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By Claire Davenport

In Youth in Egypt: Identity, Participation, and Opportunity (NYU Press, 2023), Nadine Sika '97, '00, associate professor of comparative politics, paints a picture of young people as Egyptian citizens in their own words.

"I wanted to investigate how Egyptian youth see themselves as a force for transformation and how they are passionate about making a positive change," she explained.

The book tells a new story about young people -- looking at them not just as an age group but as actors for change in the public sphere. Sika was inspired to explore this topic while conducting research on youth in the South Mediterranean. "We got a lot of insight into how young people participate and engage differently in the public sphere," she explained. "After the research project ended, I wanted to do more."

The book draws on qualitative and quantitative analysis with almost 100 interviews and focus groups and a survey analysis of 1,200 young people. Sika worked with AUCians, including undergraduate and graduate students as well as alumni, to conduct the qualitative analysis, interviewing youth and civil society actors from various sociopolitical and economic backgrounds over a three-year period. "AUCians are the backbone of this research," she said. "As a team we would sit together, think about what questions we wanted to pose, how to do the research and who to target."

Youth as Active Citizens

Sika's research shows that youth in Egypt perceive themselves as members of society with agency and a desire to contribute to positive change.

"A lot of people think that youth aren't interested in public engagement, but the majority of young people we worked with see themselves as a force for development and impact," she said.

Sika also looked at what marginalizes and disenfranchises youth as well as the lack of economically marginalized youth representation in the public sphere.

"We always hear that education is the opportunity for upward mobility. However, educated young people coming from lower economic backgrounds are less likely to have better life chances," she said. "What we found through our research was that youth from disenfranchised backgrounds really need to have their voices heard."

Sika hopes that this book serves as a reminder that young people want to continue taking part in shaping the future of society in Egypt and the region at large.

"Youth in Egypt are actually vibrant, present and optimistic about their future," she said.

Nadine Sika 

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By Katie Marie

Ahmed Sameh (MA '18, MA '20) is on a journey to help himself and others get in touch with their authentic selves.

In the nearly 10 years since he founded his social enterprise Emmkan, it has grown from a career guidance hub for young people to become Egypt's first organization for developing social and emotional learning (SEL) workshops and tools that help people of all ages to better understand themselves and others.

Sameh at AUC New Cairo, photo by Ahmad El-Nemr

"When you're connected to your true self, you are way more confident, more at peace when it comes to mental health and less fearful of judgment or failure," Sameh explained. "Better social and emotional awareness enables you to live more intentionally. It lets you have healthier, more harmonious relationships."

For much of the company's existence, Emmkan has focused on supporting and teaching Egyptian youth. Starting just two years after Sameh graduated with a bachelor's in computer engineering and an MBA in marketing, the company originally aimed to help students explore their personalities and make better career decisions.

Almost immediately, though, Sameh's focus began to shift.

"Instead of using the safe space we created to discuss career or academic choices, many of the students talked to us about stress and challenges in their lives. Some had experienced severe traumas and didn't have an outlet to deal with them," Sameh recalled.

Today, Emmkan offers workshops and retreats to K-12 and university students at schools across Egypt, including AUC. Through its free Student Ambassador program, Emmkan also trains and mentors high school students, empowering them to lead community development and volunteer projects.

Digging Deeper

In 2015, after several years as a practitioner, Sameh felt compelled to return to school -- this time to AUC, where he obtained two master's degrees in international and comparative education and philosophy.

"I only had a very basic introduction to the humanities in my own undergraduate degree, and felt like I needed to expand my own knowledge in order to be able to dig deeper in our work," Sameh explained.

"Better social and emotional awareness enables you to live more intentionally. It lets you have healthier, more harmonious relationships."

Bringing together educators from different fields, AUC's Department of Educational Studies (formerly the Graduate School of Education) provided Sameh with the opportunity to connect with and learn from other practitioners. "Many of the students are teachers or administrators working on the ground," he said. "This experience has given me one of the most powerful networks I have in my career."

During his master's studies, Sameh also learned the professional language needed to explain his passion. "At the Comparative and International Education Society's 2016 conference in Vancouver, I attended a workshop about social and emotional learning. I had never heard the term before, but I understood that it was exactly what I had been trying to do. I finally knew how to explain Emmkan's mission."

Play to Learn

The card game, Share, photo by Ahmad El-Nemr

More recently, Emmkan has sought to broaden the reach of its programs, sharing SEL knowledge via its Instagram, TikTok and YouTube channels. It has begun to develop learning tools for adults, the first of which is an SEL card game called Share. Several editions of the game have been published, including versions for friends, families and married couples -- the last of which has become a bestseller. Share is tailored to the Egyptian social context, and the decks are bilingual in both English and Arabic.

While anyone can purchase the game, it has become a popular tool among life coaches, psychologists and others working in SEL and mental health.

"Our pivot to focus on all ages is really aimed at amplifying the impact of SEL to the community level. Adults, especially parents, or couples with these skills can create a more supportive environment for children to grow in," Sameh explained. "If SEL is adopted more widely, this will create increasingly authentic and balanced communities. The change would be massive."

 

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By Kara Fitzgerald Elgarhy

Da7ee7 is by all accounts a success story. Amassing more than 1 billion views since its establishment in 2014, the online edutainment show hosted by Ahmed Elghandour '16 has captivated and enlightened viewers across Egypt, the Arab world and beyond with equally funny and smart takes on subjects from the science of migraines to the history of the Berlin Wall.

