Crafting business from hobbies: The HUSKIE story

Put a physicist and an engineer together and what do you get? A brewery. Obviously. Cassi Camilleri sits down with Jean Bickle and Miguel Camilleri to talk about entrepreneurship, beer, and how variety really is the spice of life.

As you read this, a warehouse in a Qrendi quarry is bustling, undergoing hefty conversions as it morphs into a dream brewery. Water and electricity supply is solid, the walls have a fresh lap of white and the steel housings are in place. Now, the countdown begins until the tanks are set up. But they’re used to it. This waiting business.

The Huskie Craft Beer company was but a twinkle in their eye when Jean Bickle and Miguel Camilleri first met as workmates during a stint in Leeds, which is where they discovered a thriving craft beer scene. 

‘We were part of a club at the Wharf Chambers,’ Bickle remembers. ‘It’s what we did after work. We played table soccer and tried beers.’ Learning about the process, the recipes, and the different flavours that are possible to incorporate in a beer, planted a seed in them both. ‘Eventually, when we came back home, we wanted to give brewing a shot ourselves,’ Bickle adds. And so they did.

Getting the basics down 

Their first investment was in education. ‘We spent quite a bit on books and materials to learn how to brew,’ Jean says. They had the ingredients down—water, malt, yeast, and hops. Hops being the flowers of the hop plant which are used as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer. They understood the role temperature played and gained plenty of experience with identifying flavours through taste tests. Beyond this, however, they also needed to be familiar with how these ingredients interact with one another and the techniques involved in creating a beer. 

They were more careful with their purse strings when building their first set up in early 2017. ‘We could have very easily gone online and found these home brewing kits. But you have to spend a lot of money to get those. And this was all coming from our own pockets. So, with Miguel being an engineer, we just bought stainless steel tanks and sheets, shaped them, and welded the parts together. We even built the control panel and electronics ourselves. Everything was done from scratch.’ 

This is not to say that it was all smooth sailing. ‘Sometimes you get ahead of yourself. You start rushing in your eagerness to try out new things. Which is fine. But sometimes you have to take a step back and go back to basics. We keep each other in check,’ Jean notes, smiling. ‘We both come up with radical ideas on how to approach the task at hand, but you can’t do everything at once, otherwise you get careless.’ 

‘You’ve also got to be adaptable and not follow others’ rules to the dot. Malta’s ambient conditions and accessible raw materials make brewing harder than in many other countries. With the right technique though, it’s definitely possible,’ Miguel points out.

Creative thinking meets business

Initially, it was all about making beer. ‘Our focus was that the quality of the process should be done to a certain standard,’ Jean says, but the creative element soon started becoming a priority. ‘Now we have shifted to the actual product being top quality. You have loads of recipes online if you want to find them, but we wanted to create our own.’

From a business standpoint, finding what makes you unique is an essential part of building a company. What is the value you are bringing to your client base that others are not?

Huskie’s approach harkens back to the reason the boys started the company. They loved beers and wanted to continuously try new ones. When they had the brewing process perfected, it was time to start being experimental. 

‘We started thinking about creating recipes we hadn’t seen before, with flavours we hadn’t seen anyone use before. We made beers using Maltese strawberries for example, and we also produced a range of beers inspired by the flavours of the traditional qagħaq ta’ l-għasel (honeyring).’ Of course this isn’t as simple as adding some extra water to a cake mix.

‘Experimentation brings about its own set of challenges. Some ingredients have their own sugars, so including them in the beer recipe drives the yeast crazy.’ And when Jean says crazy, he means it. ‘If we don’t get everything right, the pressure in the bottle can build up and they literally explode. We’ve had this happen a few times,’ Jean admits. ‘We call them molotovs,’ Miguel grins.

But even with the added cleaning time, all’s well that ends well. This curiosity has given Huskie a very niche service they can provide to clients. ‘We can create beers exclusive to our clients. If someone comes along and tells me I like cinnamon or whatever, we can create something specifically for them.’

