Into 2022, beyond COVID, beyond the new normal: we ask our panel of thinkers

Alexiei Dingli

Alexiei Dingli: Professor of Artificial Intelligence

All roads lead to augmented reality glasses​

Any keen observer can quickly realise what is happening in the technological scene and how it will evolve in the coming years. All the breadcrumbs are pointing towards a massive revolution that will change our interaction with technology forever.

First of all, almost all tablets can handle very high definition graphics and advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms. Second, the most advanced of these have integrated within them a LiDAR Scanner. This sensor is capable of delivering cutting-edge depth-sensing capabilities. Essentially, this means that if you take a photo of a room, it's not just a standard flat image, but it is a three-dimensional photo, and you can casually take a stroll inside of it!

Third, we have seen the recent announcement by Facebook whereby Mark Zuckerberg launched his vision for the Metaverse, a digital replica of reality where anyone can shop, work and entertain himself virtually. However, today's Virtual Reality (VR) headsets require some massive improvements for this to become a reality since they are still bulky and uncomfortable.

Fourth, in the past years, we've heard lots of rumours about the potential launch of a new device capable of integrating all of these technologies in a way that makes the Virtual Reality experiences seamless. So much so that Facebook in 2021 launched Ray-Ban Stories, a set of sunglasses produced by Ray-Ban with an integrated camera in them, thus making it much easier to share content on social media.

If we were to combine all of these, my bet for 2022 would be on a new line of Augmented Reality Glasses (ARGs). Google had already tested something similar in the past when it launched Google Glass. Even though this was a failure from the commercial viewpoint, it was a significant learning experience.

These ARGs will redefine the way we interact with technology once and for all. They will probably become the smartphone killer of the decade since all of the functionality found in today's phones will be integrated into these glasses. Furthermore, they can offer various modes of operations.

The first is plain Augmented Reality (AR), whereby the real world is enhanced with virtual objects. For example, one can read emails while taking a bus ride and even answer them by typing in the air using a virtual keyboard. And the incredible thing is that one doesn't need any additional devices apart from the ARGs they are wearing.

The second is contextual AR, whereby the information is not independent of the surrounding environment. For example, imagine someone walking through a shopping mall, the glasses will provide him with directions, and as he gazes through the shops, localised offers will pop up.

The third is full-blown VR, whereby the user is transported into a virtual world. So while one is relaxing in the living room, they could explore the depths of the Amazon forest or even swim with a great white shark!

So 2022 looks like a fascinating year for technology, one that will change the way we live forever. It is the first step of a revolution much more significant than we are envisaging. Let's approach it with an open mind and see how we can ensure that it positively affects our world.

Simone Borg

Simone Borg: Ambassador for Malta on Climate Action, Head of Environmental Law and Resources Law, Faculty of laws University of Malta

Looking forward to decarbonisation

2021 was another year characterised by the COVID pandemic, which definitely meant leaving “normal” behind, at no little emotional, social, economic and psychological cost.

Above all, it presented us with an opportunity to adapt and to challenge our creativity, individually, as a community, and as a nation.

Necessity is the mother of invention - living through these pandemic years, pushed us to produce as many varieties of the proverbial lemonade from the acridest of lemons that COVID-19, variants et al, proved to be.

As to my wish list for 2022, I would prefer to call it a to do list. First, 2022 is the opportune moment to effectively embark upon a pandemic crisis recovery programme compatible with climate action to decarbonise human activity. Second, effectiveness of decarbonisation strategies will depend upon sending the right message across to all. Building awareness through a structured dialogue is key.

Human beings have progressed by learning from their mistakes and through their achievements in times of crisis. The pandemic has tested everyone’s resilience and so will climate change. If we are really keen to support climate action, we must change our “behavioural” practices, to ensure a resilient and sustainable planet.

The pathway to decarbonisation as a key element of sustainability, calls for integrity and perseverance. Many of the sectors that are the cornerstone of a national economy like energy, transport, food production and supply chains are “essential”.