Taher El Moataz Bellah

However, Taher El Moataz Bellah '14, in writing his latest book, El Da7ee7: Behind the Scenes, did not set out to outline a success story. In fact, he didn't even originally plan to write a book about Da7ee7. El Moataz Bellah instead sought to write about a series of contemporary startups. When he first began writing in 2018, Da7ee7 was only one of the chapters, but in 2019, after five years of episodes and becoming a smash hit on YouTube all over the Arab world, he decided it deserved its own book.

Still, the idea was not to celebrate or memorialize. For El Moataz Bellah, the show was a case study. "You examine a case study not to idealize the protagonist but to take away learnings and build from it," he said.

El Moataz Bellah did not write El Da7ee7: Behind the Scenes like a typical case study. Rather, the book is written in the format of the show itself -- the same dialect, the same quippy and comedic style. "I wanted this book to target young audiences of the show who hadn't read books before; I was hoping this would be their first book," El Moataz Bellah explained. "So I zoomed in on this story about a familiar subject in a familiar language. I hoped that readers would hear Ahmed's voice narrating the story."

The book plays on the same synergies of education and entertainment as its subject matter -- the synergies that attracted El Moataz Bellah first as an avid fan of the show, then as a contributing writer and, most recently, as its storyteller.

Reading as a Gateway

In telling the story of Da7ee7, El Moataz Bellah looked through the lens of his own tenure with the show and the nature of the time it emerged. He also looked to the early formative experiences of Elghandour that made Da7ee7 possible.

For instance, El Moataz Bellah attributes Elghandour's status as an avid lifelong reader to simply having so much time and few options for entertainment during his childhood in Saudi Arabia. "He had nothing to do but go to the bookstore and sporting club once a week," he explained. "So at 10 years old, he read his first complete novel and got hooked. By middle school, he was reading about the 2008 financial crisis and World War II."

In fact, El Moataz Bellah describes reading as Elghandour's first and core superpower, responsible in large part for the others. On road trips with his family from Medina to Jeddah, Elghandour -- the eldest of five siblings -- would pass the hours telling stories from what he read. To El Moataz Bellah, "he was a storyteller long before he knew it." But he still had to practice. "In his initial videos, he was an average performer. But he was consistent. With discipline, he transformed. You can track it on YouTube. Video by video, he became more and more comfortable."

Finding the Formula

When Elghandour first started Da7ee7, El Moataz Bellah was one of the earliest admirers, hooked even before the viral 2016 episode inspired by the movie Interstellar. El Moataz Bellah would share every episode and exchange articles and commentary with fellow AUC alumnus Elghandour.

In 2018, around the same time that he received a scholarship for his master's study, Elghandour signed a deal with Post Office, a production startup that produced the pilot and coordinated an agreement to air Da7ee7 episodes on AJ+.

Somewhere in the midst of traveling back and forth between Hong Kong and Cairo, he realized he could no longer continue as the sole content creator and presenter. So Elghandour reached out to El Moataz Bellah to join a new team of writers. El Moataz Bellah describes this move -- giving up the one- man venture for a diversely interested and talented team -- as ultimately responsible for the longevity of the show and evidence of Elghandour's strength as a leader: "He had to be mature enough to be willing to delegate," El Moataz Bellah said.

The new team and new way of working inherently adjusted the show's formula, from sharing purely scientific findings and studies to addressing a wide range of fields. Viewership rose as a result. "One of the questions asked when looking at some big and bold topics was, 'Will the Arab audience care?' And it was clear that yes, they do," El Moataz Bellah recalled. "They don't just want local news and comedy. They want to know what is happening in the world and become global citizens. That is one of the reasons episodes like Brexit did really well."

The show's expansion in scope has meant a virtually bottomless source of content. This added to other proven elements of its appeal, like the timeliness of introducing an online show and a general departure from political satire.

The AUC Years

Elghandour's tenure at AUC also reflects this combination of circumstance and choice. His family supported him to attend AUC after years of fostering his love of reading and intellectual curiosity with the best international education they could afford, sending him on his own to Egypt and giving him the freedom to decide what to study.

At AUC, Elghandour benefited immensely from the rich intellectual activity on campus. El Moataz Bellah describes, "He fed on it, metaphorically and literally." Indeed, during his time at AUC, Elghandour started a WhatsApp group called AUC Food, which published information about events and activities that offered both interesting scholarly opportunities and free food.

Tracing Elghandour's journey through these formative vignettes in El Da7ee7: Behind the Scenes allowed El Moataz Bellah to tell the story of Da7ee7 the way he sees it: "It's not just a story of a genius but also the luck and privilege of having a loving family and inherent ability transformed through a world-class education and hard work."

Now at Harvard Business School, El Moataz Bellah is all too familiar with case studies, and he continues to reflect on his own takeaways from observing, contributing to and studying Da7ee7 -- chief among them, the power of communicating big ideas through entertaining characters and narrative. It's a thread that's clear in his El Da7ee7a ("The Nerds") series, his biography of Princess Diana and his upcoming work about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

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"Many things combine to show that Midaq Alley is one of the gems of times gone by and that it once shone forth like a flashing star in the history of Cairo. Which Cairo do I mean?" writes Naguib Mahfouz in the opening lines of his 1947 novel named for its setting.

