When high schooler Rahma Swidan asked for advice on Facebook about entering one of Egypt’s new science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) high schools, senior construction engineering major Yousef Berbar responded. 

That interaction has resulted in a growing network of students learning to navigate the ins and outs of early professional life together.

With Berbar’s help, Swidan, now in 11th grade, was accepted to Summer@AUC, a pre-college summer program for high school students interested in engineering at AUC, and a University of Buffalo summer program.

After realizing how beneficial this was for other students, Berbar created a first-of-its-kind STEM Network and made Swidan its vice president. One year later, the network now consists of a team of 30 students using Zoom and WhatsApp to help about 450 high schoolers navigate majors, study for ACTs and other tests, tweak their resumes and develop soft skills like communication and leadership. 

“We’re kind of snowballing,” Berbar said.

Berbar is an Al Ghurair STEM scholar at AUC, a prestigious award for high-achieving students in the field. He said his concentration within the engineering program, in project management, has improved his ability to facilitate the work of large groups — skills he developed further by taking a course through the AUC Leadership Institute. Berbar also works at AUC’s Career Center as a senior peer leader. He said both of these experiences have influenced his efforts, particularly when it comes to management. 

In fact, Berbar is inspired by Abdulla Ahmad Al Ghurair himself, the Emirati philanthropist who funded the Al Ghurair STEM scholarship at AUC in 2015 with a $1.1 billion investment. 

“In my opinion, this was a great noble act, and it touched many lives because let’s trace it — is [Al Ghurair] helping this one student entering the University? No. This one student has a family and this one student will have a future family. He’s touching a lot of people’s lives,” Berbar said. “That’s why I felt that I should be doing the same.”

The network is open to anyone, but specifically targets students at newly specialized secondary schools in Egypt. 

Magnet high schools focused on STEM started cropping up in the country around 2011, the result of a partnership between the U.S. Agency for International Development and Egypt’s Ministry of Education and Technical Education. Berbar, who attended the STEM October High School for Boys, was among the first students to attend one of these STEM schools. In the following years, USAID and the ministry opened 18 more STEM schools across the country, serving about 5,000 students, according to USAID’s website. 

“I noticed that they were starting to expand the number of STEM schools around the country, but this new caliber of students was not really aware of all the opportunities that they could pursue and how they could manage their careers and resumes,” Berbar said.

Berbar has a history of using his experience to benefit others. As a junior in high school, he created a computer science and Google club to help freshmen with their capstone projects.

He said most students in the network were initially interested in learning about the application process for American and international schools. He was able to provide some insight based on his experience applying and being accepted to international universities before being awarded the Al Ghurair STEM Scholarship.

Zoom sessions through the network are free and range from resume critiquing to help writing personal statements for college applications. They are offered once weekly or based on demand.

“The STEM Network is the best thing that’s happened to me,” Swidan said. “I got a lot of experience and skills from it, and was especially happy when students were accepted to universities because of us.”

It’s too soon to tell how many students in the STEM Network will receive college acceptances, but Berbar said many of them have already been accepted to summer-abroad programs. 

“I am very fulfilled and happy that I am actually driving change in the community,” Berbar said. “I’m adding value and actually touching their lives.” 

Berbar, who is graduating in the spring, plans to work in business development, “to create opportunities for others.”

“There is so much potential in youth that we should be investing in,” he said. “I believe that AUC is one of those places that will always be driving impact in the community. And by community, I mean the whole country and beyond.”

Ahmed Hany ElGamal ‘12 has been named as a leading Innovator Under 35 in the Middle East and North Africa (IU35 MENA) by the MIT Technology Review Arabia for his invention LinkBox, a collaborative document editing software. 

The IU35 MENA is an offshoot of the MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 list, published annually since 1999. The list, which seeks to honor talented and innovative people who are improving their communities and the world, has previously included  leaders such as Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive. 

“It was a breathtaking moment when I received the news,” ElGamal said. “I remember running back and forth while pinching myself, just to make sure it wasn’t a dream.”

