Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Page 54

Waging Peace

Egypt, U.S. Working “Together Toward a Better Tomorrow

Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Dr. Tarek Kamel. (Photo D. Hanley)

The United States-Egypt Friendship Society (USEF) and American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt hosted a June 23 luncheon for 400 policymakers and information and communications technology (ICT) specialists at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC. Guest speakers at the event addressed the topic “Together Toward a Better Tomorrow.”

Richard Patterson, an IBM Vice President, described the reality of global integration, noting that the world is getting smaller, flatter, faster, riskier and even hotter. While people are now economically, technically and socially better connected, he added, the world is also subject to global system-level failures, as evidenced by the current financial crisis.

According to Patterson, many countries, including Egypt, have reached a consensus about the profound need to change the way the world works. Egypt has committed to economic development and accelerating job creation in global investment programs, he noted, and as a result, it is one of the world’s fastest growing economies and one of the most attractive markets for private investment.

IBM’s new Global Technology Development Center, established in 2008 in Giza, has created 900 jobs. Patterson declared that IBM will work to create another 1,500 positions in a new service center located in Smart Village, a new technology and business park in Cairo, in the near future.

Egyptian Minister of Communications and Information Technology Dr. Tarek Kamel delivered the keynote speech, focusing on the U.S.-Egypt IT partnership. Referring to Barack Obama’s remarkable June 4 speech in Cairo, he noted that the U.S. president chose a country that was a “long-time friend” and a “pillar of stability in the region” from which to address the Muslim world.

Dr. Kamel described many political and economic reforms that have taken place in the past several years, which resulted in a 7 percent growth rate for several years in a row. Despite the setbacks from the global financial crisis, Egypt will continue to have a 4 percent GDP growth rate in 2009, Kamel said, and is investing in its infrastructure and expansions in the ICT field. It has to—one million new Egyptian mobile users become connected per month, one of the highest rates globally.

The minister invited more companies to come and do business in Egypt.

Aneesh Chopra, U.S. chief technology officer, brought personal greetings from President Obama. Chopra identified several areas with which technology needs to merge, including: healthcare, education, energy innovation, public-private partnerships, and cyber-security. He concluded by championing the idea of a “commonwealth of collaborative ideas and action” for the common good of every country.

Vinton Cerf, vice president at Google, who is called “the father of the Internet,” gave the closing remarks. Cerf has become well-known for his predictions on how technology will affect future society. Expressing great satisfaction that he and other businesspeople are able to participate in Egypt’s renaissance, Cerf described the Library of Alexandria as the icon of development in Egypt for its recent efforts to add treasured books to the digital information age.

—Delinda C. Hanley