Author: Frankie

Go Global Training

I am writing this article here as a log, after having written the same on my company’s site, ensquad. Had the pleasure of attending the Go Global course organized by TradeMalta together with Malta University Consulting and supported by HSBC.

This course has helped me and by extension my company, to grow in our understanding of internationalization, awareness of funding opportunities and we also grew our contacts network.

This course is the start to more news related to ensquad which will be announced soon.

PingFIN X @ MCAST, Malta

For the fifth consecutive year MCAST IICT has hosted PingFIN, an International e-Payments Workshop organised by Odisee and currently in its tenth iteration. Also, co-hosting this event, in their respective campuses were Colchester Institute, UK and Fachhochshule FH Salzburg, Austria.

This event has become a staple in MCAST’s calendar and interest by our sponsors is growing, which this year included MITA, eSkills Foundation Malta, Microsoft Innovation Centre Malta, ccBill EU Ltd and RS2 Software PLC.

This year we had the highest attendance yet, with 24 local students and 15 visiting students and thus the change of venue. During the four day event from the 1st to the 4th of April all students were split into groups to work on the SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Recall Process using Oracle PL/SQL.

It most definitely was a unique experience for our participants working as a team, networking and learning new skills, whilst also getting feedback from professionals among our sponsors.

This was an unforgettable experience and I look forward for next year. I thank our sponsors, Kevin Picalausa from Odisee, all staff from MCAST for making this possible. Special thanks to my team: Alan Gatt, Daren Scerri, Luke Vella Critien and Robert Abela for their invaluable support. Finally and most of all, thanks to the students for taking our offer and making this experience special.

Vioside @ MCAST

It was a real pleasure and proud moment to see MCAST IICT alumnus, Chris Borg, Nicole Borg and Steve Scerri who have formed Vioside Ltd., deliver a talk to our B.Sc. 2nd year students. Their story and talk was very motivating and encouraging, inspiring our young talent to work on what they really love.

Luke Benjamin Cassar, delivered a presentation about his research project on Augmented Reality in Catering, which he had the opportunity to presented in Germany, earlier this year, at an IEEE conference.

A heartfelt thanks on behalf of MCAST IICT for accepting this invitation, taking time from your work, to motivate our students.

MCAST @ Delta Summit

The Delta-Summit is currently being held at the InterContinental Hotel at St Julians, Malta, attracting blockchain specialists, evangelists and academics from around the world. Lots of interest and great opportunities. MCAST  is showcasing four of its B.Sc. second year projects, mentored by myself, who focused on blockchain technology.

Axel Curmi has researched a Blockchain Based certificate verification platform, permitting an individual to verify the validity of an academic certificate in possession. This research has also been presented at the 1st Workshop on Blockchain Smart contracts hosted by Fraunhofer FOKUS at Berlin, during a Springer Workshop.

Eman Sammut has researched a Blockchain based car park management system, with a community based approach to it. Nigel Cumbo has researched Vehicle logbook verification using Blockchain.

Finally, Jerome Mizzi has research a Blockchain based e-voting system. His research was also published in the D-Line Journal of Technology.

We have received a lot of positive feedback on these second year B.Sc. projects which will be further researched in their final year of their studies for their dissertation. Many have queried whether MCAST offers Blockchain courses, which I am happy to say that some modules are being introduced in our curriculum which you can check-out in our prospectus online.

Presented 3 MCAST academic research at ICCE-Berlin, IEEE Conference

Really proud of my three students, Darren Cilia, Luke Benjamin Cassar and Ricardo Sciberras for presenting their work at the ICCE-Berlin IEEE conference. It was a great academic networking experience, with leading researchers in various fields such as deep learning, IoT and gaming.

 

Darren Cilia presented his second paper this year on Typing Biometrics, sharing our results in Passive User Authentication using Support Vector Machines with an error rate lower than 1%. Our first paper was presented at ISMS 2018 in which we published the data gathering application and dataset.

 

Luke Benjamin Cassar, the first MCAST Multi-Media Software Development student to have his research published, presented our work on the use of augmented reality within the catering business.

 

Ricardo Sciberras, most probably the youngest author being still a second year BSc student progressing to his third year, presented his research project on traffic flow estimation via public IP camera feeds.

 

It was a real honor and pleasure mentoring you all and seeing you present our work at a prestigious conference. Also, very proud for being the first students, together with Axel Curmi and Jerome Mizzi to give MCAST IICT the academic recognition at an international level.

 

Second Blockchain research by MCAST IICT published

The second research on Blockchain technology by MCAST IICT has been published. This research is titled “Blockchain based E-Voting System”, co-authored by Jerome Mizzi and myself, in it we explore the use of Blockchain technology as a viable solution for a national e-voting system. This research is still a work in progress and will be continued in the next academic year. Jerome is a second year B.Sc. (Hons.) Software Development student, progressing to his third and final year.  This research has been published in the second issue of the ninth volume of the Journal of E-Technology, edited by Prof. Adrian Florea from the University “Lucian Blaga” of Sibiu.

3 MCAST IICT research papers accepted for IEEE conference

Would like to announce that MCAST IICT has had 3 academic papers accepted for an IEEE conference in, Berlin. The papers are the works of Darren Cilia, Luke Benjamin Cassar and Ricardo Sciberas, all under my mentorship. Currently preparing for the ICCE-IEEE conference in early September.

Ricardo Sciberas is currently a 2nd year software student progressing to his final year and has researched traffic flow rate estimation using public IP camera feeds. He is one of the first 2nd year students at IICT to have their research accepted at an international level and will have it exhibited on the 3rd September.

Luke Benjamin Cassar has just finished his final year as a multi-media student and has research the use of augmented reality in the catering sector. This research will be presented on the 4th September. He is the first multimedia student to have his research accepted at an international level.

Darren Cilia is an MCAST alumni and this is his second paper to be accepted. Earlier this year we presented our first paper at the ISMS 2018 international conference where the dataset and prototype were published on public portals. In this paper we are presenting the excellent classification results for our passive user authentication research using keystroke dynamics. This research will be presented on the 3rd September.

That brings a total of 5 academic papers by MCAST IICT students, under my mentorship (the second paper was presented in July by Axel Curmi and myself),  being accepted this year at international conferences. Really proud of my students and to be part of MCAST’s academic growth.

MCAST IICT @ BSCT 2018

It was a great honor and pleasure to present the first MCAST IICT research on Blockchain by Axel Curmi and myself at the BSCT2018 hosted at Fraunhofer FOKUS, Berlin. The conference was packed with a lot of current and interesting research, a really great learning experience.

This is the first year for MCAST IICT to research on blockchain and will surely grow from here onward. Really proud and glad to have our research recognised at an international level in a Springer conference.

MCAST IICT to publish Blockchain research in Springer conference at Berlin

Next week, Axel Curmi, a 2nd year B.Sc. Software Development student, and myself shall be presenting our research in Blockchain at the BSCT 2018 conference in Berlin. All proceedings will be published as a volume in a Springer Verlag publication. Our research explores the use of blockchain for the verification of academic certificates, with the intention to extend it to medical certificates in the next year. Our focus will also extend to the communication across blockchain networks and the user access control aspect of it. We are scheduled for the 19th July at 16:30 and will be part of a packed schedule.

This is the second MCAST IICT paper that is being published, the first was by Darren Cilia and myself, the first paper to be presented abroad, the first to be published in a Springer publication and the first by a 2nd year students. I would like to take this opportunity to thanks the MCAST administration for their support.

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