Seek the Opportunity:

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Seek the Opportunity
Outsource Egypt
Dr. Abdel Hamid Abed Secretary General of EITESAL
Egyptian Information Telecom Electronics Software
Alliance
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Dr. Abed graduated from Cairo university in
1966, He received the Ph.D. degree in the area of
Digital signal processing from the Polytechnic
of central London , Westminster University
,London ,England ,in 1980. From 1966-1984 he was
a member of the lecturing staff at the faculty of
Electronic Engineering, Minufiya University and
the Polytechnic of central London. From 1990-
1996 he established and managed the first
Software Factory in Egypt Citymax Egypt
(currently EDS Egypt) addressing both Europe and
USA markets.Since 1997, he established and
managed NileSoft Group. Dr. Abed has over 25
years of consultation experience in major
projects in the Gulf and Europe with special
interest to the computer and software development
industry. He is a founder member of EHITA /
EITESAL ,where he is currently the secretary of
the association.  
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Egypt Today
Location
A regional hub Linking the Mediterranean,
Europe, Asia and the Arab World. From
North-to-South A gateway to Africa. From
East-to-West A crossroad of shipping lines and
optical fiber cables.
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Egypt Today
Population

• A country of 70 million people
• 65 of the population under 25.
• Ranking 17th worldwide in number of yearly
  graduates
• 1,200,000 high school graduates last year.
• 250,000 university graduates.

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Egypt Today
History

• Land of civilization
• Egypts long history and ancient civilization
  over thousands of years promoted the growth and
  the development of its remarkable identity and
  unique characteristics.

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Egypt Today
Economy

• A remarkable recovery through
• an extensive economic and
• social reform program
• An emerging market with a multitude
• of opportunities for investments.
• A competent and cost-effective labor
• force.

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Average Annual Inflation
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Egypt Today
Investment Climate

• Egypt is witnessing its reincarnation into a
  modern, liberal , private sector driven economy.

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Egypt Today
Supportive Infrastructure

• Investing over 80 billion in the past twenty
  one years to establish and improve Egypt
  infrastructure
• Electricity,airports,highways, new delta in
  Toshka, new industrial cities and ICT.

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Building the Egyptian Information Society
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High level Commitment

• In September 1999, President Mubarak announced
  the launch of a national program for ICT
  development.

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• Egypt national program for ICT is aiming
• to achieve the following strategic goals

• Promote ICT demand/awareness in the Egyptian
  Market
• Infrastructure availability at competitive cost
• Establishing and improving the legislative
  environment
• related to ICT .
• HR development / training and quality assurance
• Encouragement of foreign and local investment in
  ICT
• industries.

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• Promote ICT awareness/ demand in the Egyptian
  Market

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A PC for Every Home Initiative

• This initiative is organized by Egypt Telecom
  Company (ET)in Cooperation with the IT private
  companies to ET subscribers.

A PC for Every Student Program
This Program is organized by the ministry of
Education
A Portable for Every Professional Program
This Program is organized by MCIT and eLPU

• Payment in monthly installments financed by the
  banking sector.
• Bundling of ready made S/W applications provided
  by Egyptian companies (over 800 Titles )
• HW is supplied by locally assembled as well as
  branded PC.

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IT Clubs

• Government subsidized internet cafés
• Created in youth centers, public libraries,
  schools NGOs.
• Focusing on deprived and low income communities.
• Over 100,000 citizens visit the clubs regularly.
  

ISP and Private sector Cyber internet cafés
Wide coverage all over Egypt at an average cost
around 0.2 /hour
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e-Government Startup

• A government portal is launched in Jan 2004.
• On-line Government Services.
• Information and Document Networking.

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E-Business-Readiness Rating
Source Business Software Alliance
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Infrastructure
Telecom Internet Technology park
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Steady Increase in Fixed Lines
9.2 million
11.7 million
5.1 million new lines since October 1999
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A Boom in Mobile Phone Users
No. of subscribers, million
The number of subscribers increased more than
nine folds since October 1999
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The Free Internet Initiative

• Providing dial-up internet access on every
  Operational
• phone-line country wide.
• A revenue-sharing model between Telecom-Egypt
  the
• Internet Service Providers.
• 0.15/hr of internet usage at home.
• 940000 of individual phone lines dialing up to
  the net.

