Minister of Communications and Information Technology Dr. Tarek Kamel announced the launch of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at the Smart Village.

Giza, Cairo -- (SBWire) -- 10/04/2010 -- Viewed as a technological and civilization leap for Egypt, the center is likely to position the country on the world's technological innovation and creativity map over the coming period.

Minister Kamel stated that launching the center was a step on the way towards enhancing and stimulating plans for developing IT in Egypt carried out by Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) in cooperation with other ministries and agencies.

Establishing the center had been entrusted by Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazif during a meeting with the sector's stakeholders.

Dr. Kamel also announced the formation of the center’s Board of Trustees chaired by him.

Dr. Tarek Al-Saadany has been selected to hold the post of the Executive Director and Board Rapporteur.

The board members include Chairman of Academy of Scientific Research and Technology Professor Maged Al-Sherbini, First Assistant to Minister of Communications and IT Dr. Hoda Baraka, also Chairperson of the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA), per se, Chairman of the Vodafone Data Engineer Omar Al-Sheikh, Chairman of Safari Ventures Mr. Ahmed Al-Alfi and ITIDA board member Mr. Amin Khair-Eddin.

The board of trustees also includes CEO of Si-Ware Systems (SIS) Hisham Haddara, Intel General Manager for the Middle East, Turkey and North Africa Mr. Khalid Al-Amrawi, Microsoft Research Director for Europe and the Middle East Dr.

Tarek Al-Abbadi, EMC Director General and Deputy Chairman for Africa, the Middle East and Turkey Eng. Mohammed Amin, Google’s Managing Director for Southern and Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East Eng. Mohammed Gawdat, Managing Director of OTVentures, an affiliate of Orascom Telecom, Eng. Hanan Abdel-Meguid and Professor at the Imperial College, London, Moustafa Ghanem, also Co-Director of the Center for Informatics Science at Nile University.

Minister Kamel noted that the center aims at promoting the structure of technological innovation as well as the culture of entrepreneurship among a segment of young people in IT and its applications.

Other purposes of the project include teaching young calibers the importance of innovation and creativity as two basic factors in a strategy that aims for the added value of the Egyptian economy.

The project will help create high-level job opportunities for the Egypt's professionals and qualified graduates to work in various specializations of the sector.

Dr. Kamel added that the center also aims to boost Egypt's position as an innovation and entrepreneurship hub that would attract the world's attention, making use of the country's competitive advantages for drawing up the technological creativity and entrepreneurship strategy for the communications and IT sector.

The center will operate within the framework of the public-private partnerships as adopted by Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT). It will also coordinate the creativity efforts in the field of IT between the Government and the private sector, universities and the research institutes and academies. The coordination of these efforts is based on focusing on creative capabilities.

In addition, the center will pay great attention to encouraging the Egyptian small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) to adopt the culture of technological innovation as a major component in their administrative systems with an emphasis on making the most of the creative elements to boost the added-value of the Egyptian IT exports.

The focus on the added value of the IT industry in Egypt is a major target of MCIT to increase the country's IT exports of both products and services.

The center’s executive director Dr. Tarek El-Saadany pointed out that the new project would create an enabling environment for developing and managing intellectual property within the framework of innovation in the IT sector as well as setting mechanisms for discovering creative and outstanding people to join promising companies.

Stimulating an economy based on creativity and entrepreneurship comes on top of the priorities of the center for increasing the added value of the Egyptian economy and managing intellectual property through focusing on achieving economic revenues reflected on the society as a whole in addition to luring investments by multinational companies operating in IT added-value specializations.

A budget of LE 50 million (US$8.7 million) of the IT sector resources for the current fiscal year till June 2011 have been allocated for the project to be doubled if necessary.