Dialogue with Spiritual Father of Egyptian Japanese Univ.

We saw a few days ago the inauguration of the Egyptian Japanese University of Science and Technology in Burj Al Arab, the university that has been operating since 2010, but it did not open officially until this week. Indeed, a Japanese university outside its borders on Egyptian land is a special achievement, especially, Japan is a conservative country and, it doesn't cooperate with the outside world scientifically. Behind the walls of this university are tales, roles, secrets, and characters that were the engines in its establish

The beginning :

Prof. Dr. Ahmed Bahaa El-Din Khairy, Professor of Artificial Intelligence in Alexandria, Engineering faculty. He began his role in 2004 after he was summoned by Dr. Amr Salama, Minister of Higher Education from Canada, where he was working as a cultural advisor there to restructure the ministry with him according to the best modern systems, and in January 2005 he was appointed as the first undersecretary of the ministry for international relations.

It came to the coincidence that he put him on another path  since his colleague Dr. Jalal Abdel Hamid, one of the leaders of the Ministry of Higher Education for many years, he was a senior advisor to the Minister of Higher Education, called and asked Dr. Khairy personally to replace him in an important interview that will take place in two days because he is sick and will not attend. He told him the meeting would be attended by a group of high-ranking personalities, headed by Mrs. Fayza Abul-Naga, a group of the JICA, Dr. Ismail Serageldin, who was the supervisor of Nile University at the time, and Dr. Farouk Ismail as one of the Japanese graduates in the Ph.D. and others.

A representative of higher education was required to attend with a proposal of the cooperation mechanism with Japan from the ministry’s viewpoint.

Here, I am remembering the memories with Dr. Khairy to let him proceed with the rest of the story for me:

he said, after a deep sigh, you took me back to my life project. Dr. Abdul Hamid asked me on the phone a surprising question. In your opinion, what is the best cooperation mechanism between us and Japan? I thought for a moment and answered the best cooperation mechanism with them is the university... He said to me, well, can you file your proposal in detail on paper and present it during the meeting to Mrs. Fayza Abul Naga. A day and a half remain, and I am required to put an integrated project in the name of the Ministry of Higher Education.

I entered my office room and asked my family to treat me like a prisoner, and not to cut off my privacy at all! Indeed, I went awake without sleeping at all until I wrote 18 papers on the university project and its foundations and wrote its name in three languages: Arabic, English, and Japanese (Egyptian-Japanese University of Science and Technology) (E JUST). I sent a colleague of mine fluent in Japanese to translate it.

What next. How did the proposal proceed?

Dr. Khairy says: After a week, Dr. Amr Salama greeted me with a lot of laughter and said (What did you do for the Japanese?) They were very happy with the proposal and the university project that I presented to them, and there is a large delegation from JICA, the foreign ministry, and other sides, headed by the president of the University of Tokyo, their largest university, who will come to the ministry to start negotiating, and indeed They stayed a whole week in the ministry for meetings and consultations.

I was at the head of an Egyptian higher education committee consisting of professors from Cairo and Ain Shams universities, as well as the Dean of Assiut Engineering, Dr. Ahmed Abu Ismail, may God have mercy on him, and he had a prominent role in establishing the university.

Tough negotiations with the Japanese:

Were the negotiations easy with the Japanese committee? Did their fascination with the proposal make them agree quickly?

On the contrary, they were initially provoking us with their questions such as (Why do you want an Egyptian-Japanese university) (and what is your favorite color for laboratories), for example, and their goal was to verify the competency of the negotiators in front of them.

In the end, we agreed to present 30 questions and we would give them the answers, and then we started the negotiations that lasted for three years from 2005 Until 2007, once in Cairo and once in Tokyo, we went a long way and conducted a feasibility study for the university and set a vision of its components and its purpose in all respects and its role in the Arab and African countries, and the Japanese side made another parallel study.

A meeting held between the Egyptian and Japanese committees in Tokyo, and it appeared that there is a 95%  match between the two independent studies, which contributed strongly to create a bond of trust between us and them, and that we are fully aware and know well what we want. That's why the Egyptian side had the respect and appreciation of the Japanese side.

Important Personalities and Roles:

[caption id="attachment_152511" align="aligncenter" width="511"] Dr. Bahaa with university professors[/caption]

Who are the other actors who helped in bringing the university project to light?

One of the characters who played a prominent and pivotal role in converging points of view between the Egyptian and Japanese side is Marwan Badr, our ambassador in Tokyo, and, Ambassador Walid Abdel Nasser, who is currently holding one of the most important UN committees.

The two ambassadors played their diplomatic role perfectly in equipping the university, as they brought us all the influential figures in the Japanese decision-makers, to get acquainted with the project and be enthusiastic about it. When did the Egyptian and Japanese sides announce the implementation of the mutual university project, and why did you choose its headquarters in Alexandria?

On April 27, 2007, the Japanese Prime Minister (Shinzo Abe) came to Egypt and met with Egyptian President Mubarak and announced in a joint press conference the establishment of the university in Alexandria. The university’s headquarters after many discussions about Cairo, Ismailia, and Alexandria, and then there were tourist trips made to the Japanese side to the three places. In Alexandria, they were briefed about the Malaysian medicine program and the Virginia program in cooperation with the University of Alexandria and Virginia, two programs that I created at Alexandria University and they liked the well-organization there. So the selection of the committee was Alexandria, knowing that the committee was changing so that its opinion would be neutral.

Dr. Khairy continues his memories with the establishment of the Japanese University:

Dr. Khairy continues his memories with the establishment of the Japanese University:

In 2009, I was summoned to visit Japan in a private meeting with the Crown Prince of Japan - the current Emperor - and Ambassador Hisham Al-Zumaiti, our ambassador to Japan at that time - who was the husband of Mrs. Faiza Abu Al-Naga. Since the crown prince wanted to express his interest and happiness about establishing the Japanese University in Egypt. I also toured several countries in north and south of Africa, to talk about this university, and the Japanese side was promoting the effectiveness of the cooperation with it in the field of science and technology as part of its role in human development.

Nominations in the last 15 minutes:

[caption id="attachment_152515" align="aligncenter" width="960"] One of the rounds of negotiation with Japan[/caption]

How was the university president chosen, and is it true that you rejected this position in the beginning?

The Japanese side objected to the idea of how the university has no representative. Therefore, The Council of Ministers decided to form a committee to select the university president on the international level, and it consisted of four presidents of Egyptian universities and four Japanese universities, also Ambassador Mervat Al-Talawy and Dr. Hind Hanafi were chosen. An announcement was made in the two largest newspapers at the time and 85 persons from different countries applied and got initially filtered to three.

The Japanese side was against me for not applying for the position although I was the presenter of the university project from A to Z and I was surprised by the head of the JICA authority asking to meet the Egyptian Prime Minister and Minister of Higher Education and asking him to convince me to apply for the competition before the last interview with the applicants. I applied in the last 15 minutes before the meeting, and the interview was via video conference, and the comparison was between me, and the other 3 candidates.

the result came as follows: I got 94 degrees, the American got 47 degrees, and the Canadian got 25 degrees. As for the Egyptian colleague, he left the competition from its beginning and I was officially chosen as the president of the university, although that was against the desire of the Minister of Higher Education at that time. I officially started acting as the university president, and the university began to take the official status with a board of trustees to run it, and university president to represent it, in December 2010.

Contributed by Ezzeldin.

https://ejust.edu.eg/ug-application-fees-ar/