That question -- Which Cairo? -- may be the central consideration for students who take AUC's new class, The World of Mahfouz, a 300-level course offered in the spring and designed by Dina Heshmat, associate professor of Arabic literature in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations.

Throughout his life, Mahfouz penned 36 novels, 25 screenplays and 15 short story collections, along with several short fictions based on his dreams, according to AUC Press. The World of Mahfouz syllabus includes the novels Midaq Alley, Palace Walk and The Thief and the Dogs, but it likely won AUC's Core Curriculum Course Competition in Fall 2022 for its multidisciplinary approach.

In addition to reading source materials, students in the course also watch Hassan Al-Imam's film adaptation of Midaq Alley and the TV series Bayn al-Qasrayn as well as hear guest lectures from history and film studies scholars.

Dina Heshmat. Photo by Ahmad El-Nemr

"I have quite a long relationship with his literary universe," said Heshmat, who analyzed Midaq Alley for her PhD and has previously taught a freshman-level course on the author called Reading Mahfouz. "It was interesting to put together a course about him because he is so important in Egyptian and Arabic literature, and many of his works have been living on in Egyptian and Arabic culture through film."

Through various media, the course explores the author's vast array of work in terms of its influence on film, TV and literature, but also on Cairo itself -- the way that Mahfouz was able to depict the physical, social, political and economic dynamics of the city and its people. That opens up opportunities for AUC students to have wide-reaching discussions about society.

Weaving Past and Present

Though Midaq Alley revolves around the residents of a single street in Cairo in the 1940s, the students making their way through the novel's English translation by Humphrey Davies during the spring semester were keenly aware of its broader relevance.

"We were talking about the syntax and writing style of Mahfouz, how he created symbols for the characters and how these characters have an origin in our society," said economics sophomore Sohayla Eid. "Not society back then only -- you'll find these characters here in modern life."

To discuss "the world of Naguib Mahfouz" is to consider the interplay of multiple worlds: the old and new, rich and poor, East and West, religious and secular, cultural and institutional, home and alleyway, the city and the world.

Midaq Alley is full of characters who struggle with the friction between their personal desires and ambitions and the binds of societal norms. A well- respected dentist turns to thievery in order to provide his services at a low cost, a young woman who dreams of being rich and liberated becomes a prostitute, a young man who has no desire to leave the alley does so in order to impress the woman he loves.

Given the dichotomies Mahfouz's characters struggle with, it's easy to see why author Elif Shafak implied that Mahfouz himself was "a writer torn." Despite the black-and-white nature of moral codes, "Mahfouz's Cairo was a fluid world," wrote Shafak. Though the characters are symbolic, they aren't fixed.

In other words, as the students studying the novel noted, they're real.

"We were talking in class about how universal and realistic his characters were," said Miriam Elsebai, a political science sophomore. "They were neither super evil nor super good. There are always these contradictions that represent reality. It's a clear mirror reflection of society nowadays."

Midaq Alley, a book written more than 50 years ago, has prompted students to consider modern contradictions. If Mahfouz were alive today, the 20-year- old speculated that he might write about the duality presented by social media and its effects on young people.

"Midaq Alley is not depicting a society that ended; it's depicting an everlasting struggle," said Elsebai. "There's always conflict between people's moral goals and social laws. No matter how 'woke' we are or how much we evolve, one way or another, these struggles will be there."

The students also drew comparisons between the novel and their own experiences living in the midst of international warfare. Eid pointed out that one of the characters in the book, a businessman, makes money off of the conflict. "I was connecting it to what is happening now, like for example in Egypt, many challenges facing society are a direct result of the Russia-Ukraine war -- how the behavior of people is the same and how people are taking advantage of the war and political situation we're going through," she said. "So whenever I read Mahfouz, I definitely think of politics."

The Power of the Pen

Plenty of people think of politics when they think of Mahfouz.

His 1959 novel Children of Gebelawi, or Children of the Alley, which Mahfouz said was inspired by the 1952 Revolution, had to be published abroad because its content was deemed controversial. In 1994, the author was stabbed in the neck by someone believed to be angry about the book's depiction of Islam (though it's been reported that the assailant hadn't read the book).

Mahfouz described himself as becoming the victim of a clash not unlike one he might have written as allegory. "I simply got caught in the middle, in the battle between the system and the Islamists," he said -- another complex struggle with the author at its center.

"Students are often genuinely surprised by how daring he can be in his works, how relevant some of the works are to today's society."

 

As such, the World of Mahfouz course also touches on the author's life and political involvement. It would be impossible, if not irresponsible, not to.

"His well-known Children of the Alley is an opportunity to open discussions in class about censorship," Heshmat said. "Students are often genuinely surprised by how daring he can be in his works, how relevant some of the works are to today's society and how close they sometimes are -- obviously not systemically -- but how close the ideas, the emotions can be to a more contemporary context."

After watching a documentary about Mahfouz's life, the students in the course did note his ability to subtly weave his opinions about politics and society into texts. "He was so politically smart," said Elsebai, adding that while she doesn't expect everyone outside the classroom to be well-versed in Mahfouz, she does try to use what she's learned from him out in the real world.

"Talking about it in class won't be useful unless we actually use what we learn in our daily lives," she said. "It's like we're integrating these lessons within our social discourse, making conversations about them strong and powerful."

So Mahfouz's impact lives on. The Egyptian author's work becomes another tool in the student arsenal -- a way for them to better understand and engage with the complexity of the world around them -- as all good literature should.

