Egypt,
The Peace - maker

 
Wide-scale International Contacts to Cement Technological Capabilities
Development diplomacy constitutes now a fundamental aspect of Egyptian foreign policy. Foreign policy is being employed to further development objectives, to create job opportunities, to cultivate the citizens and safeguard vital national interests.
In pursuit of this goal Egyptian diplomacy is striking out in different directions, seeking to keep all the doors open to all the countries of the world toward implementing a package of basic objectives.
Foremost among these objectives are opening new market, attract foreign capital, promote industry, transfer of technology to keep pace with the information and communication revolution in the 21st Century.
While on the threshold of the 21st century, Egypt's foreign policy has witnessed a qualitative move. Foreign assistance and loans are no longer a target, rather real partnership has become the end to be realized. The technological dimension, in fact, constitutes one of Egypt's foreign policy essentials, as assimilating sophisticated technology is now at the very forefront of national priorities. Information Technology (IT) is no longer a luxury. It is essential for life's convenience, a means of upgrading government's performance in the provision services to its citizens.

The new trend of Egyptian diplomacy comes out of a deep belief in the fact that political calculation are now governed by supremacy of technology in the age of Internet and communication revolution. In other words, technological development has become the way for maintaining security and development. President Hosni Mubarak foreign tours have to be viewed in this light. The issue of technology transfer figured prominently in the President trips to Asia in April 1999 and the U.S in the spring of 2000.

Technology  Transfer
The issue of technology transfer was at the very forefront of President Hosni Mubarak's agenda during his visit to US. The way the political leadership dealt with US companies and institutions specialized in IT issued from a clear strategy. The strategy is based on a national technological revival project to be guided in part by the recent creation of the Ministry of Information and Communication.
Taking into consideration the fact that IT issue is a serious concern of the political leadership, it is useful here to review aspects of technological revival project launched by President Hosni Mubarak during the national form for technology and information.

 Technological revival project
On September 13, 2000, President Hosni Mubarak introduced a national project for technological development. The project seeks to mobilize efforts of all sectors of the society to produce, employ, and apply technology in all aspects of production and life. The starting point of this project is to encourage schools and institutions to widen the scope of establishing training centers throughout Egypt.
The political leadership is quite aware of the fact that technological revival cannot thrive in absence of a fertile ground for developing local technology. There has been also a deep conviction that technology revival would boost Egypt's economy and enabling it to adjust to world changes. This would cement Egypt's competitive position in dealing with economic blocks.

The technological revival project envisions the following:
1- Developing a national demand on information and its uses.
2- Turning to world markets to gain a share of world demand on technology products.
3- Intensifying efforts to promoting the use of computers in children clubs, cultural centers, universities, expanding training programmes and overseas study missions.
4- Establishing alliances between Egypt's IT makers and their counterparts in countries that realized great success in this field.
5- Maintaining a flow of public and private investments to modernize the communications infrastructure.
6- Reviewing standing legislations to provide producers with full protection through the intellectual property law.

The nucleus for this project is already available, as facts indicate that there is a sound information base. It includes:
* Establishing 6-million telephone-line network.
* Establishing 1500 information centers.
* Computerizing 20,000 schools.
* Establishing 7 faculties specialized in computer science and information in addition to the Information Technology Institution.
* Taking a big step toward IT industries. Already, Egypt has more than 400 Egyptian IT companies.
* Involving Egyptian companies in producing computer components. Already such companies meet 10% of the local demand.

The national plan for communications and information aims at developing communications and information industry and building an advanced industry depending on Egyptian minds. The investment necessary for implementing this plan hit LE 514 million in fiscal year 2000/2001, and LE 537 million in fiscal year 2001/2002. The government would contribute LE180 million to the financing of the project, while private sector would afford the rest.

As backing up talented people in the field is deemed to be the core of the aspired-for revival, the national conference for talented people was held in April 2000, demonstrating Egypt's ability to head for brighter future.

The 'Intelligent  Village'
Establishing the Intelligent Village is the first practical step towards the implementation of the national project for information. It is expected to start activities in a year, and is deemed to be a castle of IT. The LE270 million project occupies an area of 325 feddans.
This Intelligent Village is expected, in the first phase, to absorb some 20,000 engineers, technicians and employees. It aims at harnessing new technology that would augment productivity. The Intelligent Village works in harmony with the Valley of Technology along the Suez Canal, as the latter works in the scientific research field while the Intelligent Village works in the domain of technology marketing and producing.
It is also expected that the establishment of the Intelligent Village would increase Egypt's programming revenues from $15 million to $ 500 million in the coming three years and to $5 billion over the coming ten years.

