PDMS are pleased to be involved in the annual Red Ensign Group conference which is being held on the island this week (15^th - 17^th May) and hosted by The Isle of Man Ship Registry.

The 3 day Conference provides a forum for discussion on a wide range of topics from across the Maritime Administrations and will shape the strategic direction of the Red Ensign Group for the future.  Category 1 members of the Red Ensign Group include; Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Isle of Man and the UK.

As well as a full conference agenda, the delegates will enjoy evening social events that have been organised for their time on the Island. These  include a reception at Government House and a Gala Dinner for which PDMS are the main sponsors.

PDMS have worked with the Isle of Man Shipping Registry as their software development partners for several years and have developed an in-depth understanding of an international ship registry's business and operational issues. We are now working on implementations of MARIS with several other International Ship Registries.

The students, Katie Banks, Tegan Dixon, Noura Gomaa, Joe Hillard, Sophie Kermode and Chloë Shimmin, will now go on to represent the Island in the JA-YE Europe Company of the Year competition in Bucharest in July.

The event, held at the Palace Hotel, was sponsored by PDMS whose managing director Chris Gledhill presented the Company of the Year trophy, saying 2012 had been 'a vintage year' for the competition with students showing outstanding levels of ambition, innovation and creativity that formed part of 'taking on the adult world'.

Rejuven8 had especially impressed the judges with their clearly set out business accounts and professional presentation delivered without notes. The team's Chloë Shimmin said the Company of the Year challenge had 'helped prepare us for the business world', encouraged them to be self-motivated and offered a learning experience outside of the conventional school curriculum.and explained: 'The more involved we became the more we realised just how much work goes into forming and running your own company and although we all had assigned roles, what really helped us was the way we ended up sharing our different strengths.'

In preparation for the competition Junior Achievement staff and volunteer mentors had worked with students from King William's College and Castle Rushen, Queen Elizabeth II and Ballakermeen high schools since September last year to help them formulate and develop their business ideas.

Junior Achievement's chief executive Sue Cook hosted the evening and explained that 29 teams had taken up the challenge and 15 had become finalists. Before the winners were announced she told the students: 'Regardless of whether you win an award tonight you have gained something even more valuable; practical experience that you can draw upon during a job or university interview. And how many young people can say they've run their own business?'

Sue went on to point out that universities and employers recognise the Junior Achievement/Young Enterprise company programme as the top entrepreneurial programme for young people in the UK, with research showing that on average 15 per cent of students completing it go on to become self employed compared with the national average of six per cent.

The final of the Junior Achievement company programme is always a bit of a highlight of my year.  Ever since I first got involved, first as a judge and then as a sponsor of the Company Award.  Invariably I have been impressed, challenged and entertained by the creativity and enthusiasm of the young people who take part, and this year has been no exception.

For me the program serves a number of important purposes.  First and foremost it is a rich learning experience.  In setting up their business the teams have to confront some harsh realities:  In business there is no predetermined formula for success, you have to trust your own judgement and accept the consequences or rewards of your actions.

No matter how brilliant you may be individually you have to be able to function as a team and teams need a variety of skills to succeed Time takes no prisoners, if you don't get it done in time you may as well not have started. All of these factors to some extent bridge the gap between the success criteria that are central to the world of education and the requirements of the work place.

This is also a competition and the winners will go on to represent the Isle of Man in Europe.  Every year our winning team get to show some very influential people from both education and business across the continent that they have had the 'freedom to flourish'.  In Europe they are up against winning teams from some of the most dynamic and diverse educational and economic systems in the world.  Teams from countries like Germany and the UK who will already have competed at both regional and national levels to be selected from literally hundreds of competitors.

In the last couple of years we have seen the company program go from strength to strength, with an increasing emphasis on the development of real sustainable business ideas.  This year has been exceptional in this respect with more genuinely innovative product or service ideas than I can remember from any previous competition. It makes life far more interesting for the judges and business mentors and also most importantly, is far more inspiring and stretching for those who take part.

Precisely because this has been something of a vintage year for innovative and ambitious projects, the disparity between successfully meeting the criteria of the competition and the long term business potential of each idea has been particularly evident.  And in consequence whilst we do have a very worthy winner I think we also have an exceptional number of teams who have a potentially winning idea regardless of the rules of the competition.   Whatever they choose to do with their idea in the long run they have also had a really valuable learning experience.

Andrew Cairns re-joins PDMS as a Project Manager having previously worked for the company for four years until 2005. Andrew brings with him a vast amount of experience and expertise gained in the engineering, construction and IT sectors, where he has overseen the construction of almost everything from traditional looms to hi-tech datacentres.

A Chartered Manager, Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and Member of the Association of Project Management, Andrew is highly knowledgeable about corporate ISO standards and brings valuable experience back to PDMS.

Jayne Hartley takes up the role of Analyst, after joining PDMS from Zurich International Life. Jayne is Manx and attended St Ninians and Ballakermeen High Schools. After spending 13 years living in the South East of England, working predominantly during that time as a Business Analyst in London based software houses, Jayne returned to the island in 2007. Jayne will be working on a number of projects in the maritime sector with our growing portfolio of ship registry clients.