Coming up with each new recipe involves another process of trial and error, tinkering, and perfecting. ‘When we come up with a new recipe, we usually come up with three different versions and we taste each different beer on the same day. We write down notes, we compare, and if there is some kind of consensus, we move onto that.’ Now, Jean and Miguel have a spreadsheet with all the beers they produce, each marked with a rank. So far, over the course of two years, they’ve already finalised 11 beer recipes and released four to the market!

No to mass markets

The culture behind craft beer is one that is very close to Jean and Miguel’s hearts. This is not about making three beers, sticking to them, and selling them en masse. They want to keep the personal touch, the Maltese identity in their product, while pushing boundaries and trying new things. ‘So our philosophy is get this beer now because it won’t be around in six months. We want to continue creating.’ 

Of course, this isn’t always easy. And Jean is the first to say it. ‘It’s hard letting go of a good beer,’ he admits. ‘Even we fall in love with some of the recipes. But you have to come from a place of abundance. We know we can continue to create good beers. And we will.’ 

Now they’re in the growing phase. Setting themselves up to expand their brewing power. With the new brewery they’ll soon be able to increase production tenfold. ‘Then it’s about creating our own events. Entering competitions abroad. We want to put Malta on the map.’ 

‘We’ve already spent a year working on the new brewery, so we’ve had a lot of time to think about what we want to do and where we want to go, and this is essential in building a business that is sustainable. You have to do things right and really think about things properly,’ Miguel asserts. 

This measured attitude has definitely worked in Huskie’s favour. Research led to new funding opportunities. ‘Miguel found out about [the] TAKEOFF [business incubator] and we met Joe Bartolo. He really motivated us and was of great help in the vital early stages,’ Jean says. After a few months Huskie was awarded a TOSFA fund that they used to purchase more equipment, allowing them to try more recipes and scale up production. They followed this up with some EU funding applications. ‘We [obtained] funding to purchase more equipment for the brewery,’ he notes. 

Jean is quick to mention the help and support from their family and friends.

‘We got a lot of help. Really a lot. Miguel’s father helped us with the building of the brewery. His uncle did all the electricity. And Connie, Miguel’s mum is a star. Miguel did all the planning, plumbing, and the majority of the rest. He’s even got the scars to prove it! I painted a wall. It was a real team effort,’ Jean laughs.

Maintaining Balance

For such a new business, Huskie is already growing with leaps and bounds. But hours in the day are limited and questions about priorities and goals are already circling. ‘Managing Huskie at its current level already takes up loads of our time, and we’ve had to sacrifice a lot from our private lives,’ Jean says. ‘But in doing that, Miguel and I manage to run it whilst still holding full time positions. Where it will take us in the future—well, who knows? We wouldn’t mind employing people to take care of logistics and cleaning for example. We’re also looking into hiring a driver to take care of distribution for us.’ 

The love they have for medical physics has in no way diminished. ‘Miguel and I both love what we do. Working in healthcare is extremely satisfying and keeps us well in check on life’s priorities,’ Jean says. ‘And that is just as much our passion as brewing beer is. But I believe that if you work hard enough at something, and if you love it enough, you’ll find the time for it.’ 

‘Everybody will say you’ll enjoy it once you get there. But for us it’s more important to enjoy what we’re doing while getting there. God forbid Miguel and I weren’t friends. We’d kill each other with all the time we spend in the same room. For us, the brewing thing works because it’s part of the development of our friendship. We brew, drink, chat, and joke. It’s about enjoying the process. Not just tunnel vision towards the end goal. 

Science and coffee, anyone?