This is the fourth year that the MIT Technology Review Arabia has published its MENA Innovators Under 35 list in partnership with Majarra, a company supporting the development of quality Arabic web content. 

The 2021 list was selected by an international panel of 21 judges composed of technical experts, entrepreneurs, investors and academics in fields such as artificial intelligence, biology, medicine and cybersecurity.

ElGamal is joined by other innovators whose contributions include developing a process for converting plastics to clean fuels and renewable chemicals, inventing a handheld scanner to detect skin disease and anomalies and designing a 3D printer for personalized medications, among other accomplishments. 

His invention, LinkBox, is a transformational tool in communication technology. As ElGamal explained, “Students and researchers, among other readers, can use the software to collaborate on PDFs and e-books. They can discuss issues in real time via chat, audio or video calls.”

LinkBox allows users to enhance their documents by directly adding video clips, images, audio explanations and 3D files. 

The inspiration for the invention came from his wife, who was having trouble working with a PDF while completing a shared assignment for a distance learning program. “She said ‘I wish there was a way that we could all connect on this document and collaborate on it.’ This was my ‘aha moment’,” ElGamal recalled. 

Currently he and his team are bootstrapping the project, crafting the software from scratch and testing it in-house to ensure that it will fit the market perfectly. 

ElGama's cousin Dina suggested that he apply for the IU 35 MENA, and he is grateful for both her support and the MIT Technology Review’s recognition of the potential of his nascent project.

“We as entrepreneurs face a huge degree of uncertainty while working on our projects. Passing through checkpoints, like this award, gives us more confidence that we are on the right path,” ElGamal said. 

After graduating AUC with his bachelor’s in petroleum engineering and renewable energy, ElGamal worked in the upstream petroleum industry for several years, mainly with BP, before he began working on LinkBox. 

Asked how his time at AUC has informed his entrepreneurial ambitions, ElGamal said “I view my AUC experience as a life incubator. The University teaches us to invigorate our entrepreneurialism and transform the world through our strong thoughts and determination.

He also shared his advice for current students, saying, “Time is the most valuable asset you have while you are at AUC; make the best use of it.”

Photos courtesy of Ahmed ElGamal

After winning the French-Egyptian Prize for Technology a few months prior, NanoEbers has snagged another award, with its CEO Hassan Azzazy, distinguished University professor in AUC’s Department of Chemistry, being named a Founder of the Year by the Northern Africa Startup Awards.

“I am privileged and proud to lead and support NanoEbers' ambitious and talented researchers toward developing innovative technological prototypes to address national, global health and environmental challenges," said Azzazy.

In 2020, the company was selected by Innovation Factory Bootcamp as the best startup in Egypt. NanoEbers was also recently awarded an acceleration package and financial award from Saudi Arabia’s Taqdam Accelerator for its innovative solutions.

Azzazy commended the NanoEbers team for all its accomplishments. “A brilliant team of dedicated researchers represent the core drivers of NanoEbers,” he said.

NanoEbers is a deeptech startup company that develops wound care products, including biodegradable wound dressings and hemostatic sponges that can immediately stop bleeding. The startup's wound dressings are loaded with natural antimicrobials, including bee venom, bacteriophage and medicinal plant extracts.

The company has also developed a patented optical chemosensor technology that can detect heavy metals in wastewater and drinking water.

Professors from the School of Sciences and Engineering Hassan Azzazy and Nageh Allam have been elected fellows to the African Academy of Sciences (AAS).

AAS fellows are a group of African scientists who have “attained the highest international standards and/or who have made significant contributions to the development and application of science, technology and innovation in Africa,” the AAS website explains.

"I am humbled and privileged for my election as a fellow of the African Academy of Sciences — the flagship of science, technology and innovation in Africa,” said Azzazy.

Azzazy and Allam join Ali Hadi, distinguished University professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics and Actuarial Science, the first faculty member from AUC to become an AAS fellow back in 2020.

