Surely the year 2020 will be edged in our memories for the disruption brought by the pandemic, yet not all was negative and surely achievements were made. Here is my, albeit late, reflection on what was achieved in academic research within the year 2020.

Proudly co-authored & mentored various research initiatives at MCAST IICT, through a lot of talent and good quality work being produced. Some research has been distinguished from the rest as industry-leading by being published in virtual conferences. Co-authored a paper titled “Detecting Highway Code Violations” with B.Sc. Software Development 2nd year student Owen Xuereb as first author and fellow colleague Thomas Gatt as the corresponding author. Owen presented this research at the virtual conference 2020 IEEE 16th International Conference on Intelligent Computer Communication and Processing (ICCP). Co-authored a paper titled “Obtaining Multiple Order Statistics using Quickselect” together with fellow colleagues Andrew Cortis and Chris Farrugia. Furthermore, three 3rd year dissertation projects were presented at the virtual conference “2020 10TH IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY”. These are “Automating Car Park Management With Blockchain And Computer Vision” by Eman Sammut, “Multi-Tier Accent Classification For Improved Transcribing” by Damiano Nicastro and “Clustering Of Classroom Computers For Academic Research” by Irisann Maria Agius. Really proud of all my students and not just those whose work has been accepted for publication.

Unfortunately the PingFin workshop had to be cancelled for the year 2020 and most probably for 2021, yet I can say that am actively working on a new workshop which will be announced shortly.

This year the MCAST ICT Applied Research group (ICTAR) has been launched, with an ever growing number of researchers dedicated to various research projects at MCAST.

Have been working on a number of research projects and proposals for funding, whilst most were not successful, I can proudly say that my research on augmented reality in catering was successful for the MCST FUSION Commercial Voucher Programme which we completed in 2020. Currently working for the Technical Development Programme.

Finally, I am honoured to have been invited to form part of the IEEE Consumer Technology Society – Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence – Technical Stream Committee, a new experience for sure.