In an age of misinformation, having a grasp on current affairs and research is essential for us to be active, responsible citizens. Gillianne Saliba writes about the dire need for more dialogue and engagement from citizens and scientists alike.
Gilliane Saliba

For many, science is far removed. It’s just a subject they had to take at school. Or the star of crazy stories on newspapers, or videos and memes on social media. Opposing views are a dime a dozen. And sometimes it’s very hard to discern between them; what’s right? what’s wrong? ‘It’s complicated,’ they say, ‘it’s hard’, and so most people move on, letting others do all the talking. As a result, science and citizens have had a rocky relationship. But when the issues being discussed relate to health, technology, and our environment, that is, when they affect us directly, we need to be able to engage. 

Science Communication (SciComm for short) can offer a solution to this problem. 

SciComm can take many forms. Articles, films, museum exhibitions; you name it. In the wake of a scientific knowledge-gap in the community, SciComm has taken root and has been rapidly growing over the last 40 years. Researchers want to share their ideas and get citizens’ input, gauge interest, and see what others have to say. 

Enter Malta Café Scientifique. 

To create a safe space where people can chat about science, Malta Café Sci organises monthly science communication events in Valletta where researchers and professionals discuss topics of interest with attendees. Entrance is completely free and open to all, which attracts a diverse audience. 

What makes Malta Café Sci special is how it prioritises the public, putting their learning experience first. The events are tailored to them. Speakers keep their talks short and succinct, taking complex scientific concepts and breaking them down, discussing how the research can impact society. The Q&A session that follows is often far longer than the talk itself, opening up a dialogue within the audience. The elitist mantra of ‘it’s complicated’ is so far gone that talks, and the following question and answer portion of the evening, are put to bed with closing drinks where speakers and audience members can have one-on-one time, discussing the topic of the day. 

I have been volunteering as an organiser with Malta Café Scientifique for the last nine months. Through the experience, I have gained marketing and public speaking skills.

More importantly, I have had the privilege of a front row seat to pivotal moments in people’s lives—the moment when perception shifts. 

I’ve often had audience members come up to me after an event to tell me how the talk changed their ideas. How they are learning to be more receptive but also critical about what they learn and read online. Some point out how they usually steer clear of such events, with many wrongly thinking they aren’t smart enough for them, only to find that they not only understand, but can also participate.

Aside from all this, Malta Café Scientifique is also conducting its own research. Led by Café Sci’s project manager Danielle Martine Farrugia, we are evaluating and interviewing different science communicators about their practices. We’re also evaluating the initiative to understand its contribution to science communication in Malta. 

What we can already see is that Malta Café Sci is living, breathing proof of how people can come together when dialogue is open and welcoming. It is empowering local researchers to share their findings with citizens while giving community members the chance to learn and weigh in on work that may have ramifications for them. Where a learning process is no longer from expert to layman, but a continuous sharing of information in both directions.  

Note: For more about Malta Café Scientifique’s next events, or if you want to get involved, see its Facebook page or Instagram @maltacafesci. Or email us on cafesci@mcs.org.mt. 

SMARTAQUA: Acting fast on marine corrosion

Maintenance is not the sexiest aspect of business, but diligent corrosion monitoring in the oil, gas, and maritime industry could prevent massive environmental accidents. Inês Pimparel writes on behalf of AquaBioTech Group.
Inês Pimparel

The maritime industry is going through massive developments. Traditional oil and gas remain powerful, as does the shipping industry, but there is a big rise in more sustainable businesses such as offshore wind and solar energy farms. Corrosion affects them all equally.

The NACE International Institute estimates that corrosion costs the maritime industry between $50 and $80 billion every year. Clearly, maintenance is an expensive practice, which might lead to neglect, resulting in catastrophic environmental incidents. 

A low-cost, eco-friendly, and efficient solution is needed to monitor corrosion and enable earlier repair.

The industry currently monitors structures using ultrasonic or magnetic sensors. However, other solutions exist. The University of Aveiro (Portugal), the Norwegian research institute SINTEF, and the Maltese company AquaBioTech Group are working on SMARTAQUA, an innovative but simple approach that uses a special paint. 