Those nominated to be AAS fellows undergo rigorous review by the AAS Membership Advisory Committee and must be approved by voting among other fellows. Potential fellows are evaluated based on their publication record, innovation, leadership roles and contribution to policy.

"I am very pleased and honored with such a recognition,” said Allam. “It puts more responsibility on my shoulders and my research team to keep the bar high and to maintain our impact and recognition."

The AAS has more than 450 fellows from all over Africa, all of whom serve as mentors to early career scientists, help shape the AAS’s programs and work with governments to enable investment.

“I consider my election an official recruitment to contribute to the betterment of African communities,” Azzazy added.

Azzazy and Allam were also recently recognized among the  top 2% of the most impactful scientists globally by Stanford-Elsevier’s Scopus for the second consecutive year.
 

Amr Adly, assistant professor in AUC’s Department of Political Science, uses a multidisciplinary approach to examine the interrelationship between politics, society and economic development in Egypt and the MENA region.  

His second book, Cleft Capitalism: The Social Origins of Failed Market Making in Egypt, received this year’s Roger Owen Award from the Middle East Studies Association. It examines the history of Egypt’s economic liberalization efforts and challenges common understandings of why they have not always generated the same success as those employed in other emerging economies. 

Established in 2011, the Roger Owen award recognizes exceptional scholarship in the areas of economics, economic history or political economy focused on the Middle East and North Africa. 

“I felt quite fortunate that the book was well received and to be recognized at all, especially because it is critical to the conventional wisdom in the discipline,” Adly said.

Many researchers before Adly have sought to examine the shortfalls of Egypt’s market-making efforts, which began in the mid-1970s.

Most of these analyses examine the situation from the perspective of classical liberal economic theory. They argue that political interference has distorted how the market functions, emphasizing the role of cronyism and corruption in stymying Egypt’s growth. 

Cleft Capitalism is premised on the idea that these readings are incomplete. 

“Market making, especially initially, is shaped by politics to a great extent,” Adly argues.

After all, political interventions in the market have been a common feature in countries such as China and South Korea, both of which have seen marked increases in important social metrics in the last 50 years, as well as rapid economic growth. 

“Many other economies in the Global South, especially in East and Southeast Asia, have also experienced very similar problems to Egypt, such as state collusion with businesses, rampant corruption and cronyism,” Adly explained, “but this did not considerably undermine their ability to perform.”

Compared to Egypt and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, “many of these economies have been deemed more successful in terms of growth rates, competitiveness, and their ability to deliver social and economic development”. 

Applying a new approach to an old question

Seeking to offer a more nuanced understanding of why Egypt has, in some ways, fallen behind other emerging economies in its attempts to deliver inclusive economic growth through liberalization, Adly chose to employ an economic sociological approach, which seeks to understand the social causes of a given phenomenon. 

Beginning in 2013 and 2014, while he was completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, Adly conducted surveys and extensive interviews in Egypt and Tunisia among the “often hidden population of very undercapitalized and very local establishments that, in many cases, are not even formal enterprises”.

His empirical findings revealed a pattern of social and structural exclusion. The “rules under which businesses have been operating have denied them access to capital, both financial capital, such as access to bank credit, and physical capital, such as land,” Adly summarized.

He went on to explain that “the institutional framework created in Egypt has allowed capitalization primarily to state actors and, on a secondary basis, to the big businesses that could break through such extensive state control.”

Over several decades, this has created a “cleft” in the Egyptian economy, a wide gap between state entities and big companies, on the one hand, and the microenterprises that comprise the majority of the private sector on the other.  

Seeking to deepen his understanding of the situation, Adly conducted a comparative analysis with the more successful cases of transformation in the Global South, particularly in East and Southeast Asia. He found that the cultivation of a broad base of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has played an essential role in their more successful development trajectories. 

Speaking as a guest on the Project on Middle East Political Science Middle East Political Science Podcast last year, Adly explained that “this middle bourgeoisie was crucial in sustaining the market-making process” in these countries by creating “a constituency that was bigger than merely big businesses that are, in many cases in the Global South, attached to the state”. 

