16th January 2011

Press Release - Malta Internet Foundation 2012 Prize

The Malta Internet Foundation offers an annual prize in support of academic work making a significant contribution to Internet technologies. The prize in 2012 will be awarded to students submitting innovative work describing or demonstrating systems that profit from use of the Internet and address a need that is particularly relevant to the Maltese context. Submissions should address one or more of the following areas:

• Green ICT: green ICT projects with a strong Internet component;

• Sustainable Transport: systems supporting public transportation or helping to maximise the efficiency of personal transport;

• Knowledge Acquisition and Management: systems mainly focused towards web-based data mining;

• Mobile and Location Based Applications: mobile applications that can be deployed on a mobile device, and location-based applications which are sensitive to the geospatial location in which they are used;

• Next Generation Networks: optical fibre access networks; 4^th generation wireless networks, wireless optic networks, 60GHz Radio systems, fixed/mobile IPv6, as well as converged applications targeting both fixed and mobile networks seamlessly.

The submission must have academic merit as reflected by an official assessment in the context of a recognised university degree course. The three categories of submission are (i) Masters dissertation, (ii) a Final Year Project (FYP) or (iii) assessed coursework i.e. a significant component of a course carrying at least 4 ECTS credits.

Cash prizes will be offered as follows: €800 for the best Masters dissertation, €600 for the best FYP, and €400 for the best assessed coursework. The Foundation reserves the right not to award a prize if the required standard is not reached.

Eligibility

The prize is only open to students reading for a university degree who are resident in Malta. Aim of the prize is to stimulate new work in the above areas. Only submissions having an official starting date after the date of this announcement are eligible. Start date is defined as follows.

Masters Dissertation: Date of Faculty decision accepting the student’s proposed dissertation topic.
FYP: Date of Faculty decision endorsing Board of Studies assignment of topic to student.
Coursework: Beginning of semester in which course takes place.

Submission Procedure

A copy of the dissertation, final year project report, or coursework, together with any software, as submitted towards the award of degree, should be submitted in softcopy on DVD indicating clearly which category of submission is intended and contact details of the student, to: 2012 Prize, Malta Internet Foundation, c/o IT Services Reception Desk, University Campus, Msida MSD 2080.

Deadlines

Deadline for Submission: 30^th June 2012; Announcement of Winners: September 2012 Any queries about this initiative should be addressed to info@nic.org.mt with subject line `2012 Prize'.

About the Malta Internet Foundation

The Malta Internet Foundation, also known as NIC(Malta), was officially inaugurated in January 1999 and is responsible for managing the .mt top-level domain for Malta. The mission of the Malta Internet Foundation also includes activities to promote use of the Internet in Malta. The Foundation was responsible for the setting up of the Malta Internet eXchange (MIX) to facilitate local IP traffic between local ISPs. Current activities also include supporting IPv6 and offering annual prizes for outstanding projects on Internet-related themes.

Website: www.nic.org.mt

16th January 2011