Future Talent Forum Malta 2026
The Future Talent Council ran its Skillscape Global forum on 16 and 17 September 2026 at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta. Below are the talks I recorded, summarized in plain English, with the parts worth remembering pulled out.
- 01Events4 min read
What I took home from Malta
Two days in Valletta with the OECD, Lightcast, Thomas International, three CHROs and Malta's own ministries. Here is the short version of the sessions I recorded, and the one thread running through all of them.
- 02Events6 min read
Mark Patterson: The word isn't excitement or fear, it's sovereignty
Mark Patterson opened Future Talent Forum Malta with a question he wants every leader sitting with: as AI gets more capable, who becomes more capable with it? His answer for Canada, and for you personally, comes down to one word: sovereignty.
- 03Events7 min read
El Iza Mohamedou: Skill systems that catch up, not predict
The OECD's head of the Centre for Skills opened day one in Valletta with the maritime sector in Malta: 4,400 vacant maritime jobs against 2,100 enrollments, and a strategy built to close that gap by 2035.
- 04Events7 min read
Beyond units of productivity
Six trillion dollars is going into AI infrastructure by 2030, and Luke McKeever told a room in Valletta exactly what that money is aimed at: human efficiency. Then Adrian Furnham explained the one thing it can't buy.
- 05Events7 min read
Monika Bielskyte: fantasy salesmen should not be prophets
Monika Bielskyte's Day 1 keynote in Valletta went straight at Elon Musk's Mars pitch: fantasy salesmen should not be treated as prophets. The line under all of it: AI is an amplifier, not a change maker, and it is anchored in the culture that built it.
- 06Events7 min read
It's not AI taking your job, it's the person who decided that
Three people chiefs from Hilton, an aviation maintenance organization and C40 Cities on what their job looks like now. Christina Lewis repeated a line from a breakout session that stuck: it's not AI taking your job, it's the person who decided AI is going to take your job.
- 07Events7 min read
Four leaders on what actually turns policy into practice
A sovereign wealth fund CEO, an OECD skills director, a digital innovation authority chief and a university vice provost on the gap between a strategy document and something that actually changes people's lives. The line that stuck: fund the person behind the idea, not the idea.
- 08Events8 min read
Partnerships that work start with the problem, not the paperwork
A university vice provost, an OECD skills chief and a college strategy officer on what actually holds a cross-sector partnership together, and the two live failures they were willing to name on stage.
- 09Events8 min read
Elena Magrini: You don't need a crystal ball, you need data
The closing keynote of Future Talent Forum Malta argued that forecasts are the wrong tool for the decisions that matter most. Elena Magrini's fix: stop waiting for certainty, and use data to prepare instead of predict.
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