"To those who disagree with my views," the author wrote in the dedication for Children of Gebelawi, "I dedicate lines I have written for a society that can only be made better through culture."

 

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By Abigail Flynn

While planting trees at a public school in New Cairo last spring, mechanical engineering sophomore Hassan El Hassan met a seventh-grade girl from the school who blew his mind.

"She already knew coding languages that university sophomores and juniors haven't touched," he said. "My mindset about public school students immediately changed -- I was inspired to help them succeed."

El Hassan met this student and other "hidden gems," as he calls them, as part of a new, multidisciplinary outreach initiative from AUC's Middle East Institute for Higher Education (MEIHE) aimed at creating school-university partnerships that promote community engagement, empower public school students and foster sustainable development.

After intensive preparation which included workshops, meetings and coaching, AUC students began volunteering at the schools in a variety of ways, starting with eco-friendly projects like making crafts from recycled materials, conducting theater workshops under the theme "sustainability" and planting gardens.

"Instead of just explaining the importance of sustainability, we wanted to practice it in real time," said Malak Zaalouk '71, '76, professor of practice and MEIHE director. "Having the students plant fruit trees and vegetables on their school campuses gives them a sense of belonging and lasting impact on their community."

Filling the Gaps

Public schools in Egypt face a number of challenges, from overcrowding in classrooms to a lack of amenities and deficit of teachers. These partnerships seek to address these issues. By organizing school-based enrichment activities in subjects like digital literacy and English, for example, MEIHE supports informal, student-led learning activities -- freeing up valuable time for teachers to focus on lesson planning and delivery.

"We want to use our resources at AUC to empower these students, helping them see that they have a role to play in the success of their schools and communities," Zaalouk said. "This is how public schools become more effective."

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Despite issues with staffing and amenities, students at Egyptian schools continue to strive for excellence. Haggar El Khatib, a biology senior, recalled her experience volunteering. "Engaging with public school students has opened my eyes to the daily challenges they face," she said. "They have ideas and talent, but lack a proper channel for them. This program is that channel."

"Instead of just explaining the importance of sustainability, we wanted to practice it in real time."

El Khatib believes that as the initiative grows and strengthens, the students benefiting from it today will return to their schools as university students in the future to conduct similar activities -- creating a chain of giving.

Shifting Culture

While spring planting and summer workshops served as short and intermediary phases of the program, MEIHE also introduced formal fully fledged community-based learning courses this fall for AUC students as part of the school-university partnerships.

These courses cover citizenship education, sustainable development and digital literacy through neighborhood engagement programs. "By actively participating in their communities, AUC students develop a heightened sense of social responsibility and contribute to the betterment of education in Egypt as a whole," Zaalouk said.

In this, MEIHE hopes to establish a lasting and supportive relationship between AUC and the New Cairo Educational Directorate through a renewed agreement with the Ministry of Education. The practice of school-university partnerships was established through past agreements with the ministry, largely supporting teacher agency. This time around, the focus is on student agency.

As the initiative paves more avenues of support for students, teachers and education in Egypt, El Hassan is sure that the hidden gems at these schools will begin to shine as bright as the gifted young coder he met last spring. "The future of Egypt is in good hands -- if we support people like her," he said.

 

By Elizabeth Lepro

For a few months in 2018, I lived in an apartment in downtown Cairo near the French Institute, in a room I had chosen primarily because it featured two French doors that opened up to a balcony. From up there, I could watch Cairo go by. Young men balanced bread trays on their heads as they pedaled past on bikes, men stretched their legs as they smoked in foldout chairs, women walked arm in arm, and the pigeon keeper on an adjacent roof tended to his flock.

When I was home, the doors were open. That meant, even while lying in bed, I could also hear Cairo go by -- the scrap merchant repeating robabekya to market his wares; the muezzin's adhan, or call to prayer; the steady hum of chatter and laughter and the occasional hi-hat of an argument; the trills and coos of murmuring pigeons and the honking. Always the honking.

For many Cairenes, these noises are so commonplace as to be unnoticeable. But for those of us who have left the city or moved to its outskirts, hearing its soundscape can bring on a visceral wave of nostalgia. Which is to say: If you don't notice the sounds of the place you currently call home, you may come to appreciate them -- even miss them -- with some distance.

That recognition is what graphic design alum Nehal Ezz '21 and her best friend and project partner Youssef Sherif have delivered with Sounds of Cairo, a collection of the city's most recognizable sounds, which includes bites of all the aforementioned noises and more. The pair's goal is for the recordings to one day make up an online database of sounds, some of which may otherwise be lost to time and development.

"I realized, 'OK, what about the sounds in Cairo?' because they're sort of musical sometimes."

Ezz, who is originally from Cairo but now lives in Saudi Arabia with her family, got the idea for the project while making a video for a World Music class at AUC.

"I realized, 'OK, what about the sounds in Cairo?' because they're sort of musical sometimes," she said. For the project, Ezz recorded some audio herself, but when she went looking for cleaner, high-quality sound bites on the most popular online sound libraries, "I couldn't find anything for Egypt. Even on YouTube, I couldn't find sounds available for me to use. So with the guidance of my thesis adviser, [Associate Professor] Haytham Nawar, I decided to create a database where the sounds can be preserved and archived."