Scanning electron microscope pictures of nanomaterials used in the project.

It uses environmentally-friendly nanomaterials to form a functional solid film over surfaces such as the support for a floating fish farm or the base of a wind turbine. Because the nanolayer goes directly onto the structure, it can combine colorimetric with magnetic analysis to detect corrosion as it happens. 

The detection method will be tailor-made to the depth at which the metallic structure is placed to assess the integrity of the structures. Colorimetric detection is a relatively simple, user friendly, and reliable manner of detecting corrosion in splash zones. But in submerged structures, where colorimetric detection is not possible, the use of magnetic measurements would reveal the state of coated substrates.

The approach is not completely novel. The aeronautical sector is already introducing it. The AquaBioTech Group is performing toxicity tests on the nanomaterials using marine organisms such as microalgae and mussels. After this, the team will test the nanolayer’s efficacy on metallic structures in their offshore testing site close to St Paul’s Islands.

If this technology is proven safe and effective it will revolutionise the field of monitoring activities. It will reduce transport needs when assembling new offshore structures, indirectly reducing fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. The commercial and environmental benefits are massive.

The project is highly collaborative. It brings together a small business, a research institute, and a university; testament that success can be achieved through co-creation, inclusivity, and sustainability—and that small advances can lead to a sea of change. 

Note: This project was funded by the Research Council of Norway (through the programme of Petromaks II, project 284002), the Foundation of Science and Technology in Portugal, and the Malta Council for Science and Technology via the MarTERA – ERA-NET Co-fund scheme of H2020 of the European Commission.

STEM ambassadors thrashing stereotypes

Over the last four decades, STEM industries have risen to great heights. Scientific, technological, engineering, and mathematical minds have been called to rally. And the demand continues. How can you contribute?

Few would dispute that technological and scientific advancements dominate the 21st century. Adverts provide ample proof. From tablets to smartphones, to robot home appliances and driverless cars, our world is changing fast. As a result, we are now living in a global knowledge-based economy where information can be considered as the highest form of currency. This reality comes with both benefits and challenges. 

Statistics from 2013’s European Company Survey show that 39% of European Union-based firms had difficulty recruiting staff with STEM skills. Malta is no exception. Another report in 2018 showed that people with STEM careers are still in short supply locally, especially in the fields of healthcare, ICT, engineering, and research. So, while the jobs are available, there aren’t enough people taking up STEM careers, and this is holding Malta back. 

There are many reasons for this trend. For one, Malta has a low number of tertiary level graduates; the third lowest in the EU. An array of harmful stereotypes can also shoulder some blame. The ‘fact’ that people in math, science, and technology ‘don’t have a social life’ is unhelpful. The ‘nerd’ image is still prevalent, especially among the younger generations that are still in primary and secondary school. Then there is the ‘maleness’ associated with STEM jobs and industries. According to Eurostat statistics, in 2017, from 18 million scientists and engineers in the EU, 59% were men and 41% women. 

Still, this is far from the whole picture. 

Employers have reported instances where, despite having enough graduates to fill roles, applicants did not possess the right non-technical skills for the job. This was especially true for abilities such as communication, creative thinking, and conflict resolution. 

Many were unprepared to work in a team, to learn on the job, and to problem solve creatively. This is a real concern, especially for the country’s future. At the rate with which markets are evolving, a decade from now young people will be applying for jobs that do not exist today, and the country needs to prepare students for these roles. And it has to start now. 

The Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST) is trying to do this through an Erasmus+ project called RAISE. They are launching an Ambassador Programme to empower young students to take up the STEM mantle. STEM Career Cafés are going to be popping up in schools all over Malta, alongside a Career Day at Esplora aimed to inform and inspire. This is where you come in.

They want undergraduates from the University of Malta and MCAST to work with Esplora by sharing your experiences in STEM and telling your stories to encourage those who may be considering a STEM career. STEM Ambassadors will gain important public engagement skills while making research and science careers more accessible.