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Major Increase in the Number
of Internet Users
No. of Internet Users
Million
International internet traffic increased from 20
Mb/s to 1101 Mb/s in 4 years
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The Smart Village at the Pyramids

• A high tech business park with Smart
  infrastructure, investor friendly services and
  investment incentives.
• 300 acres (20 minutes from downtown Cairo, 10
  minutes from the great pyramids).
• 53 office plots (336 000 sq.m. of office space).

• Business center
• Conference center
• Exhibition center
• Press center

• Recreational facilities
• Health center
• Hotel
• Shopping and restaurants

Developed and operated by private investors
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The Smart Village at the Pyramids
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The Smart Village at the Pyramids
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Establishing and improving the legislative
environment related to ICT
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Deregulation

• Establishment of the Telecommunication
• Regulatory Authority by presidential decree
• number 101 for the year 1998.
• A new telecommunication law that promotes
• Transparency in licensing.
• Phased deregulation of services.
• Establishment of a universal fund to
• accelerate tariff rebalance.

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Deregulation

• An Intellectual Property Right Law 82 was passed
  in 2002 covering software industry.
• A draft Law for E signature establishing the
  legal status for the electronic signature and
  documents.
• Establishment of Cairo Arbitration center.

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Drop in Piracy Rate

Source The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2002
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• HR development / training
• and quality assurance

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HR Development

• Basic Skills Development.
• High Tech / Business Universities.
• Professional Development.

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Professional ICT Training Program

• Five Year Program- Started 2001.
• Six month 9oo hours focused training
• Leading to international recognized certificates
  by IBM, Oracle, CIW,Cisco
• Fully funded by the Egyptian Government
• Aiming to achieve specialized training for 5000
  university graduate per
• year. Over 17000 have benefited from the
  program to date.
• Training Coverage
• Microsoft Tracks
• IBM Tools and development environment Tracks
• Oracle Tracks
• Web Development Tracks on Major vendor /Open
  source .
• Cisco-Nortel-Lucent Networks Tracks

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Steady Increase in No. of IT Labor Force
Source The General Authority For Investment
Free Zones
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Software Engineering Certification Center (SECC)

• SECC aims at supporting the S/W industry in
  Egypt and has established cooperation with SEI,
• S/W Engineering Institute, in USA.
• Capacity Building
• Software Process Improvement Training Track.
• Orientation workshops to Executives and Top
  Management.
• SEI Courses to qualify Assessors.
• Assessment
• SECC supports top level software companies in
  Egypt to be qualified for CMM /ISO assessment
  and accreditation.

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Encouragement of foreign and local investment
in ICT industries
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• Establishing ICT companies under the Investment
  Guarantee law (8 of 1997)
• In Old or New Cities or Technology park
• Provide Tax holiday of 5 years for companies
  located in old cities. Extended to 10 years for
  companies established in new cities or smart
  village.
• Free zone companies
• No taxes is imposed , No custom duties .
• Companies are only paying fees on turnover.
• No restriction on ownership or Dividend transfer
• Tax on employee salaries is applicable in all
  option.

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Steady Increase in No. of IT Companies
No. of IT Companies
Source The General Authority For Investment
Free Zones
Accumulative Data
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Partnerships
Cooperation between government and private sector
creating new initiatives that promote the
development of ICT industry.
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Why Egypt ?

Overlapping working hours with USA


Gateway To ME and Africa

One hour time difference
with Zurich and Paris

Two Hours time difference With
London

• Four Hours Travel time

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Why Egypt ?

• The key strengths in the Egyptian market are
• Most populous in the ME and Africa, with huge
  supply of educated,motivated,and often
  multi-lingual young people
• A good basic education system, and a national
  character that rates education highly
• A good work ethics base, especially if enhanced
  and supported by a strong culture in the work
  place
• The cost base is substantially less than
  equivalent in Western economies

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Why Egypt ?
Investment Climate

• Liberalized foreign investment laws
• Generous tax holidays (5-10 years)
• Continuously improving infrastructure
• Lowest labor unit cost in the region
• Controlled inflation rate

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Why Egypt ? (3)
Industry skills

• Availability of wide range of industry skills to
  build and develop systems including
• Finance, insurance, banking,Manufacturing,
  Retail,
• Hospitality,HMIS , etc..
• Enterprise wide database programming
• E-commerce, e-learning, e- Publishing
• Customer Management systems
• Knowledge Management
• Content Management Multi-media, Virtual reality
• Telco

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Egypt The Cradle of Civilization is Quickly
Becoming the Center for IT and
Telecommunications in the Middle East and North
Africa