Right now, the project exists on a website, a YouTube channel and an Instagram account. A more formal, searchable archive is still in the works. To capture a representative sample of sounds, Ezz and Sherif broke the audio into categories: economic, social, religious, wildlife and transportation. Robabekya would fit into the economic category, while chatter and laughter would be slotted into social.

Ezz and Sherif distributed a survey to collect input on which sounds should be recorded, but Ezz also went looking for more particular audio to capture -- sounds she associated with the Cairo of her childhood, like the whistle of a cotton candy vendor, the milk seller banging on bottles and the sound of the makwagi, a person who irons clothes using their feet. These were more difficult to track down.

It doesn't mean those sounds no longer exist, but they may be more rare, especially for those who can afford to move out of more populated areas and into houses or apartments on the city's developing outskirts. A pre-coronavirus pandemic report showed that Egypt was the world's fastest-growing real estate market, thanks largely to a dramatic upsurge in housing development in Cairo's satellite cities.

"The newer places, they're very, very quiet -- the compounds and the closed areas," Ezz said. That was doubly true during Egypt's pandemic lockdown, when the recording process unveiled the stark difference between how neighborhoods beyond downtown Cairo were able to pull back from public life compared to places where commerce and culture happen in the streets.

"When I compared the sounds that I got before and those I got after, I felt like it only affected certain areas of Cairo," Ezz said. "Downtown people went on with their lives as soon as they could be outside again."

Sounds of Culture

Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer is credited with coining the word "soundscape" in the 1970s. The term "acoustic ecology" was born when Schafer, like Ezz, noticed that as society changed, so too did our acoustics.

"The sounds of the environment were changing rapidly, and it seemed that no one was documenting the changes," Schafer wrote in his memoir. Schafer would go on to create the World Soundscape Project -- an admirable initiative that, despite its encompassing name, was focused largely on Canada and Europe.

The concept caught on, and soundscape projects facilitated by more accessible technology have since blossomed worldwide. AUC faculty lecturer, guitarist and composer Pawel Kuzma, who was Ezz's professor for the World Music class that inspired her project, pointed out that soundscapes are popular among electronic music artists around the world.

"Soundscapes have various uses -- as textures in music genres like noise, avant-garde, ambient, really anything that includes recordings, but also music therapy, city planning, environmental studies, meditation and -- as with Nehal's project -- preserving cultural elements," Kuzma said.

Still, finding formalized soundscape projects like these is a bit more difficult in Egypt. That doesn't mean soundscape projects don't exist in Cairo, but like sounds from your childhood you want to preserve, you may have to go looking for them.

A City in Tune

When you begin researching soundscapes, you find that the city is an instrument. People handle it differently; they use it to make their own music and come to their own conclusions.

The act of recording forced Ezz to pay more attention to individual sounds within the cacophony as she was walking around downtown Cairo. Under the overwhelming noise of traffic, she heard the street vendors selling specific items. "I started appreciating the sound a little bit more, how it contributes to the whole soundscape," she said.

Sometimes Ezz recorded surreptitiously, while other times she explained the project to her subject. Outside of an academic setting, not everyone understood the mission. "They were like, 'It's just going to sound like Cairo,'" Ezz said. She explained that it's possible Cairo might not sound the same in the future. Some people understood. Others replied, "'No, it's always sounded like that; it's always going to sound like that.'"

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By Claire Davenport

Are you interested in breaking into Egypt's growing market for entrepreneurship but not sure where to start? Want to know where the current market is headed?

According to knowledge platform Wamda, startups in the Middle East and North Africa attracted $3.94 billion in funding in 2022, with Egypt emerging as one of the top three markets for investment. Yet, there are many barriers to entry, from lack of capital to risk of failure, which can make a career as an entrepreneur seem like a daunting prospect to many.

To demystify the current startup ecosystem in Egypt and what it takes to break into it, we sat down with Ayman Ismail '95, '97, Abdul Latif Jameel chair in entrepreneurship, associate professor in the Department of Management and founding director of the AUC Venture Lab, Egypt's first university-based accelerator program.

Below are Ismail's insights into the current startup climate in Egypt and his tips for getting started, pitching your venture to potential investors and more!

What has the startup climate historically looked like in Egypt?

The tech-enabled startup movement in Egypt is around 15 to 20 years old. Linkdotnet -- one of the very first ventures to exit in 2011 -- was founded by a team of AUCians. It was a fantastic deal that created a lot of energy, and since then, there's been so much growth in terms of startups, investments and enablers.

Where is the Egyptian startup scene headed?

Five years ago, venture capital investments in Egypt were around 20 million to 50 million dollars. Starting 2020 and 2021, it jumped to 400-450 million each year. That's a huge growth in investments in that sector. In the next few years, I would expect a lot of growth in the quality of startups and number of investments.

Where does AUC and the Venture Lab fit into this picture?

In 2013, we launched the AUC Venture Lab, our startup accelerator. Now, it's the top university-run accelerator in the Middle East and Africa.

Our objective has always been to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem and put AUC in the heart of that space. We've supported more than 300 startups since the activation of our flagship accelerator program and more than 100 others through different programs under the lab.

What are these other programs?

AUC Angels, our investment network; a capacity-building program to transfer our knowledge to program managers running similar initiatives at other universities or companies in Egypt; and a launchpad that funds early-stage tech startups.

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What does the AUC Venture Lab look for when assessing startups?

We see if the problem is worth solving and if it's operating in a fast-growing, innovative space. We also evaluate whether the team can bring this kind of idea to life. Do they have the right mindset? Are they competent, visionary and ethical?