STEM is crucial in our contemporary world; our economies depend on it. It has completely changed the way we live and opened up new prospects for a future we never imagined. For those who have already made up their mind to be a part of it, there is now the opportunity to empower others and guide them in finding their own path. 

Note: To become a STEM Ambassador, email programmes@esplora.org.mt or call 2360 2218.

The MCST, the University of Malta, and the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology have embarked on a national campaign to promote STEM Engagement. Its first activity was a National STEM Engagement Conference.

We’re exploring Here!

If you had a rich malleable canvas that could flip rules on their heads and expose truths we take for granted, wouldn’t you use it? Jasper Schellekens writes about the games delving deep into some of our most challenging philosophical questions.

The famous Chinese philosopher Confucius once said, ‘I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.’ Confucius would have likely been a miserable mystic in modern mainstream education which demands that students sit and listen to teachers. But it’s not all bad. Technological advancements have brought us something Confucius could never have dreamed of: digital worlds. 

A digital world offers interaction within the boundaries of a created environment. It allows you to do things, even if the ‘thing’ amounts to little more than pressing a key. Research at the Institute of Digital Games (IDG) focuses on developing a deeper understanding of how these concepts can be used to teach through doing by looking at people interact with gameworlds, studying how games can impact them (Issue 24), and designing games that do exactly that. 

Doing it digital 

Two millennia later, John Dewey, one of the most prominent American scholars of the 20th century, proposed an educational reform that focused on learning through doing and reflection instead of the ‘factory model’ that was the norm. Dewey’s idea was embraced, and has become a pedagogical tool in many classrooms, now known as experiential learning.

Let’s not pretend that Confucius was thousands of years ahead of his time—after all, apprenticeships have always been an extremely common form of learning. But what if we were to transplant this method of experimentation, trial and error, into a digital world?

It would allow us to do so much! And we’re talking about more than figuring out how to plug in to Assassin’s Creed’s tesseract or getting the hang of swinging through New York City as Spiderman. While these are valuable skills you don’t want to ignore, what we’re really interested in here are virtual laboratories, space simulations, and interactive thought experiments.

Games make an ideal vehicle for experiential learning precisely because they provide a safe and relatively inexpensive digital world for students to learn from.

Think of the value of a flight simulator to train pilots. The IDG applied the same idea to create a virtual chemistry lab for the Envisage Project. They threw in the pedagogical power tools of fun and competition to create what’s known as serious games.

Serious games are at the heart of many of the IDG’s research projects. eCrisis uses games for social inclusion and teaching empathy. iLearn facilitates the learning process for children with dyslexia and Curio is developing a teaching toolkit to foster curiosity. However, the persuasive power of videogames stretches further than we might think.

In a videogame world, players take intentional actions based on the rules set by the creators. These ‘rules’ are also referred to as ‘game mechanisms’. Through these rules, and experiential learning, players can learn to think in a certain, often conventional, way.

Which brings us to HERE.

Prof. Stefano Gualeni is fond of using games to criticise conventions: in Necessary Evil a player takes on the role of an NPC (Non Player Character) monster, in Something Something Soup Something the definition of soup is questioned, while in HERE Gualeni breaks down what ‘here’ means in a digital world.

What’s Here?  

HERE sees the player explore the philosophical concept of ‘indexicality’, the idea that meanings depend on the context in which they occur. A fitting example is the extended index finger, which means different things depending on where it is placed and what movement it makes. Point one way or another to indicate direction, place over the lips to request silence, or shake it from side to side to deny or scold. 

The game explores the word ‘here’ in the digital world. It sheds light on how much we take for granted, and how a lot of concepts are not as straightforward as we think. 

HERE you play as ‘Wessel the Adventurer’, a cat of acute perception that is sent on a quest by a wizard to find magic symbols and open an enchanted cave. Playing on the tropes of role-playing games, the expectations of the adventurer are thus framed in a conventional manner, but not everything is as it seems.

