As part of its Digital Egypt strategy, the Egyptian government is undertaking a series of major investments in ICT education. Developed to strengthen and diversify the nation's economy by bolstering technological knowledge and innovation, a key component of the Digital Egypt project is to ensure that the country's large youth population has the technical skills it needs to excel in a tech-focused job market.
The Digital Egypt concept is built on three pillars; digital transformation, digital innovation, and digital skills and jobs, which focuses on training and human-resources development. [For our story on Digital Egypt's digital transformation pillar, see "How Egypt’s digital transformation is creating business opportunities". For our story on Digital Egypt's innovation pillar, see "Digital Egypt strategy calls for investment in tech hubs, innovation".]
"Digital transformation is for the people, about the people and by the people, which is why this is one of our pillars," explains Khaled El Attar, vice minister for administrative development, digital transformation and automation at Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT).
The effort to boost digital skills among the Egyptian population is meant to help close the skills gap, prevalent throughout the Middle East, between the available technical expertise and that which is required by new jobs in the IT sector.