Do you have any advice on pitching a startup to a potential investor?

A lot of people think of pitching as a selling job. I think a better way to understand it is as a matching opportunity. If I'm just trying to convince someone to invest, I am only telling them what they want to hear so I can sell. But if my objective is to understand what the people on the other side have in mind -- what they've done before and whether our goals match -- then the conversation takes a very different tone.

Do you have any suggestions for fundraising outside of traditional capital?

If you can bootstrap with investments from your savings or family and friends, that's amazing because investments come with a lot of constraints. And there's a big movement for bootstrapping right now.

Are there any risks with sustaining a startup once it's gotten off the ground and been active for a few years?

There are several points where companies can fail. People usually think about the new idea stage, where the startup is not yet defined and you have very little money. But there is another high-risk stage, which is when you move from being a fast-growing startup to a mature company and are building sustainable revenue streams and looking for stability to grow the business organically at a rate that fits the market. This is one of the biggest failing points; people reach a ceiling and they don't know how to transition into a profitable business.

Is there any sector you see taking off in the next few years to look out for?

The most obvious is anything related to artificial intelligence, which is a global trend. The second is sustainability, green economy and climate resilience. That space is evolving quite rapidly, and I'm expecting it to grow gradually in Egypt. The third, which I think is very relevant to Egypt but more difficult to get into, is healthcare. It's a big opportunity with a very interesting market.

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By Abigail Flynn

A simple, colorful and addictive puzzle game that swept nations in the 1980s and 1990s, Tetris is known today in households from Moscow to Mexico City and is among the most played games of all time in the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Organizing falling blocks into complete lines, the game can quickly jump from relaxing to panic-inducing in a matter of seconds. Entertaining as that may be, Tetris can also provide us with more than just temporary bursts of adrenaline.

Jacquelyn Berry, assistant professor in AUC's Department of Psychology, is exploring the ways that humans learn through Tetris in hopes of understanding how people learn to do complex tasks and improve their performance over time -- an important component of human cognition.

"My goal is to change how people learn through what is called 'reinforcement learning,'" Berry explains. "By providing live feedback to people while they do complex, multifaceted tasks, in this case Tetris, I can track how their performance improves. I hope this will help us understand how complex skill learning works."

So how does it work? Berry's research design uses artificial intelligence to provide live feedback to the player, which informs them if the move they just chose was good or bad. If the participant sees a green light, that means they made a good move; if the light is red, they chose poorly. The level of feedback varies: Some participants receive only results-based feedback, while others receive live AI feedback for each move they make. Some receive both AI feedback and general feedback. By comparing these three learning conditions, Berry is able to see which level of feedback is teaching people to perform the best.

"There are a ton of things we could use this information for -- virtual reality, medical surgery, robots."

Berry's preliminary findings show that live AI feedback improves performance, particularly when paired with results- based feedback, but the research is still in progress. She hopes that the eventual results can be applied to many fields.

"There are a ton of things we could use this information for -- virtual reality, medical surgery, robots -- basically any complex task that includes a human using a computer to interact with their environment," she says.

But Why Tetris?

"Why not Tetris?" Berry responds. "First, the game is very popular with hundreds of millions of players. It's also perfect because a participant's native language won't affect their ability to play and anyone can easily learn to play, which makes it much more accessible."

According to Berry, accessibility is an important consideration in any research project. She explains that the field of psychology has had a long history of "convenience sampling," or choosing participants who are easy to locate. Since most psychology research is conducted at universities, much of the findings are skewed toward the demographic of psychology college students who join a study for class credit. It's also heavily Western-centric, she says.

"While the data from these types of studies is still valuable, conducting research with this limited demographic makes it more difficult to generalize findings to the rest of the world's population," Berry explains. "As a researcher in Egypt, I hope to remove some bias from research by including individuals outside traditional educational circles, going beyond a student population to represent people from different socioeconomic backgrounds."

Adding to accessibility, Berry's research can be conducted with the tap of a smartphone using a research app. Since participants do not need to come into the lab, she can reach players from all over, allowing more diversity among participants than she would have studying AUC psychology students alone. From this, she gains a more comprehensive understanding of human learning.

While Berry's goal is to examine populations beyond AUC, the University is still an integral part of her research process. Berry began her research in Egypt as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in 2019 and developed her Tetris study after COVID-19.

"Working at AUC has given me the opportunity to make the Tetris AI tool a reality," she says. "Cognitive psychology is fairly new to this region, so there is a lot of growth potential. I'm excited to see what the future holds."

By Kara Fitzgerald Elgarhy

The video game industry is booming across the Middle East and North Africa. Playing on a console, PC or smartphone, there were more than 65.3 million gamers in the region in 2021, with revenues reaching $1.76 billion in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt alone, according to a 2022 report by Niko Partners. As the industry continues to ascend the leader boards, more opportunities arise every day for local talent to find their place in the game.

There's just one glitch in the code, observes Ahmad Saqfalhait, associate professor of practice and associate chair of AUC's Department of the Arts. "Most game design professionals in the industry are self-taught," he explains. "Because their training is primarily either technical or visual, they compensate for the design aspect of game development by wearing multiple hats."

To support the development process, AUC introduced a new game design minor in Fall 2022, bringing together students from different disciplines to learn the role of a designer in game development. A collaboration between AUC's graphic design program and Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the minor will equip students to join a flourishing industry that has surpassed three of the biggest entertainment-related industries combined: music, film and sports, according to Saqfalhait.