By subverting players’ expectations of role-playing games, they will have the opportunity to discover what they have been (perhaps unwittingly) taught. They will be confronted with a puzzle involving the many versions of ‘here’ that can co-exist in a digital world. Among their prizes is Gualeni himself performing a philosophical rap. 

Explorable Explanations 

Experiential learning isn’t the only way to learn, but video games, with their interactivity and ability to manipulate the gameworld’s rules with ease, offer a ripe environment for it. The digital realm adds a very malleable layer of possibility for learning through doing and interacting with philosophical concepts. HERE is not alone in this approach. 

Words often fall short of the concepts they are trying to convey. How do you explain why people trust each other when there are so many opportunities to betray that trust? Telling people they have cognitive biases is not as effective as showing them acting on those biases.

Explorable Explanations is a collection of games curated by award-winning game developer Nicky Case that dig into these concepts through play. The Evolution of Trust is one of them, breaking down the complex psychological and social phenomena contributing to the seemingly simple concept of trust in society. Adventures in Cognitive Biases is able to show us how we are biased even when we don’t think we are. HERE delves into our understanding of language and the world around us, showing us (instead of telling us) that learning doesn’t have to be boring. Now go learn something and play HERE.   

To try the game yourself visit www.here.gua-le-ni.com

Burnout

In airplane safety demonstrations, we are always told to put oxygen masks on ourselves before we help others. If we are not well, how can we help others efficiently? Dr Patrick Barbara writes about burnout among Malta’s mental health professionals and what we can do to resolve this worldwide issue.

Mental health professional ‘Joe’ works in the Maltese hospital’s  services. He feels emotionally drained and at the end of his rope. In the morning, he wakes up dreading his workday. The passion for it has dissipated. Maybe, he thinks, it’s time to quit.

Dr Patrick Barbara

Dr Aloisia Camilleri and I explored the concept of burnout in professionals working within our mental health system. The research project itself was born from the notion that to support those who need care, service providers themselves need to have good mental health. 

To understand job-related burnout, it is best to see it as a spectrum. People can be happy, satisfied, and fully engaged, or they can be completely disinterested and disengaged. This framing helps us understand that there are differing degrees of burnout, while also highlighting that different definitions of burnout can lead to different results.

In our research, burnout was defined as a process where a person’s psychological resources are gradually depleted as a result of prolonged stress at work. This then manifests in emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and loss of personal accomplishment. The person feels worn out, fatigued, detached, and cynical about their job. Ultimately there’s a sense of inability to cope, and low morale sets in. This is the ultimate lose-lose situation where both the employee and the patients suffer as the organisation loses efficiency.

For the study, we invited 322 professionals to participate anonymously. The roles they occupied varied and included psychiatry doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, psychologists, psychotherapists, and social workers. In the end, 230 agreed to answer our standardised questionnaires. The results were in line with those of similar studies conducted abroad.

Emotional exhaustion scored highly (40.4% of respondents), as did poor personal accomplishment (30.4%). A fifth (18.3%) experienced high depersonalisation levels, while 13.9% scored high on all three features of burnout.

What causes burnout is complex and difficult to explain. The healthcare environment and the systems operating within it do tend to put healthcare workers at risk. They suffer from time pressures, emotional intensity, role conflict, and difficult relationships between employees and management.

Research suggests that people at risk of experiencing burnout often experience a mismatch between their personality and abilities and the role they are in. This mismatch is subjective, depending on the individual as much as it is related to any particular job. So while it can mean that a person has chosen a job outside of their natural abilities, it can also mean that there may be a discrepancy in expectations between the person and the organisation. So this is not just an issue of too much work. Other central elements include control, values, community, fairness, and rewards.