In contrast, Egypt’s market-making process has been hindered by an “unintegrated capitalist order where those at the very top simply do not have enough linkages with the broad base of the private sector in a way that has proven to be quite detrimental for overall macroeconomic performance.” 

Making multiple impacts

The culmination of over seven years of research, Cleft Capitalism provides an analysis of market development efforts in Egypt. While the scope of the work ends in 2011, its findings have implications for the country’s current economic reform program, in which greater financial inclusion for both individuals and SMEs is a key focus. 

Speaking briefly on how the lessons from the book can be applied today, Adly explained, “We need institutional innovation that can enable greater access to capital for the broad base of micro enterprises. The problem is not that [SMEs] are undercapitalized; it’s that there is an undersupply of them to start with.”

He added “When it comes to finance, we need intermediate institutions that can bridge between the informal institutional arrangements through which capital is provided and formal institutions, be they banking or non-banking financial institutions.”

Adly’s scholarship, which has also examined Turkey and Tunisia, often has implications for both policy planning and public debate. In addition to publishing his research in peer-reviewed journals, Adly is also a regular contributor to local and international news outlets, such as Bloomberg, Jadaliyya and Al-Shorouk.

Cleft Capitalism, though, also stands out for its academic contribution. The book not only presents Adly’s original findings but also showcases the distinctive methodological and theoretical approaches used to attain them. This is why the book has been so well received, garnering both the label of an internationally renowned publisher and the 2021 Roger Owen Award. 

Adly also suggested that Cleft Capitalism’s success is a reflection of increased recognition of the importance of diverse perspectives in both the field of political science and academic publishing.

“The very fact that the book, together with some others that are as critical in the areas of sociology and political economy, have come out from Stanford University Press recently, is a sign that a shift is taking place toward endorsing more critical voices and allowing a bigger representation of scholars based in the region. In that sense, I think that that award is definitely significant.”

In her latest study, Shahira Fahmy, professor in AUC’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, finds that, rather than fostering communication among average citizens, in the wake of a violent attack, social media platforms can instead help powerful elites to manipulate the public discourse. 

“War or Peace Tweets? The Case of Pakistan” uses the lens of peace journalism to analyze the Twitter response to the second deadliest terror attack in Pakistan and determine whether it tended to promote peace or fuel conflict. 

Fahmy conducted the study, which was published recently in the peer-reviewed journal, Media International Australia, in partnership with her colleague Professor Shabir Hussain at Bahria University in Islamabad. 

“The project is a bit controversial because peace journalism really focuses on journalists and traditional media. I think this is one of the first studies that tackles the issue on social media,” Fahmy explained. 

The fact that people are increasingly turning to social media for their news has disrupted traditional communication channels and created opportunities for new voices to shape how stories of violence and conflict are told. However, it is important to understand who benefits the most from these platforms and how they are shaping the narrative. 

What is peace journalism?

As a field, peace journalism “is basically a criticism of the reporting that happens when a war starts or a violent event, like a terrorist attack, takes place,” Fahmy summarized.

Media coverage of these events is shaped by a variety of factors, such as the interests of political and economic elites, journalistic norms, and the cultural backgrounds of the individuals and institutions that communicate the story to the world. 

As Fahmy and her colleague explain in their study, these factors often converge to create media representations that are simplistic and reinforce stereotypes.

“After a terrorist attack in Pakistan, for example, foreign journalists will cover the event and the casualties,” Fahmy detailed. “When everything slows down, they leave, and the impression of news readers is that the country is very violent. Peace journalism would say journalists should keep covering events, reporting on efforts to fix the problem or help the victims.”

Other times, media coverage of a conflict situation can serve to exacerbate the situation and fuel resentments. “Peace journalism is about de-escalating the situation as opposed to promoting more violence and conflict,” Fahmy explained.  

Peace journalism and social media

Over the last decade, social media has come to play a major role in news dissemination. Fahmy and Hussain sought to examine more closely the effects of this shift on peacebuilding efforts. 