The perks don't stop there. "In addition to their economic value, game applications have expanded and evolved to cover various purposes, from educational and social to medical and psychological -- all playing on our need to have fun and engage," Saqfalhait said.

Communicating Culture

Much like the industry, the program is fast on the rise. Saqfalhait and students are working to further spread awareness and interest by holding gaming activities on campus, such as hosting group Nintendo Switch sessions. "Not only do students enjoy playing, they also reflect on Nintendo's success in the gaming industry," Saqfalhait explained. "Nintendo is a school of design. It maintains a DNA and philosophy in its offerings. I want to channel this in the minor."

Moreover, Saqfalhait believes that Nintendo's work offers important lessons for AUC students about cultural expression and identity.

"If Nintendo, a Japanese company, borrows ideas from the outside, it reinterprets them and makes them its own, with mutual respect for both cultures," he said. "This concept of thinking locally and regionally is emphasized throughout the semesters of the game design minor so that students are not just making copies of existing games."

For instance, Nintendo's famous Animal Crossing video game introduced many international players to Japanese culture. Originally developed for a limited audience in 2001, the playful village- building game now features an array of international flavors, from bamboo baskets and cherry blossoms to Arabian thobes and Moroccan dresses.

"Nintendo is a school of design. It maintains a DNA and philosophy in its offerings. I want to channel this in the minor."

Sophomore Tarek Kassab, a longtime gamer and fan, was drawn to the minor for this very reason. "I started to notice that such a powerful entertainment tool can be used to push forward political and cultural messages," he reflected. "For example, games made in Japan tend to portray Japanese society -- traditions, food, celebrations and culture. And because video games are highly interactive, these small additions naturally resonate with players. I wanted to learn game design to create games that are entertaining while also spreading my Egyptian and Arab culture."

The locally grounded character of game design at AUC was always intentional, according to Saqfalhait. However, one unexpected outcome has been the resulting buy-in and support from the Egyptian community. Outside of their coursework, game design students have had the opportunity to work directly with community and creative partners on the design and development of games for local impact.

Last semester, students worked with UNICEF and Karim Aboul-Enein of Largelabs game development studio on an arcade game prototype that makes children indirectly associate healthy snacks with fun activities through play. A separate student group has been working since July 2022 in collaboration with Megawra - BEC to create a game for children that will strengthen their sense of neighborhood ownership and connection to their communities by presenting them with their rich culture and history.

These extracurricular projects reflect a guiding principle of AUC's approach to game design: integration within the industry. "It's difficult to gain hands-on experience in game design in Egypt because the industry is not yet thriving here. AUC's practical approach is a substitute source for direct experience in the field," said Kassab.

Still, AUC's game design project is far from final. The pioneering minor program, itself an organic result of feedback and learning from a smaller seed, is poised to blossom into a fully fledged major -- addressing more skills, reaching more students, and building more industry and community connections.

"A few years from now, AUC will graduate students who are equipped and ready to join and reinforce game design in Egypt," Saqfalhait affirmed.

Explore AUC's Game Design minor.

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By Devon Murray

Step back in time to 1973, when, in the midst of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Egypt and Syria launched an attack on Israel on October 6, catching the world off guard. Known as the October War, this conflict and its results signaled a major shift across the region's political landscape and United States foreign policy in the Middle East.

Today, on the war's 50th anniversary, we look back not on the battlefield, but on Cairo -- and AUC -- to understand what life was like for AUCians in wartime. Drawing from a series of oral histories and clippings from The Caravan found in the University Archives, we explore the varied experiences of students, faculty and staff in October 1973.

Whispers of War

What are the signs a country is headed toward war? Tim Sullivan, provost emeritus and former professor of political science, who landed in Cairo just before October 1973, sets the scene.

We arrived on September 16, 1973, which is obviously 20 days before the war. So we didn't have much time to get adjusted to Egypt before that. Most places had windows painted blue. That would mean you could have the light on at night, and it couldn't be seen by a plane that might drop a bomb on you. There were sandbags everywhere. ... The Sheikh Rihan entrance to AUC had a barricade in front of it..

Of course, we didn't plan to arrive in a war zone. You know, obviously, the Arab-Israeli conflict had been going on since the establishment of Israel. And one knew you were going into a place where conflict was, in a sense, endemic. But there was no inkling that war was imminent. It looked like something of a stalemate, actually.

For Jayme Spencer, librarian emerita who served as the director of public services at the AUC Library for more than 43 years, October 6, 1973 began as any other day.

It's a Sunday. And we are invited out. In those days, we did not work on Sunday.

She recalls going to a barbecue at the home of a colleague who lived by the Pyramids.

And at some point toward the evening, we got ... a knock on the door. The sun had already pretty much gone down. And some army people came in, and all started talking. ... Apparently, as it was translated to us, you know, "How can you be doing this? A day that you, your country is at war! And you have foreigners with you!" ... And they said, "Pack everything up and get out of here immediately. Go to your home."

I think they painted the headlights of the cars blue so that they wouldn't show ... because all of a sudden we were of course in curfew and darkness.

According to Spencer, the University remained open the following day, though not everyone showed up.

People were waiting for the University to make an official announcement. And we didn't know how long [this was] going to happen. Were we going to, you know, be defeated immediately, and that would be the end of it? But as it turned out of course, it lasted much longer.

