The Mubarak City Project: A Euro-Mediterranean Collaboration
by Maurizio Martinelli and Ayman El-Dessouki
Egypt's governmental development plan has placed great emphasis on
privatization, free market policies and administrative reforms. These activities
will clearly be affected by the rapid proliferation and use of information
systems in government organizations, publicly owned companies, and private
organizations in Egypt. This evolution requires the provision of technical
expertise to handle, support and adapt these transferred technologies.
In the last few years, many national governments, but also the European
Union, have dedicated special attention to the enhancement of technical
and scientific capabilities in developing nations, promoting joint research
programmes with Mediterranean countries (like MEDCAMPUS, MEDA, INCO-DC).
Since December 1996, CNUCE-CNR is coordinating a project for collaboration
with an Egyptian research centre, the newly constituted Informatics Research
Institute (IRI). The Mubarak City Project is part of the bilateral agreement,
signed in Cairo on 9 June 1991, between Italy and Egypt. The total budget
of the project is about 3,5 million US$ and it is funded jointly by the
Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and by the Egyptian Ministry for Scientific
Research. The Italian grant is being mainly utilized to supply hardware
and software equipment; to provide training activities for young IRI researchers
in both Italian and Egyptian research institutes; to promote research projects
with European partners; to organize joint international workshops; to sponsor
the participation of Egyptian representatives in international conferences
and seminars; and to provide technical assistance for the installation
and development of the IRI network infrastructure. The Egyptian financial
contribution is being utilized to cover the building and furnishing of
IRI; the leased line for the Internet connection; local staff salaries
and housing; ongoing research activities.
The Informatics Research Institute
IRI is part of the state scientific and technological park named Mubarak
City for Scientific Research and Technological Applications (MCSRTA) founded
in March 1993 and now under construction at New Borg El-Arab, 40 Km west
of Alexandria. At present IRI is temporarily located in Alexandria, but
the permanent building in New Borg El-Arab should be completed by the end
of 1997. This new city is sited within the Alexandria and Dehira regions,
where 40% of Egypt's national industries are located; about 1,000 companies
exist around the city itself.
The intention is to make IRI a centre of excellence at both regional
and international levels, playing an instrumental role in the development
of Informatics in Egypt, the Middle East region and the Mediterranean region.
The Institute should provide R&D services in the field of Informatics.
It will build the experience necessary to provide technical consulting
services, to carry out development projects for production and services
organizations, to produce ad hoc software packages in the fields of manufacturing,
cultural heritage, multimedia, artificial intelligence, and to participate
in creating technical and scientific expertise in different areas of Informatics.
This will be achieved through advanced training programmes,that aim at
increasing the level of technical know-how of the Egyptian Informatics
community, and by helping to design, develop, maintain and support selected
advanced systems. IRI should also participate in the establishment of spin-off
R&D companies, signing contracts and protocols with local and international
organizations.
IRI is currently formed by three departments:
- Graphics and Multimedia
- Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
- Engineering Applications and CAD-CAM systems.
Two additional departments are in now being constituted:
- Networking and Distributed Systems
- Simulation, Modelling and Decision Support Systems.
At present IRI has 16 staff members but 8 new Research Assistants for
the two new departments will be hired shortly.
Current Status
The main activities planned for this two year project have been subdivided
into three different stages:
- Establishment of the IRI infrastructures: This stage consists in the
selection and installation of the hardware and software for the networking
and multimedia laboratories; cabling material to set up the Local Area
Network and the Internet connection; office equipment. The installation
and configuration of the equipment, of the IRI LAN and of the Internet
connection (at present a leased line has been installed between IRI and
the Electronics Research Institute in Cairo), as well as the setting up
of the main IRI network and information systems, will be completed before
the end of 1997.
- Training activities: IRI technical staff will be trained in Italy for
a total of 18 m/m. Training will concentrate on networking, network security,
multimedia (with particular attention to applications in the Cultural Heritage
field), and computer graphics. The training activities will also cover
system and administration management issues, problem solving, network services.
- Research collaborations: Funds are allocated for Egyptian researchers
to attend international conferences and meetings. In addition, an international
workshop will be organized at IRI during 1998 aiming at providing an international
forum for the presentation and discussion of topics in the fields of Networking
and Multimedia. These activities should help IRI to keep up-to-date with
the advanced technologies, and provide an opportunity to establish fruitful
partnerships and exchange researchers with other international institutes.
The project also aims at promoting the participation of IRI in EU programmes,
in particular in view of the launching of the new phase of MEDA programmes.
IRI's involvement in such activities will certainly enhance its research
capabilities and technical expertise and will help the Institute to achieve
partial financial independence. For further information, see the Mubarak
City Project home page: http://soi.cnr.it/~mubarak
Please contact:
Maurizio Martinelli - CNUCE-CNR
Tel: +39 50 593324
E-mail: m.martinelli@cnuce.cnr.it
Ayman El-Dessouki - Informatics Research Institute
Tel: +20 2 4341363
E-mail: ayman@eri.sci.eg