“In the literature, some scholars have predicted that social media would empower regular people and create more unity. Others have argued that digital platforms could escalate conflicts because political elites and others can also take part. It was not clear what the situation would be when we analyzed the Twitter content,” Fahmy explained.

They selected Pakistan for their case study because it has seen a rapid increase in mobile density in recent years and a corresponding explosion in social media use. It has also experienced conflict, mainly through its involvement in the U.S. war against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. 

To understand how people were communicating about the conflict on social media, Fahmy and Hussain analyzed the Twitter reactions in Pakistan in the week after the 2018 Mastung terror attack. 

What they found was that the social media communication around this act of violence tended to replicate patterns typically found in traditional media. Around 55% of the 5,686 tweets analyzed reflected a war framing, while 28% had a peace framing and 16% were neutral. 

One reason for this finding might be who was behind the tweets. “We thought that Twitter was for the common people, but we found that nearly two thirds of the tweets were from traditional stakeholders, mainly military and political elites,” Fahmy explained. Another 13% were affiliated with news media and professionals, and less than 4% of the tweets were composed by ordinary citizens and civil society organizations. 

“Elites understand how serious and influential Twitter and digital platforms are, and they have a heavy digital footprint,” Fahmy noted. 

Another finding was that social media attention on the Mastung attack was fairly short-lived. “There were thousands and thousands of tweets in the first few days, but this dwindled quickly,” Fahmy explained. “We also have this exact issue in war journalism. There’s interest as soon as an event happens, but then the media is no longer interested in covering the place where the event happened at all.”

While the study findings might seem disheartening, furthering the consensus that social media is dividing and polarizing societies, Fahmy emphasizes that the results must be taken in context. 

“If we look at Twitter in general, we can see instances in which it has united people. For example, the #MeToo movement on social media encouraged people to speak up about something that is clearly very wrong,” she said. 

Fahmy argued that the study’s findings present a call for greater engagement from regular people in the social media discourse around conflict and violence. 

“Each one of us needs to get involved,” she said. “We can see in the study that powerful people see an opportunity on social media. It is important for all of us to have a voice and shift the discourse in a way that leads to more comprehensive and peace-centered coverage of events. Twitter itself is not good or bad. The value of these social media platforms is in how they are used.” 

What guides Fahmy’s research 

Much of Fahmy’s ongoing research continues to apply the peace journalism lens to social media communication. She and Hussain also recently completed a follow-up analysis of the visual Twitter communication around the Mastung attack, which found similar results to the first. 

“Most recently, I’m studying political campaigning on Instagram in the context of Spain’s presidential election,” she noted. 

Fahmy, who has published four books and more than 85 refereed journal articles and book chapters, said that much of her research is focused on visual communication and social media because “these are central to how we communicate now.” 

The other defining feature of Fahmy’s research is an interest in conflict, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2015, she received her second Fulbright award to study the visual framing used by the Islamic State. The project was hosted at the NATO Strategic Communication Center of Excellence in the Baltic. 

Asked how she gravitated toward this research area, Fahmy explained, “I spent a big chunk of my life in the United States, but I grew up in Cairo. And when you are from the Middle East, people often associate you with conflicts. This was especially true when I was living in the U.S. after 9/11. At first, I wasn’t happy about this, but then I decided to embrace it. I became the ‘terrorist expert.’ Colleagues started to come to me with research that had to do with war and conflict.”

She went on to explain: “I felt like this was an area where I could really make a contribution to the literature. I realized that with my background and language skills, I had a lot to offer, and over time, I developed my depth of knowledge.”

By making them the focus of her research, Fahmy too is doing her part to encourage people to move beyond the negative headlines and present a more holistic understanding of countries in conflict. 

AUC has signed an agreement with the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and Dell Technologies in Egypt aimed at building capacity in artificial intelligence and data science.

The agreement comes as automation continues to become an integral part of all sectors of the economy, with President Ahmad Dallal naming data science and artificial intelligence among AUC's main priorities for development.

