Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/936285
47 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 4 FEBRUARY 2018 Information Technology to be given some degree of freedom to exper- iment and make mistakes. And that is what we did. We are now very excited to continue taking this to new heights. Satisfied with the milestone achieved by MITA The Parliamentary Secretary for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation, Silvio Schembri expressed his satisfaction over the milestone achieved by the MITA In- novation hub. Schembri said that the record number of applications shows that a new trend is being set and that is the drive to con- vert ideas into commercial ones. "The record in the number of applicants re- ceived shows that our message is being de- livered, that of making Malta a primary des- tination for start-ups," said Schembri, while adding that the Maltese Government is com- mitted to strengthening Malta's ecosystem for startups to flourish. Silvio Schembri pointed out that some of the ideas put forward implement emerging technologies, amongst them blockchain. "In view of this, we are setting the groundworks to set up the Blockchain Hub which is aimed to help startups that harness this technology in their operations," concluded the Parlia- mentary Secretary. Written by the MITA Innovation Hub Team from around the world have also brought on board our own in-house entrepreneur, Bialek, who has himself been a serial entrepreneur and graduated from the Startup Chile accelerator In 2017, YouStartIT2 was widened completely to 'any business idea as long as it is technological' and encouraged blockchain and Internet of Things, amongst other emerging technologies For YouStartIT#3, which opened on 17th November, we made a big jump, receiving 94 applications, with over 55 per cent of them coming from diverse places as Columbia, Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, Italy and other European countries YouStartIT is probably one of the most structured accelerator programmes in the Mediterranean region and the involvement of the Maltese Government makes it quite unique