of an IT-related course, at all levels, from second year Sixth Form, or equivalent, and above. Mallia said the students were not graded at the end of the placement but, as of last year, MITA started holding a sur- very among participating stu- dents to get their feedback on their experience. Gatt said the application pro- cess for employers is easy and straightforward, even provid- ing the facility for the employ- ers to choose students from a particular school, a particular course and a particular year of studies. "MITA then forwards us CVs for us to select students to in- terview," she said. "The process is as easy as can be." Mallia confirmed that em- ployers would need to submit a letter of intent to participate in the programme providing details about the company. Then MITA starts matching applicants with the company's requests. She said that for this year, to help with the financial pressures that COVID-19 has brought, private companies participating in the SPP will receive a 75% refund of the students' wage, i.e. 25% more than the normal rate. NGO's and public sector entities get a 100% refund. MITA also es- tablishes a minimum threshold for the students's wages, with companies being able to in- crease the wage as needed. For an IT-based company like Flint, the SPP is a perfect source for new ideas, innova- tion and a new perspective. Gatt explained that the com- pany strives to provide memo- rable experiences for business- es, creators, publishers and more through the use of AR. "We use AR technology to bring projects like books, mar- keting campaigns, tourism, packagaing, photography, print and more to life," she said. The huge success of AR- based Pokemon Go had served to bring the technology to the general public on a scale not seen before. AR is now set to become more mainstream; in many ways, it already is in markets like Asia and the US. In Europe, the technology was still relatively new but gaining a larger foothold with more in- novative use. In Malta, three companies were already offering AR-based services, all in the tourist in- dustry. Mallia Andrea Zoe Gatt