Under the agreement, AUC will work with Dell and the ministry to establish initiatives focused on topics related to artificial intelligence, which will include virtual training sessions on data science and big data analytics, as well as a data engineering workshop.

The University will also introduce projects as case studies in courses covering machine learning, artificial intelligence, data science and big data analysis over a period of five years, starting this academic year. Each semester, the top three projects will compete against projects from other Egyptian universities under the same agreement —  Cairo University, Ain Shams University, the Arab Academy of Science and Technology and the German University in Cairo.

Picture someone who is diabetic. Each morning, this person measures the amount of glucose in their blood, which gives them an indication of how to balance their activity, food and medication throughout the day. Glucose is one of thousands of metabolites, or chemicals, that define the phenotype (appearance, development and behavior) of an organism. 

“What I specialize in is not looking at one chemical within an organism, but rather the entire symphony of chemicals,” explained Mohamed Farag, Alexander von Humbolt fellow professor and The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS)  fellow in the Department of Chemistry, whose research applies metabolomics, or the study of these dynamic chemicals, to answer biological questions in medicine, herbal drug analysis and agriculture.

For the second year in a row, Farag joins other AUC faculty in being recognized as one of the top 2% most impactful scientists globally by Stanford-Elsevier's Scopus. The list is created by experts at Stanford University, based on data from Elsevier's Scopus. It includes the top 2% scientists in 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields, and provides standardized information on citations, h-index, co-authorship-adjusted hm-index, citations to papers in different authorship positions and a composite indicator.

Farag gave another analogy for metabolomics: “We don't go fishing for just one fish, but rather use a big net to catch as many chemicals as we can. This will provide a better explanation of the biological system we are investigating.”

Metabolomics has proven to be immensely useful in evaluating the effectiveness of drugs, assessing nutritional regimens and identifying drugs within plants. It also has uses in early disease detection, personalized medicine and biomarker discovery. “You can also use it to understand the ecological relationship between microorganisms, as these relationships are also governed by chemicals,” Farag added.

Beyond metabolomics, his specialties also include natural products chemistry and plant biochemistry. Farag completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in pharmacology at Cairo University before moving to the United States to pursue a PhD in plant biochemistry at Texas Tech University. 

Among numerous research impacts, the professor is responsible for developing a better method for measuring quality in phytopharmaceuticals, or herbal drugs, which in turn has defined the quality control system for certain herbal drugs exported outside of Egypt.

He has also done extensive research on Egypt’s coral reefs, which in recent years have suffered greatly as a result of climate change. Looking at the process through which coral loses its red and blue color and dies, known as coral bleaching, Farag and his team identified the chemicals that serve as markers to indicate that corals are dying, which in turn allow for a greater, long-term understanding of the process.

While completing his PhD in the early 2000s, Farag discovered a naturally occurring chemical in bacteria that encourages plant growth and can be harnessed as a fertilizer, which, if adopted as an agricultural chemical, could have a major impact on the industry as a whole.

“[At the time], this phenomenon was relatively new,” said Farag. “I was among the first to address such plant-microbe interactions in the air. “Many people know that they interact physically in the soil living together, but no one has ever thought that they would communicate with each other in such a way.”

How does Farag conduct his research, exactly? “The story of metabolomics involves three aspects: A sample collection, measurement of the sample and then data analysis,” he said. After a sample is collected, a technique called mass spectrometry is employed to identify the chemicals within a sample. The third step, Farag’s specialty, entails analyzing the massive amount of data using bioinformatic tools, or software programs that can extract the important information from samples. “Because these are huge data sets, you cannot use an Excel spreadsheet,” he explained. “[The analysis] requires much more advanced tools.

While much of his work involves computers and intellectual skill, Farag entered his specialization via the other side of the brain, so to speak. “Originally I’m a painter,” he admitted. “I'm not a man that would enjoy exploring synthetic chemical reactions — I would have found it a bit tough to digest. So this was the way in; it was a hobby.” 