They require government support measures to ensure a just transition towards decarbonisation. The buck does not stop there though.

Non-governmental actors also have a pivotal role to play. A just, green transition necessitates a behavioural change on the part of service providers, business operators and us all, as service users and consumers.

Third, I wish for Malta to lead the decarbonisation process among small island States. Like us, these nations are negligible contributors to the problem and the most disadvantaged in terms of impacts. Malta shares their geo physical realities and economies of scale. It has also the advantage of being an EU member State with a robust legal and policy framework on climate action.

This endows us with a responsibility to support other States, which share our realities. As micro island nations our challenges to decarbonize are bigger because of the influence of external factors, over which we have no control, but we have the advantage of being a small community, which facilitates cross-sectoral accessibility and solidarity that are instrumental to ensure effectiveness.

In this sense, Malta can team up with other island nations to prove that decarbonisation is key to economic, social and environmental well-being.  Our major strength, the community-based approach, as we have seen throughout the pandemic and the rest of our nation’s history, is crucial to adapt and build resilience to face unprecedented change.

Stephanie Fabri

Stephanie Fabri: Economist and lecturer at the University of Malta

Fog inside the crystal ball

It’s that time of the year, where economists are asked what’s ahead in the coming year. Yet, the reality is that no one has a crystal ball. Predictions are indicating an economic slowdown not only in Europe but also in the US, and China. Still, it is difficult to predict the future even in times when the economy is relatively stable, let alone in times like these, whereby uncertainty prevails.

Several uncertainties are clouding the picture in 2022 which means that this year might not be the year of “normality” we have much yearned for. One main reason is that we are unsure on how far the Omicron variant will spread and whether more lockdowns would be needed. This will of course have a different impact on the different economic sectors.

Uncertainty in 2022 also abounds around the type and level of inflation the global economy will be facing.

Inflationary pressures occurred in 2021, mainly as a result of supply-chain disruptions, increased consumer demand and labour shortages. There are different viewpoints on whether these inflationary pressures are temporary or long-lasting.

Long-lasting inflationary pressures lead to higher consumer prices and as the situation stands, such pressures are likely to be experienced by economies and sectors that are energy-intensive and logistics-dependent. In addition, one should mention that this long-lasting inflation might lead to social unrest if the shocks on food prices persist.

Potential political changes as a result of the elections in France and possibly Italy, could affect decisions with regards to fiscal and monetary policy, economic unity and direction within the EU. In addition, the EU has additional uncertainties in relation to the Brexit impact.

All of these uncertainties create a fog in the crystal ball, however, not all is doom and gloom when trying to understand what could happen in the months to come. COVID-19 and other crises taught us that despite everything, economies bounce back by constantly striving to adapt to the present and build the necessary foundations for the future.

A forward-looking mode provides an economic purpose and direction, which ultimately forms expectations amongst business people, policy-makers and society at large. An economic roadmap is not only essential in times of economic growth, but even more so during times of crisis, whereby building takes the shape of responsible recovery.

What we have learnt is that the roadmap is not cast in stone, it has to adapt itself to the current situation, but always keeping the end goal fixed – prosperity, well-being, and better quality of life.

Malta’s small economy depends on international developments.

Unfortunately, we cannot control the global economic realities, however what we can control, to a certain extent, is to what degree they are likely to impact our economy.

2021 was an extremely challenging year, worse than anyone could have predicted, yet, we managed to surpass most of those challenges by implementing the right incentives and ensuring that the necessary policies are in place.

This is an important reminder that despite all the potential challenges we might face this year, we can emerge even stronger than before, especially if we ensure that we rebuild a better economic model than the one we had pre-crisis.

Isabel Stabile

Isabel Stabile: Gynaecologist and founding member of Doctors for Choice Malta

Abortion will be tomorrow’s cannabis

Malta may be the most liberal country in Europe when it comes to LGBT+ rights and, now, cannabis, but it has the dubious honour of being the last country in the EU with a blanket ban on abortion.