Bridging Informational Gap
The crux of President Mubarak's visit to US was to make a wide move in hi-tech field and to narrow the informational gap. The most significant goal of the visit was to create a favourable climate necessary for invigorating the technological revival project.
Within this framework, Mubarak called for harnessing technology to serve the young generations not only in Egypt but also in developing countries that are in bad need to this technology. This, however, was incarnated in the message Mubarak sent to the entire world via Internet on March 27, 2000.

Mubarak also paid a visit to PSINet Web Hosting Facility, The Internet Super Carrier, which announced plans to expand its operations into Egypt. The company will investigate opportunities to open a global web hosting facility in Cairo and look to use its existing fiber-optic capacity that terminates in Alexandria, in order to extend high-speed Internet access throughout the country.
Moreover, the issue of technology transfer figured high in the Egyptian-US Presidential Council meetings, which resulted in implementing a number of contracts with biggest US companies working in the field .

3000 graduates to be trained annually
The political leadership is vehemently keen on spreading technology awareness among students and graduates, thus doubling Egypt's competitive position in programming domain to reach the aspired-for technological breakthrough.
To this end, an agreement with IBM was concluded on March 28, 2000 to provide annual training for 3000 graduates. The agreement includes intensive training programme offered to best 300 trainees, 6-month-training course in IBM lab. The aforementioned training courses focus on sophisticated technology and E-Commerce, networking administration.
The second protocol will be concluded with Ministry of Industry. It focuses on means of boosting competitive position of Egyptian companies and plants through improving product quality and rationalizing use of available resources. As for the third protocol, it will be concluded with the Ministry of Higher Education with a view to acquainting university students with means of using technology in educational field.

Meaningful Visit
On March 27, 2000 President Hosni Mubarak paid a visit to PSINet Web Hosting Facility, the Internet Super Carrier, and met with the IT committee. Mubarak seized the opportunity and addressed a message to the American people where he stressed that Egypt is qualified enough to an open-ended cooperation with US in information industry field.
This visit stressed a number of connotations on top of which comes the political leadership keenness on activating the aspired for technological revival national project. PSINet registered Egypt in Internet domain names, as the Egyptian Company for Communications is to provide this service in Arabic, a matter that would contribute to turning Egypt into a regional center for IT and electronic communications.

E-commerce to develop exports
During his meeting with US vice President Gore, President Mubarak discussed the key role IT plays in today's world. An agreement was concluded to encourage E-commerce in Egypt as soon as possible. The agreement includes commodities that will be marketed through E-commerce and ways of making money transfer in deals and transactions.

First academy for training and human development
Mubarak's visit to US yielded several agreements that would bring about a breakthrough in the field of communications and information. Salient among such agreements is the one concluded on April 24, 2000 with Cisco, one of the giant companies in the field.
Under the agreement, the first Academy for training and human development in Africa will be established, where two headquarters and 10 branches to be established in Egypt's governorates. Annually, one thousand trainees are to receive training in networking administration.

Agreement with Lucent Company, concluded
On March 28, 2000, Lucent Company and the Egyptian Companies for Networks concluded a LE51 million contract to implement second phase of banking sector information transfer network. Lucent Company and IT Egyptian Group for Investment signed a partnership agreement to execute joint projects in information industry field and to establish sound base for technological services and products.

Activating Investment
Mubarak's visit also resulted in several initiatives launched by the giant US companies. Such initiatives aim at backing up human development and boosting investment. In this respect, PSINet decided to establish $50 million service center in Cairo. The center provides E-commerce services in the Arab region and Africa.
Sun Company, one of the gigantic US companies in the field of manufacturing computer stations, decided to study the possibilities of establishing engineering center specialized in designing systems and computer stations programmes through Unix system.
HP Company, of the great companies in the field of IT assessing performance, launched an initiative under which HP, in cooperation with the Egyptian Company for Communications, will implement a giant project for establishing the main control center in Egypt's network. Within this framework, it was agreed upon probing the implementation of the project second phase to include setting a specialized center to this end.

Regional Center for Technology
Given the above, the technological dimension, as one of fundamentals of Egypt's foreign policy, has taken two directions; technology transfer and utilizing it in developing management. This, in fact, was highly accentuated in Mubarak's contact with developed countries. Mubarak's active move in this direction has been crystallized in providing thousands of students and graduates with high-level training courses and programmes in IT field.
Technology transfer is not the only Egyptian endeavor, rather gaining knowledge and developing this technology is the end. Actually Egypt's laborious efforts to invigorate its technological revival project would enable the country to be a regional center for IT.