Farag was able to infuse his hobby with his research when he took botany courses while studying pharmacy. “I was amazed with plants in general, and I discovered that while what we see on the outside is pretty, there is much more on the inside.”

While he is currently on hiatus from painting, Farag enjoys running daily at AUC’s Sports Center, noting the positive effects the exercise has on his stress levels.

Contributing to more than 250 papers and having close to 7,000 citations and an H index of 41, Farag has received a handful of awards, including Abdul Hameed Shoman Award in 2006, Egypt Higher State Incentive Award in 2012, Cairo University Incentive Award in 2009, TWAS award in science diplomacy in 2014 and the Mass Spectroscopy Performance Award from Texas Tech in 2004. 

Farag has taught at Cairo University and the Technical University of Munich and has been an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the Leibniz Institute for Plant Biochemistry in Germany and a fellow at the Samuel Noble Foundation and James Graham Brown Cancer Center in the United States. 

The professor is most grateful for the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship he received in 2009, which allowed him to continue his research in his home country. “It really helped me to build myself scientifically and academically,” he said.

He is also quite pleased with his students, praising them for advancing research despite the narrow availability of resources. “Egypt has very talented people and students, and when people recognize what we do while being aware of the limitations, I feel proud.”

Moustafa Youssef, professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, has made considerable strides in his research on employing mobile devices for location tracking technology — gaining recognition from top educational and scientific institutions, as well as major tech companies.

Youssef’s research examines the limitations of GPS tracking in indoor and outdoor localization. "For example, GPS doesn't work efficiently in urban canyons, within buildings and inside tunnels where the signals are blocked,” he explained, adding that GPS services also typically drain mobile phone batteries.

Youssef and his team work on providing different technologies for indoor localization with no GPS reach and outdoor localization, "providing better accuracy and consuming only one-tenth of the mobile phone energy consumed by the GPS." Their Dejavu technology , which provides an accurate energy-efficient outdoor localization system, won the Best Paper Award in the prestigious 2013 Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Spatial Information (SIGSpatial) Conference.

Increased accuracy in such technologies can improve outdoor and indoor navigation, asset tracking, directed ads, emergency services response time and contract tracing for COVID-19 exposure.

Youssef was recognized last month as a fellow of the Association Computing Machinery (ACM), becoming the first in the Middle East and Africa to join this membership grade, which acknowledges the top 1% of ACM members.

“It is an honor and responsibility to be named an ACM fellow,” he remarked. “I share with my research team the responsibility of keeping the bar high and continuing our achievements and recognition worldwide."

He also joins eight other AUC faculty members this year in being recognized as one of the top 2% most impactful scientists globally by Stanford-Elsevier's Scopus. The list is created by experts at Stanford University, based on data from Elsevier's Scopus. It includes the top 2% scientists in 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields, and provides standardized information on citations, h-index, co-authorship-adjusted hm-index, citations to papers in different authorship positions and a composite indicator.

Apart from his work at AUC, Youssef is the founder and director of Egypt's Wireless Research Center of Excellence, which has acquired millions of dollars in research funds from local, regional and international funding agencies.

The center includes award-winning researchers from all over the world who have published their work in the top journals and conferences in the field and have multiple issued and pending patents.

Moreover, students who work in the center typically move on to join the top universities and research labs worldwide for internships and to continue their studies.

“Many of the center alumni are working [at] world leading companies and worldwide reputable universities from Japan in the east to USA in the west, in addition to contributing to different Egyptian universities,” Youssef said.

Recognized among the top researchers of location tracking systems and technology by different industry players, Youssef and his team have been funded by Microsoft Research, Google Research,  Intel Research, Uber Research, Vodafone Egypt, The Egyptian Science and Technology Development Funds, The Egyptian National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority. “Several big companies have licensed our research,” Youssef said, adding that a number of startup companies employ his team’s technology as their differentiator in Egypt, the Gulf and the U.S.

The professor’s earliest research was aimed at leveraging WiFi signals to provide indoor localization as a value-added service to WiFi networks. This research led to the design and implementation of the Horus WiFi-based location determination system, for which he won the University of Maryland Invention of the Year award in 2003.