Yet, 2021 was a turning point for the pro-choice movement with the presentation in parliament of the first-ever bill to decriminalise abortion. Although this was squashed by our current legislature, it triggered a tsunami of reactions, both nationally and internationally.

Thanks to telemedicine, which has revolutionised abortion care worldwide, at least one person each day in Malta accesses safe abortion pills without having to travel overseas. Clearly, criminalising abortions has not stopped women in Malta from having them.

Although the pro-choice movement is making inroads especially among younger voters, there is still much to be done especially with regards to prevention. Comprehensive sexual education in schools and affordable, accessible contraception are still sorely lacking on this smallest EU country. Some pharmacists even refuse to sell emergency contraception especially to 16 and 17-year-olds. Some schools continue to expose children to gory anti-abortion propaganda that is far removed from what abortion is nowadays: the woman taking two pills at home.

2022 will see us continue our efforts to prevent as many abortions as possible. We shall launch publications that focus on sexual health education for school children and their parents, and continue to make people aware of the full range of contraception options.

Our pro-choice banners, leaflets and Abortion (information) and Contraception Clinic will be popping up all over Malta to deliver information on sexual and reproductive health and services. Many still wrongly believe that even discussing abortion and abortion services is illegal in Malta, and we will continue to tell students, healthcare providers and everyone who might need an abortion, that discussing abortion is no crime.

In its first year of operations, volunteers for the Family Planning Advisory Service (FPAS) helped almost 500 people in Malta get the information and care they need, whether related to contraception, the morning after pill, or abortion. We will continue to provide this service free of charge in the year ahead. However, our services and campaigns are no substitute for the government doing what is right and ensuring that sexual education is delivered, contraception is subsidised or free, and abortion is legal and accessible. We hope 2022 will be the year we will see an updated sexual health policy that addresses these glaring gaps in sexual and reproductive services.

Abortion is very much a social reality in Malta and many people have had one, or know a loved one who has had an abortion. Would you be happy voting for someone who agrees with sending you or your loved one to prison over an abortion? In the run up to the next election we urge all voters to ask the would-be MPs who come knocking on their doors to answer a simple question: ‘do you agree with criminalising abortion?’ - and then decide how to vote.

We believe that women and girls in Malta will eventually enjoy the same self-determination and reproductive control that women in other parts of Europe do.

Abortion will be decriminalised and regulated as a health care service. Although this may take time, we trust our politicians will not abdicate their responsibilities and will do what is right to protect the health of women and girls.

Simone Spiteri

Simone Spiteri: Writer, playwright, actress

From turbulence, to stagnation and hope in the beacon

2021 has been an interesting year - both from the point of view of my job as a writer, and from the eyes of a citizen, woman, and human. With 2022 looking like another COVID-affected year, in hindsight, we will probably view 2021 as a bit of a sandwich year. Nestled in-between a traumatic 2020 and the years still to come, where the pandemic might change its status but will linger for decades; financially, physically, ecologically, socially, emotionally and psychologically.

So, 2021, was a bit of “No-Man’s land”. We sensed that a massive shift had taken place; some perceived it immediately, others moderately, while many were and are still in denial.

I hope, rather than predict - because if there’s one thing, I’ve learned this past year or so is to not bother beyond the immediate - that we stand up to be counted.

We have been witnessing the proverbial bubble slowly inflating itself towards implosion. We’ve most probably already missed the bus. But small as our chances for redemption may be, they’re still there. General awareness seems to have and will keep increasing. All you need is to take a deafening stroll through social media. Everyone has an opinion about everything these days.

And I don’t see that changing. But it is time to be more active.

There is a world burning (sometimes literally) outside our homes and it is time for each and every one of us to take stock and reflect on how we are living our lives, how we are treating our planet and one another. And promptly change our habits.

From the point of view of a writer and theatre-maker, I anticipate a slightly louder, if still apprehensive, voice of artists who are finally attempting to take a step closer to grabbing the bull’s horns.