Mahmud Khaled joins PDMS as a developer.  Mahmud has over six years' experience having previously worked in the e-gaming industry developing enterprise applications for outfits in both the Isle of Man and South-East Asia. In his new role Mahmud will be working with a wide variety of local and international clients, both in the public and private sectors.

Managing Director Chris Gledhill commented 'I am delighted to welcome Jayne and Mahmud to the technical team at PDMS.  I think they will bring a great deal of enthusiasm and experience to an already strong team. I am also particularly pleased to welcome Andrew back to the company, I am sure we will get a double benefit from his previous experience here and the knowledge he has gained during the last few years.'

The 14001 certification is the culmination of a 12 month project for PDMS which has involved analyzing and monitoring the company's environmental impact, implementing an environmental management system and setting a number of targets and objectives.  PDMS have introduced a number of new 'green' initiatives including:- stepping up their recycling efforts, reducing energy consumption and minimizing the usage of materials.

Neal Kelly, Infrastructure and Facilities Manager at PDMS, commented "We have had an ongoing commitment to reducing our environmental impact for some time and we are delighted to have received formal recognition for our efforts in the form of 14001 certification." He continued, "We have significantly boosted our green credentials across every aspect of the business from investing in improved online conferencing facilities to help reduce travel, particularly between our head office and the London office, right through to composting our organic waste".

PDMS clients are increasingly aware of the needs for improved environmental standards.  They can now be confident that PDMS not only complies with environmental best practices and policies, but is also constantly striving for improved performance, thanks to documented processes and procedures.

PDMS already holds the quality standard ISO 9001 and the security standard ISO 27001 and has integrated ISO 14001 into its existing, comprehensive quality management system.

It was an exciting game with the Nomads clinching the Shield in dramatic fashion with a penalty kick in the 80^th minute.

The club's first team have also qualified for the Cheshire Plate Final which is taking place in Cheshire on 7^th April 2012.  It's a great achievement for the Nomads who are the first Manx side to reach this stage of the competition and we wish them the very best of luck!

PDMS have secured a place to deliver both, Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions and Specialist Cloud services.  Anybody across the public sector who is looking for a cloud based document management system, for example, to help share and control their documents securely, can now purchase PDMS' Controlled Document Portal solution quickly and easily; without having to go through a long and expensive procurement process.

The G-Cloud Framework is an integral part of the Government's G-Cloud programme, and aims to revolutionize the purchasing, management and delivery of public sector IT services.  It represents a whole new approach to Government procurement where defined 'cloud services' can be purchased as commodity IT services, with known costs from the outset and with maximum 12 month contracts.  With a key aim of encouraging competition and ensuring transparency, service details and pricing information are available to all on CloudStore.

"PDMS are really pleased to have been selected as a supplier on the G-Cloud framework and to be participating in the early ground breaking stages of this exciting new programme", commented, PDMS' Software as a Service Manager and Director, Tim Nicholson. "We have a great track record in delivering managed services and believe that our cloud based Controlled Document Portal, as one of our examples of this approach, can benefit a wide range of public sector users, ranging from smaller organizations right through to larger central Government departments. We are continuing to invest in the ongoing development of our cloud based products and services and will consequently be launching further new products very soon".

Chris Gledhill, PDMS' Managing Director also added, "We've been impressed by the way the open, fast and efficient way the procurement for the G-Cloud framework itself has been run, which has helped encourage participation from a very broad range of suppliers.  The new G-Cloud Framework will make it much easier for Government as a whole to take advantage of the great cloud services and cost effective products that companies like PDMS have to offer now and in the future."

This year our tree was aptly named 'Recycling is for life and not just for Christmas'. With plenty of creative heads in our midst we decided upon the theme of recycling and set to work collecting drinks cans and crisp packets which would be used to construct our tree. At PDMS we have been working towards achieving our Environmental Standard ISO14001:2004.To meet the required standards for this we have introduced a number of processes in particular the disposal of rubbish such as sandwich packaging, paper and metal drinks cans. Our staff team are now much more conscious of how recycling can help the environment!

The festival which takes place in various locations across the UK has grown year on year and as always there were some excellent competition entries. The Isle of Man festival raised over £8000 for  the local branch of Save the Children - a fantastic achievement. A very big thank you to everyone who passed through the airport and took the time to vote.

The article ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/11/ict-british-computing-renaissance)

which goes on to celebrate the legacy of Alan Turing the British scientist often credited with inventing the computer.  In fact it explains, Turing's real contribution was in developing the mathematical basis of computer programming.  And this goes right to the heart of the educational issue!  Programming is the fundamental discipline which underpins the entire IT industry.  Everything from the design of shiny new phones to the guidance systems of satellites is dependant to a significant extent on good software engineering.

Whatever one may think of the pros and cons of political tinkering with the education system (and I think it is generally very subject to the law of unintended consequences) I am delighted that someone is finally grasping this particular nettle.  As a parent and as an employer, my experience of the teaching and assessment of ICT in recent years is that however well intentioned, it simply does nothing to  inspire young people.  This is a huge lost opportunity when programming skills are so vital to wealth creation and international competitiveness right across the economy.