Along with his team, Youssef continued to explore innovative means to address indoor localization and eventually launched CrowdInside, a crowdsourcing-based system that uses smartphone sensors to automatically map out the floor plans of a building. 

On his own, Youssef has received numerous awards, such as the 2010 TWAS-AAS-Microsoft Award for Young Scientists, the 2013 and 2014 COMESA Innovation Award, the 2017 Egyptian State Excellence Award and multiple Google Research Awards. Since 2015, he has been appointed as a visiting professor at the National Institute of Informatics, Japan, and has also been a regular visiting researcher at Google since 2016. Moreover, he was named a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2019 for contributions to wireless location tracking technologies.

Moving forward, Youssef and his team are exploring what he refers to as “the next big thing,” combining quantum computing with location tracking –– an area of research that he hopes will expand in Egypt.

Youssef's passion for computing dates back to his early childhood years. In fourth grade, his father gifted him his first computer, and by sixth grade, he created his first computer game, sold it to the computer company and received his first award: three new computer games.

After ranking third nationwide in the General Secondary School Certificate exam, he chose to study computer and systems engineering at Alexandria University, instead of pursuing medical studies. After receiving his Master of Science in computer and systems engineering from Alexandria University, he traveled to the United States to complete his PhD at the University of Maryland.

Sharing his academic enthusiasm with students is a top priority for Youssef. Just last summer, he supervised two AUC student groups in taking second and third place at the worldwide ACM SIGSpatial Conference’s Undergraduate Research Competition.

The professor firmly believes that his success and recognition wouldn't have been possible without the hard work of his students, expressing his hope that “students from the region continue to impact the world with their achievements."

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Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

Undergraduate and graduate students gathered to tackle the second official AUC-Mountain View Design Thinking challenge, an event born out of a partnership between AUC Innovation Hub, real estate developer Mountain View and the Center for Learning and Teaching.

The hands-on challenge was designed to expose students to Design Thinking — a human-centered innovation framework adopted by Fortune 500 companies, including Apple, IBM, P&G, Airbnb, JP Morgan Chase and many others.

Two teams were selected by Mountain View for a three-day "Sprint” workshop to further develop their ideas, which will take place at a later date. All participants are eligible to apply for six internship spots with Mountain View.

Design Thinking emphasizes diversity. Therefore, participants from a wide range of disciplines were invited to compete. In total, 58 students applied, and the chosen 25 were divided into four teams.

“It was a great experience to cooperate with such eager and cooperative team members on exploring the process of design thinking while attempting to solve a real-estate development challenge,” said Doha Ahmed, a graduate student studying TAFL and a member of Team 4.

During the challenge, which spanned two days in early November, the teams were tasked with designing a mixed-use urban living space that strengthens a sense of community.

“[This] was my first encounter with the world of Design Thinking. When Mountain View introduced the challenge, I was filled with questions about how to come up with a realistic solution to such an idealistic goal,” said Amina Sabour, a graduate student studying International and comparative education and a member of Team 3.

Students also had the help of AUC faculty coaches, who joined from various departments and offices and brought with them extensive experience and training in Design Thinking.

Participating AUCians had to follow an iterative process to discover user needs, struggles and aspirations, and design user-centered solutions that are technically feasible and financially viable.

After coming up with possible designs, each team conducted interviews with different stakeholder groups. Students then unpacked the interviews and redefined the challenge to begin ideating toward prototype solutions. 

“The challenge was unexpected; however, it was interesting to explore how to combine concepts of happiness, respectful communities, mixed-class use living and diversity when designing for a commercial area for the respective Mountain View's community,” Ahmed added.

Students overall enjoyed the unique experience, noting the importance of solving problems with a multidisciplinary approach.

“This experience has been motivating me to learn more about [the] Design Thinking approach. I now believe it is a necessity not only in the field of entrepreneurship but also [in] education, policymaking and community engagement,” Sabour said.