Equinox Group’s history
Equinox Group was founded by Bernard Mallia in November 2008 with the establishment of InteliThink. InteliThink’s first areas of specialisation revolved around EU funding for large infrastructural projects and quantifications of damages for national court proceedings in Malta. Since then Equinox has expanded into a number of other areas in the tech, legal and corporate services space. This led to a rebranding of InteliThink to Equinox Advisory in 2013, as well as to the establishment of Equinox Academy in 2015 and Algorithmic Brain in 2019. We have shone brightly in the industries in which we have worked for over a decade and have become well-known for taking bold and innovative steps in bringing our services to our clients.
We are very proud of our achievements and are thankful to all the people – employees, clients, collaborators and partners – who have contributed to make the Equinox Group story one of considerable success against all odds.
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2008
Founding of InteliThink and the Equinox Group
This was the time when we founded Equinox Group and its first company Intelithink. We had no idea how far we would go, or whether we would be able to survive the first couple of years, but we had the motivation, drive, determination and ambition to see us through the difficult early years of the business. What drove us to start the company was the understanding that we could provide a service no one else was providing and to be able to provide it in a way that was very difficult if not impossible for competitors to copy.
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2010
New office location and engagement of employees
Following a couple of years with very tight cashflow and the outlay of significant operational expenditures to carry forward some public contracts that InteliThink had won, the projects started being closed off and the payments received. Cashflow improved significantly and there was a feel-good factor that InteliThink would be around for quite a while. We realised that InteliThink was growing more stable and expanding at the same time. A new office location and the first employees were required with some urgency. After this need was identified, an office in Valletta was sourced and three employees engaged.
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2012
Establishment of Equinox Legal
2012 saw the hiving off of all legal works from InteliThink to Equinox Legal. This had to happen because we were unable to offer a wide range of services under the InteliThink brand given Maltese legislation. While this was potentially anti-competitive and inconsistent with EU freedoms and competition policy, it was deemed to be easier to just comply than to stay mounting a legal challenge to the caste-like system that these rules gave rise to.
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2012
Rebranding exercise
Following the launch of Equinox Legal and the prospective launches of a corporate services and a technology division, a decision was also taken to kickstart a rebranding process with a view to being able to provide our clients with a seamless and unified brand and custmer experience journey.
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2013
InteliThink rebrands to Equinox Advisory
With the rebranding exercise complete, InteliThink ceased to exist and Equinox Advisory took its place. Equinox Advisory catered for the legal, economics, corporate and technology areas. Following the rebranding and an expansion in staff complement, plans for the licensing of an academy were drawn up and set as the next milestone.
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2013
Equinox Advisory moves into new Valletta office
Given the growth in operations and in the number of staff members to deal with it, it was clear that we had outgrown the office that we had, so we had had since 2010 and to move into bigger premises to ensure that we could maintain our growth rate uninterruptedly.
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2013
MoUs with IRISS and MIICT
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for joint-research efforts in economics, politics and sociology was signed with the Institute of Research and Improvement in Social Sciences (IRISS). Another MoU was signed with the Mediterranean Institute for Communications and Technology (MIICT). The latter covered research in electronic communications technologies, particularly in orthogonal DFM, 5G spectrum and the maximisation of the digital dividend, next generation networks and communications based on quantum entanglement properties of physics.
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2014
Equinox Group launches Equinox Academy and applies for NCFHE certification
After six years operating in the executive training field, Equinox Group decided to spin off the training activity into a separate company. Equinox Academy was thus born. On inception, the intensive regulatory process to obtain a license from the NCFHE was initiated and all the required processes and procedures put in place.
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2015
Equinox Academy obtains NCFHE certification
Equinox Academy officially became a certified Higher and Further Education institution in 2015.
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2016
Equinox Academy becomes Microsoft Education Partner Network Member
Equinox Academy officially became a Microsoft Education Partner Network Member in 2016.
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2017
Equinox Group commits to a heavy investment in Business Intelligence (BI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and to a realignment in business areas
In 2017, a strategic decision to undertake a heavy investment programme revolving around Business Intelligence (BI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) was undertaken. Concomitantly a decision to gradually close off all unprofitable works mostly in specific areas of public sector tendering and some EU Funds was also taken and a gradual but constant realignment of operations was subsequently undertaken.
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2019
Equinox Group commits to a heavy investment in Business Intelligence (BI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and to a realignment in business areas
In 2017, a strategic decision to undertake a heavy investment programme revolving around Business Intelligence (BI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) was undertaken. Concomitantly a decision to gradually close off all unprofitable works mostly in specific areas of public sector tendering and some EU Funds was also taken and a gradual but constant realignment of operations was subsequently undertaken.
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2019
Establishment of Algorithmic BrAIn
Given the stellar growth of the data warehousing, data reporting, Business Intelligence (BI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) services offered by Equinox, a decision to segregate these services under a different brand was taken. Algorithmic BrAIn was thus born.
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2019
Decision to go increasingly virtual
Equinox Group companies have always valued working time flexibility highly, and Equinox Group employees have valued such arrangements even more. Indeed, since the very early days of the first Equinox employees, workers have always been given the ability to work flexibly from home for four out of the 5 days of the working week. 2019 was the time to take this arrangement further both in order to cut unnecessary costs (office occupancy was down 86% relative to 2017 and 78% relative to 2018) and to cut down on commuting time, which in Malta (and especially in Valletta) had become ridiculously long. The new arrangement places increased emphasis on remote working and virtual meetings, and only requires employees to brush shoulders physically once every fortnight and to go to one of the four virtual offices we use for client meetings whenever they happen to be fixed. This arrangement has resulted in demonstrably happier employees who can now balance their work and personal lives better, increased productivity and lower costs. The implementation of this decision also allowed Equinox Group companies to keep their prices unchanged for the fourth year in a row despite operating in a context of significantly higher input prices.
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2020
Withstanding the Covid-19 disruptions
By January 2020, it was evident that the risks of a novel virus becoming a global pandemic were on the high end of the scale. By the end of January 2020, just a few weeks before news broke out that Milan in Italy had become a virus hotspot, Equinox Group had invested in a cache of FFP3 respirators, non-ventilated goggles, alcohol sanitizer and a few hazmat suits. When Covid-19 hit Malta on March 8 2020, we were well prepared not only due to the supplies that we had acquired but also because we had been working remotely for 12 years and also because we had taken this arrangement to the next step 10 months before. Although some of the protective personal equipment procured (mostly the hazmat suits) turned out to be excessive, our operations suffered absolutely no disruptions due to lockdowns or other social distancing measures. Our working arrangements were already Covid-19-proof.
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Engaging Equinox for our in-house training of our management was one of the best initiatives and investments.
From the very first meeting up until closure, we found extremely helpful, customer-centric and solutions-driven people. Bernard is an extremely well-read thinker with an added quality of calmness in his delivery that makes him approachable by all levels of attendants. His thinking is switched on solution mode. His research skills are sharp and pointed. It was a pleasure working with him and his team. I have no hesitation whatsoever in attesting to the quality of, and in recommending Equinox.