To prevent or resolve some of the issues associated with burnout, people need to have a sense of control at work. They need to feel rewarded (not just financially, but also socially) and treated fairly. They need to feel that they are part of a community that communicates in a civil manner and shares the same or at least similar values. Since this job-person mismatch is a subjective experience, a positive outlook towards work also helps avoid burnout. Our research showed that people who have a better ‘match’ in one factor tend to score better in the other factors as well.

So how can burnout be addressed? Awareness is the first step towards recovery. Education is essential for people to recognise and identify burnout. Practising mindfulness can prove to be an excellent tool for anyone. By becoming more in tune with our own thoughts and emotions, evaluating them in a non-judgemental way, we can avoid falling down the slippery slope towards an unhealthy mental state.

Keeping boundaries and a correct work-life balance is another point. Having time for life outside work and being passionate about other activities is critical. Whether it’s exercise, writing, or creating art, cultivating other interests keeps our worlds varied and occupied. It creates a situation where there are other things to focus on when difficult times come.

From an organisational perspective, we need to work harder to recognise that employees are the most important resource at any workplace. They need to be supported and involved in decision making as much as possible.

Burnout is linked to other mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. Any employee who experiences mental health problems that impinge on one’s life must feel that they are not alone and help is available. Most people spend the majority of their day and life at work so we need to make sure that it is experienced as positively as possible. 

Four reasons why we should not forget about Ebola

Author: Dr Raquel Medialdea-Carrera

Dr Raquel Medialdea-Carrera

When was the last time you heard about the Ebola virus? Many of you may recall Ebola dominating headlines in global news throughout 2014 and 2015 when it spread explosively across West Africa, claiming more than 11,300 lives.

For the last few years, Ebola has been my focus, passion, and dreaded nightmare rolled into one. In 2015, I joined a wonderful team of physicians, nurses, and scientists, that were leading the fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone. We worked in Ebola hospitals isolating patients and supporting survivors of the virus’ worst epidemic in history. Then, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the outbreak was over in 2016. News stations stopped covering our progress. Discussions about the disease dwindled. But the fight to eradicate Ebola was far from over. 

Since August 2018, an Ebola epidemic has spread across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), affecting over 2,000 people and becoming the second largest epidemic ever recorded. Over the last few weeks, I have joined the WHO to support the fight against it in Africa.

The latest Ebola outbreak in Congo is affecting people who were already suffering from a major humanitarian crisis. People in the DRC are devastated by years of violence and conflict, resulting in the largest displacement emergency in Africa. Four and a half million are currently fleeing their homes. With over 100 different armed groups in the country, the challenge of ending this Ebola outbreak is on a whole new level. But still, there is hope.

Over the last few years, researchers have toiled hard and developed a powerful vaccine against the Ebola virus. This vaccine is still under evaluation, however, the preliminary results show a wonderful efficiency of over 97.5%. Even so, we have to remain aware. Ebola is a cruel, painful death sentence for most people who get infected, and leaves in its wake a trail of broken families, hundreds of orphans, and shattered hospitals. It decimates economies and destroys societies, leading to even more poverty and hardship. This is why we cannot forget about Ebola.  

Enter the swarm

Author: Jean Luc Farrugia 

Jean Luc Farrugia

Once upon a time, the term ‘robot’ conjured up images of futuristic machines from the realm of science fiction. However, we can find the roots of automation much closer to home.

Nature is the great teacher. In the early days, when Artificial Intelligence was driven by symbolic AI (whereby entities in an environment are represented by symbols which are processed by mathematical and logical rules to make decisions on what actions to take), Australian entrepreneur and roboticist Rodney Brooks looked to animals for inspiration. There, he observed highly intelligent behaviours; take lionesses’ ability to coordinate and hunt down prey, or elephants’ skill in navigating vast lands using their senses. These creatures needed no maps, no mathematical models, and yet left even the best robots in the dust. 

This gave rise to a slew of biologically-inspired approaches. Successful applications include domestic robot vacuums and space exploration rovers. 

