Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Egypt Hosts ''Artificial Intelligence and Education: Challenges and Bets'' Conference


Wed 25 Dec 2019 | 10:17 PM
Mai Shaheen

Egypt is hosting a conference entitled ''Artificial Intelligence and Education: Challenges and Bets'', today.

The conference is attended by Dr. Mohamed O Omar, Director General of the Arab Organization for Education, Culture and Science (ALECSO), ministers and officials responsible for higher education and research the scientific world in the Arab world.

The event will continue from, 24 and 25 December, in Cairo.

The conference aims to exchange Arab experiences in the field of higher education and scientific research, study some issues of higher education and its problems. It seeks also to develop appropriate solutions to them, as well as setting future scenarios for some of the paths and directions of higher education.

Dr. Khaled Abd El Ghaffar, the Higher Education and Scientific Research Minister, said that the meeting of the ministers responsible for higher education and scientific research in the Arab world, in its 17th session, aims to renew the pledge to cooperate fully in the higher education and scientific research fields.

Abd El Ghaffar explained that Egypt's currently has interest in developing the knowledge and skills of its children in order to enhance the ability to innovate.

Abd El Ghaffar noted that in light of what Egypt is witnessing in the reform and development in the industry field and its need for qualified graduates in the coming period, the country has started to establish eight technological universities distributed in all governorates of the Republic; three of them have already been completed.

“We are living today a 4th industrial revolution that will change how things are made, and one of the most important technologies resulting from this revolution is artificial intelligence which is ultimately the result of human intelligence,” Abd El Ghaffar clarified.

The minister noted that the political leadership through the World Youth Forum, held recently in the city Sharm El-Sheikh, developed an artificial intelligence strategy that is in harmony with the educational system to link scientific research with industry, employ it to serve Egypt's sustainable development strategy 2030, and keep pace with that fourth industrial revolution,”

This represents the fourth goal among the goals of sustainable development 2030, which is largely in line with our national strategy; it calls for the necessity of developing skills challenges, education, technical, vocational training, university and pre-university, as well as providing lifelong learning opportunities to the largest number of those who want it.

Meanwhile, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi declared 2019 a year of education, recommending that 20% of scholarships within and outside Egypt be allocated to education cadres for a period of 10 years. This also include the establishment of a center for training teachers according to international standards.

In addition, a National Council for Artificial Intelligence has been established that follows the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and is called the “National Council for Artificial Intelligence”. This will play a great role in devising a national strategy for artificial intelligence, overseeing its implementation and updating it in line with international developments in this field.