The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has met with South Korea’s Ambassador to Egypt Hong Jin-Wook. They discussed enhancing cooperation between Egypt and South Korea in the ICT sector, especially in Artificial Intelligence (AI), capacity building, electronics industry, Centers of Excellence (CoE) and outsourcing services.
They also explored cooperation with Korean universities within the framework of Digital Egypt Builders Initiative (DEBI). The Initiative is a free scholarship launched by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) to grant top graduates at the faculties of engineering and computers and information a professional Master’s degree in an in-depth ICT specialization.
Moreover, the two sides discussed cooperation through Egypt University of Informatics (EUI), currently being established at the Knowledge City, in the New Administrative Capital. The aim is to graduate skilled specialists in ICT. This comes as South Korea has some of the top 100 universities in the world, as well as a strong ICT industry.
In this regard, they discussed offering a dual Bachelor’s program in industrial engineering, in collaboration with one of the Korean universities. This is in addition to providing training opportunities in major ICT companies in Korea to EUI students, as well as free scholarships to faculty staff, and supporting the University’s specialized labs.
Cooperation between the two countries in AI was also discussed during the meeting, as well as the signing of a potential Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in areas pertaining to AI uses in government, capacity building, AI applications, and AI ethics and their impact.
The State’s efforts to spur international investments in Egypt were presented during the meeting, as well as the major investment opportunities available to Korean companies in the Egyptian ICT sector, in areas including electronics designing and manufacturing, and establishing centers for Research and Development (R&D) in advanced technologies, such as AI, Internet of things (IoT) and supercomputing. This is in addition to investment in data centers, smart cities, e-waste management and other fields.
Furthermore, the two sides discussed cooperation in outsourcing services in Egypt, through establishing regional CoEs in Egypt to serve the Middle East and Africa region. This includes centers for R&D, innovation, IT technical support, shared services and call centers.
During the meeting, it was agreed on organizing a webinar for the involved parties to explore closely the two countries’ potentials and competitive capabilities, thus identifying the areas of cooperation of common interest.
