Planning Minister agrees to allocate EGP 50 million to launch the Digital Egypt Builders Initiative
07 January 2021
Dr. Hala El-Said, Minister of Planning and
Economic Development, agreed to approve an amount of EGP 50 million for the
Ministry of Communications from the plan for the current fiscal year 2020/2021
to launch the Digital Egypt Builders initiative, in light of the implementation
of the political leadership's directives.
Dr. Hala El-Said explained that the state
attaches utmost importance to strengthening the communications and information
technology sector within the framework of the trend towards digital transformation
and the intensification of investments in this field, explaining that the
volume of investments directed to the telecommunications sector in the fiscal
year 2020/2021 plan amounted to EGP 10 billion, an increase of 300%.
El-Said emphasized that the Ministry of
Planning and Economic Development seeks to support those initiatives that
mainly aim to build the capabilities and enhance the competencies of the
Egyptian people, as one of the main goals to bring about a comprehensive and
real sustainable development in support of the goals of Egypt Vision 2030, in
addition to the direction of those initiatives towards promoting the idea of
digital transformation that the state seeks to achieve it to build a digital
Egypt.
El-Said pointed out that the Egyptian
Digital Builders initiative was launched by the Ministry of Communications and
Information Technology.
She said that the initiative was announced
during the opening of Egypt’s President for some educational facilities in
September 2020.
“The
initiative falls under the pillar of “Building the Egyptian People", it
seeks to empower the next generation of Egyptian youth graduates,” she
explained.
El-Said explained that the initiative is a
free grant offered to 1000 outstanding students annually from the faculties of
engineering, departments of computers, electronics, communications, or medical,
and colleges of computers and information or colleges of sports sciences
computer department.
With
the end of the scholarship period and the students' completion of the
graduation projects, these projects will be implemented in one of the giant
national projects, projects of international companies, or as a start-up
project.
After obtaining all the aforementioned
certificates, they are thus qualified at the highest level to work in digital
transformation projects and support building digital Egypt or to work in Major
Egyptian and international technology companies or the field of research and
development in the information and communication technology sector.
Students will be selected according to
specific conditions and criteria for admission to begin preparing them as young
cadres in several fields, including data science, artificial intelligence,
cybersecurity, robotics, automation, and digital arts, in addition to that,
they will be enrolled in a training program for leadership and management
skills development, which It would prepare qualified leaders to serve in the
bodies responsible for transforming Egypt into a first-class digital country.
This
will be done by using the latest technologies in the learning process and
through the presence of students on an advanced campus that keeps pace with its
capabilities with the latest smart universities.
The initiative is implemented in
cooperation with several international universities specialized in modern
technical fields and international companies working in the fields of
information and communication technology or the development of leadership or
linguistic skills, as these international universities award a master's degree.