Classes Canceled

Thoron at AUC Tahrir Square

Walid Kazziha, political science professor who has been with AUC since 1972, describes the community's initial reaction to the war.

In 1973, when the war broke out, students were up in arms, faculty were very much fired up with what was happening. And then we get this statement from the Vice President... [Ahmed Abdel Ghaffar] Saleh or something, who says, "Classes will be held as usual."

The faculty called for a meeting, and we met. [President] Thoron came personally to that meeting.

Thoron laid it out and said, "We're fully in support of Egyptian efforts to regain its land in Sinai, and the University cannot be opened as usual, you know. Now we will have to think of a way to support Egypt in its war effort. And the students are proposing [to] do some medical service ... and support here.

Of course we didn't have classes. We were listening to what was on the radio, and no one at that point could go and give a lecture. Let's face it. And then after the war, we came back and that was it.

Helping Hands

Spencer recalls students immediately organizing to support the war.

[The students] quickly mobilized themselves, the ones who could, to support the war. I know I went in two or three days and rolled bandages.

Farkhonda Hassan (MSc '67), professor emerita in the School of Sciences and Engineering, took her students to Kasr El Aini Hospital to help with cleaning and gathering supplies.

We took four big wards in Kasr El Aini. ... The students were running around bringing sheets from the factories -- clean ones, clean sheets, pillowcases.

While at the hospital, Hassan ran into a number of celebrities, including Tahiya Carioca, an Egyptian belly dancer and film actress, whom she asked to bring a food processor to prepare meals for patients who were having difficulty eating.

I used to put the rice and the vegetables and the meat and have [the patients] drink it. ... This made them more healthy. And [the hospital] used to have visitors coming to us and reporters from all over the world to see. This [is] where AUC is. And [these were] the students, girls and boys. And teachers. So I was very happy. We stayed there for about two months.

Rescue team practices as part of custodians' civil defense training1970s shot of Hill House, which at the time was AUC's main library

War Stories

Sullivan describes how Cairenes got their news about the battlefront during the war.

[At AUC], we had meetings during the war, no classes, and [I would] come in on the train. And people are excited, they're talking. I didn't know what the heck they're saying, but they've all got newspapers and they're pointing to stories and there are pictures. I can't read Arabic at the time, but they've got pictures of stuff that's going on in the war.

During the war, something happened [that] I was immediately made aware was unusual. ... Egyptians were getting news from Egyptian news sources. Now, let me explain what I mean by that. Up to that time, if, you know, the Egyptian, I will have to call it upper middle class or even elite -- they would have access to what was going on in the world and in Egypt by listening to the BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation] or the VOA [Voice of America] or Radio Monte Carlo. Radio Monte Carlo was a big hit, and the reason was simple: It was news that was actually news. It wasn't censored. It wasn't interpreted through some political screen. So if they want to know how their troops were doing, how the war was going, they would listen to Monte Carlo, they would listen to the BBC. They would also listen to or watch television news, what little there was. And if they found the BBC and Egyptian news were saying the same thing, they were thrilled. Because it [means] the government is telling us the truth.

Life Goes On

Despite the war, many living in Cairo in October 1973 were able to enjoy hobbies and make connections with others. Spencer reflects on social life during this time.

We didn't have a curfew during the day, so if I didn't go roll bandages or do whatever else it was I was doing with the students and other faculty members, I had a group of people that I went out horseback riding [with].

And then as it started to get toward dark, we'd always make [our way] back home. However, within every quarter, I would say, Zamalek, Garden City, Maadi, people violated the curfew as they wished. Some of my closest friends happened to live just a block and a half away from me on Tolombat [Street]. We spent many a night till about 9:00 or 10:00, playing cards and just sitting around talking.

While out and about, Spencer and a friend discovered a group of stranded American tourists who were meeting at the Hilton in Zamalek every night. Most of them had been vacationing in Cairo when the war broke out and were now waiting to be evacuated safely from Egypt.

Because of course the embassy was trying to get them out. And I think they ended up going out through ... a boat from Libya. And they had to pay for it.

Spencer and her friend were invited for breakfast with a Catholic family one morning.

They noticed that we were taking the sugar out of the container at the table and they said "Why is that?" And I said, "Well, sugar is being rationed right now, and we don't have any." And so they started saving their sugar. I think it was about three, four days before they actually got away. So we had a huge stash of sugar from them, from the Hilton.

And for about the next two years, this family used to send like a little care package back to

Cairo. It would take months, several months to get here, and be full of sugar and just, candy, and well wishes, and maybe a book or two. I lost track of 'em many, many years ago, but it was just one of those kinds of things -- you bond with people in a certain way, you know, in a catastrophe, where you're swept up by the circumstances. But what was important for me was the fact that they were so positive about Egypt. And they had enjoyed their time here. They really didn't have an agenda ... They were curious to see how it was going to turn out.

For Sullivan, adjusting to life in Cairo during this tense period was a great way to get to know Egyptians.

It was actually a good introduction to the country and the people. A better introduction than AUC could have possibly organized because ... you could see people under stress. My father always said there are a couple of ways to really understand what people are like. ... So one test is what happens when you get in the wilderness? It's a Hobbesian test. What do you do when there is no law, when there is no order, when there is no government? How do people behave? And another one is when you're under great stress. Well, the whole country was under great stress. And they behaved well.

AUCians play football on campus, early 1970s