In a Press Conference on Tuesday, Minister Austin Gatt said that this VSA is inspired by the same principle, which governed all VSAs, that of entering into an alliance, with market leaders and with companies that affect the way people live and work.

The Minister referred to the importance of GIS and argued that in this sector Malta should leverage on its size which makes it ideal to have streamlined systems on which various players can work with.

Mr Aart Van Wingerden - EMEA Regional Director of ESRI Europe, also addressed the press conference. He said that ESRI has entered this VSA with the Ministry for IT due to the latter’s key role in the overall ICT strategy of Malta. By signing this agreement it hopes to incorporate GIS into many of the existing processes of the Maltese government.

The wide implementation of GIS is also expected to enhance the well-established e-services programme for citizens and expand its labour market by training GIS specialists. The agreement also stipulates provisions for the development and implementation of various GIS training programs within the Government.

Mr Tim Camilleri, Managing director of GeoSYS, ESRI’s local distributors, speaking during the same conference, explained that there are other initiatives being developed with the government. These include the promotion of GIS education and accessibility to GIS technology, the promotion of GIS implementation strategies within the Maltese Government, and the empowerment of local businesses to gain access to the larger global market by participation in ESRI’s Business Partner programme.

There are several initiatives thanks to this VSA, most of which aimed at contributing towards our education system. These initiatives include the donation of CampusPak Labs software for GIS labs at the University of Malta and MCAST. It also works on the provision of fully funded training programmes to lecturers at the University of Malta and MCAST enabling them to deliver training on ESRI certifications to students.

Another initiative of this agreement is the provision of software for the personal use of the students free of charge. ESRI will provide the testing software to examination centres at the University of Malta and MCAST by installing software on already-existing hardware. ESRI will also become part of the Student Placement Programme and will provide Government with 5 student placements per year for the duration of the VSA.

ESRI will give a donation to secondary educational institutions of ArcExplorer software to be used during the Geography lessons. It will also provide fully funded training to Geography teachers in secondary schools, and will donate ESRI software to a Government entity.