Swarm Robotics is an approach that extends this concept by taking a cue from collaborative behaviours used by animals like ants or bees, all while harnessing the emerging IoT (Internet of Things) trend that allows technology to communicate.

Supervised by Prof. Ing. Simon G. Fabri, I designed a system that enabled a group of robots to intelligently arrange themselves into different patterns while in motion, just like a herd of elephants, a flock of birds, or even a group of dancers! 

Farrugia’s robots in action.

I built and tested my system using real robots, which had to transport a box to target destinations chosen by the user. Unlike previous work, the algorithms I developed are not restricted by formation shape. My robots can change shape on the fly, allowing them to adapt to the task at hand. The system is quite simple and easy to use.

The group consisted of three robots designed using inexpensive off-the-shelf components. Simulations confirmed that it could be used for larger groups. The robots could push, grasp, and cage objects to move them from point A to B. To cage an object the robots move around it to bind it, then move together to push it around. Caging proved to be the strongest method, delivering the object even when a robot became immobilised, though grasping delivered more accurate results.

Collective transportation can have a great impact on the world’s economy. From the construction and manufacturing industries, to container terminal operations, robots can replace humans to protect them from the dangerous scenarios many workers face on a daily basis. 

This research project was carried out as part of the M.Sc. in Engineering (Electrical) programme at the Faculty of Engineering. A paper entitled “Swarm Robotics for Object Transportation” was published at the UKACCControl 2018 conference, available on IEEE Xplore digital library.

https://www.facebook.com/ThinkUM/videos/493872941442263/

Saving the Maltese freshwater crab from extinction

Author: Clayton Sammut

Clayton Sammut

A considerable amount of endemic species inhabit the Maltese Islands. The Maltese freshwater crab (Qabru in Maltese) is one of them. In the 50s, the invertebrate was so abundant that freshwater crab soup was a common Maltese delicacy. And up until Malta adopted the Euro, it graced the Maltese five cent coin. The Maltese freshwater crab is unique to our heritage, but it is now threatened with extinction. 

Under the supervision of Dr Adriana Vella and the University of Malta’s conservation research group, I used various population and biological parameters to analyse the data and produce conservation recommendations.

To estimate the crab population size and density, I used two techniques known as the capture–recapture method and distance sampling in a number of repeated surveys in different sites throughout the dry (August to mid-September) and wet season (October to January). I then measured the crabs to determine their life stage and sex. This revealed more information about the reproductive population size and recruitment at each study site.

What we found was that there was an imbalance in the number of female to male breeding adults, which resulted in a small amount of offspring. This means the population cannot sustain itself, putting the species in grave danger.

Beyond health and numbers, we also directed attention to the crabs’ natural habitat. We wanted to find out whether hydrological and chemical parameters, such as water depth and water acidity, are also having an impact. As it happens, the freshwater crab’s population density is affected significantly by a water stream’s depth, width, velocity, and acidity (pH). We also found that specific sites and seasons also had an impact.

Direct water extraction, excessive use of fertilisers, and water stream channelisation are creating severe drought that suffocates the crabs during summer. So much so that adult male crabs were seen preying on their own juvenile crabs.

Looking at the rapid decline of watercourses around the Maltese Islands throughout the years, and the abuse that goes ignored and unchecked, the freshwater crab will not have a future unless we act immediately.

There are three things that we can do to undo some damage. We can fund research to determine if a reintroduction programme would work in sites which previously hosted the crab. We can also create new engineered habitats which can host the crab and bolster the population. Finally, the highly diverse habitats that are now hosting the crab can be turned into protected nature reserves. The nature reserves could engage citizens with Maltese organisms. If run as a social enterprise, it could generate funds to support important research. Protecting the animals that call our islands home is our duty as responsible citizens, but it goes beyond that. Protecting them means protecting our surroundings, our home, from a path that severs us from our roots. Protecting them is protecting ourselves.