We still have a long way to go for our theatre to truly fulfil the potential active role it can and should play in our society.

But considering the fact that not too long ago we were still burying our heads in the sand artistically speaking, while everything was coming apart just outside the theatre doors, artists – especially younger ones, are daring to say and show things as they truly are.

My hope, not quite a prediction, is that the status quo is challenged assiduously in 2022 and beyond. And more importantly that the general public understands why that is important and how to go about it proactively.

I keep using the word “hope”, however, not just because the pandemic and personal life choices have freed me up from being too attached to distant future plans, but also because that is the only tool I have at my disposal in my work. The hope that what I and my colleagues write and create pinches audience members out of our pseudo-comfortable daze. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen. Predictions, ultimately, often have a knack of being precisely the opposite of what actually happens. So, let’s see.

Aleks Farrugia

Aleks Farrugia: National Book Prize winning author and teacher

Erosion of the public sphere

I think that what we have seen since the rise of the pandemic is an increasing sense of detachment, isolation and introversion; there is an increasing sense of retirement from the public sphere towards a more closed, perhaps more intimate, private sphere of life.

On the one hand, one can say that this can eventually have a positive effect on immediate, personal relationships (for example, within the family sphere), but it will also further erode the wider sense of community and what we generally call ‘the public’.

One factor contributing to this, for example, is remote working, where people become more isolated working away from the community at the workplace, losing any human interest in their colleagues, their interaction becoming merely transactional. Speaking of teamwork or the team ethos has suddenly become more difficult. If the trend persists, what we will be seeing in the near future are more assortments of individual ‘monads’ than organic structures that operate with a sense of ‘togetherness’. I believe that this will also have a long-lasting impact on society in general.

Speaking of 2022, one wonders what role the pandemic will play. Even during an inevitable electoral campaign. What scares me most is that because of the elections we will keep postponing a serious discussion about the effects the pandemic has had on our communities. I do not think there is any sign anywhere that might lead us to expect anything beyond mediocrity in public debate during the electoral campaign (and beyond).

The pathetic state of our political discourse (let alone their ethics!) might even accelerate the withdrawal of certain sections from the public sphere; I guess there the pandemic further reinforced a conviction that had already been forming for some time.

On a different note, yet still speaking of elections, in light of some interesting long due reforms he had the courage to implement, Robert Abela will have the opportunity to form a new government without certain elements that only brought shame to this government. Of course, he cannot expect that the electorate would do all the cleaning by itself, but must show his mettle by weeding out such elements even before they have a chance to stand before the electorate. With regards to the Nationalist Party, I am quite curious what an electoral defeat would bring, if the cold war of factions would persist or there would be some ‘third current’ that eventually tried to reconstruct the party.

Alexandra Alden

Alexandra Alden: Musician and solo artist

A country’s soul and aspirations weep art and culture loss

This year, much like the one before it, posed a challenge to the arts in more ways than one. We are all familiar with the restrictions on events, performances and cultural spaces such as museums. Beyond how art needed to be supplanted from our lives in physical spaces, however, it was affected in less obvious ways. Beyond social distancing and closed doors, it is safe to say that the mental space within which artists and their art dwell were impacted as well.

Art channels mental space into concrete forms; whether that be music, performances or buildings. The pandemic has unquestionably therefore influenced art itself. When things go back to normal, will our village festas be the same, or will the impact show? Understanding the fundamental importance of our mental state to the creation of art, one takes note of the sense of growing dread and climate anxiety.

Malta’s National Cultural Policy 2021 was released for public consultation this year. Developing a culture for climate action is one of its key objectives, and according to a Eurobarometer survey, Maltese are the most concerned in Europe about climate change, with 92% rating it a serious problem. Art has a strong positive role to play in mobilizing people. In recent decades, the idea of functionality is being given more importance, which makes economic sense in an evolving society. However, a certain level of artistic skill is being irreplaceably lost. Masons, craftsmen and artisans are dying out, and even skills such as building a proper rubble wall are lost.

We live in a society where the majority are, to varying degrees, unhappy about over-development and the direction of so-called progress, and what is replacing our traditional architecture and ambience. This trend was present in the past year with great intensity, and 2022 promises to be no different.

There is a lack of imagination offering new styles which synthesise old and new, and which communicate our history, culture and identity. If we lose those, we lose the connection with our loved ones, our grandparents and those who nurtured us. We are severed from memories, prevented from passing on legacies, and are deprived of the sense of love and wisdom which motivates us and gets us out of bed in the morning.

The impact upon the world of culture and art is devastating. The soul of the nation is impoverished.

Our environments may reflect a world of austerity and economic hardship, but they should not artistically aspire to it as the end-goal. Art is a reflection of our environment, and influences it in turn. We must not lose the mental and physical spaces which give rise to what makes Malta and Gozo unique. To do so would be to increasingly lock ourselves into a vicious cycle, whereby our ability to be inspired by and contribute to our heritage and identity are diminished. In some generations, who will remember what made us unique, if it is only present in photographs?

In the new year may policymakers, communities and artists come together to work towards wellbeing, quality of life and the beauty which inspire both.

George Vital Zammit: Public policy lecturer and TV presenter

The buck cannot stop with the election

An election year, as 2022 will be, is by default, always a year of hopes and expectations. The new year should confirm some current patterns but should also bring about much needed changes.

The years 2020 and 2021 were mired in confusion brought about by COVID-19, a pandemic that spared no country, but which tested governments in unprecedented ways. Malta fared well. Like historical episodes that tested our nation, Malta rose to the occasion, both with policies implemented, and their respective public responses. The capital outlay was significant and for 2022, debt as a proportion of the Gross Domestic Product is projected at 62.4%.

The new year will be a year of reckoning in terms of how we live with the pandemic as from now on. Now that vaccination and a booster programme have been rolled out, we need to establish a modus-operandi that will sustain a society that co-exists with a constant peril. Whilst science reacts to the various mutations and variations, all policy sectors (such as education, economy and finance, health, tourism, transport) need to plan and build sustainable permanent structures that co-exist with the pandemic. It will be crucial for Malta, to absorb effectively the €320 million in EU financing out of the Recovery and Resilience Facility.

The onslaught of the pandemic cannot be a distraction from other important matters. Surveys have repeatedly demonstrated that the Labour Party enjoys a comfortable lead to secure another mandate at the polls. It would be a terrible mistake for the PL to interpret a favourable outcome in the next plebiscite as a signal to postpone or ignore the urgent actions that need to be taken. 2022 has to be the year that gives Malta a clean bill of health and restores its international reputation. The economic forecast for 2022 is that a hike in the price of imports will lead to an inflation that will strain consumer spending. Malta cannot afford a flight of enterprises from its financial and gaming industries due to its grey listing – the spill-over would be devastating.

2022 needs to be a decisive year for good governance and the rule of law. Empty rhetoric needs to make way for concrete action. That a few individuals are beyond legal reproach makes a complete mockery of our institutions. The public designation of Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri by the Department of State (USA) due to “involvement in significant corruption” is another blow to the credibility of our police and justice system. Equally worrying is the fact that multi-million-euro contracts entered into by these two former public officials remain in place, despite serious shortcomings flagged by our National Audit Office.

Malta’s economic prosperity cannot be taken for granted. Confidence, business flair and a can-do mentality, are key for commercial enterprise to grow and create wealth. However, Malta needs to reassert a paradigm of sustainable development, where planning and environment are truly addressed. The regulatory capture of the Planning Authority needs to be curtailed, and a new political direction given.

Malta will be facing significant challenges in its social sphere. Our widening middle class has led to a widening bracket between low-to-middle and middle-to-high income earners. Poverty has taken new facets, with more people resorting to assistance programmes. Mental health, the new cannabis legislation, early school leaving, and a raft of other social interventions, will require new thinking and careful policy design. 2022 will be much more than election year.