"e-content production is a key step in the establishment of a knowledge society"
Egypt’s ICT Strategy 2007-2010
The digital content industry encompasses the creation, design, management and distribution of digital products and services and the technologies that underpin these activities. Egypt places high regard in developing and distributing Arabic e-Content that forms the basis of intellectual and cultural inspiration for future generations. Accordingly, MCIT has led the way to the establishment of an e-content industry in Egypt through its Arabic e-content initiative. This initiative aims to enhance the competitiveness of the Egyptian e-content industry by supporting the production, use and distribution of Arabic digital content on global networks.
|
|
| CULTNAT’s Arts Documentation program is a multidimensional program that digitizes and documents the rich Arabic music, Egyptian Musical Theatre, printed materials of the Egyptian Movies and the Egyptian caricatures. |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| The project develops a specialized portal to introduce the Arab heritage and civilization to the world, to contribute to Arabic content on the web and to promote previous initiatives of heritage digitization. |
|
Project Updates |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| CULTNAT, in collaboration with the National Library of Egypt, have successfully initiated and completed the digitization of two archival collections of approximately 10,000 maps and 3,500 papyri. The development of databases containing the digitized collections has made it easy for the National Library to better serve researchers and scholars. A bilingual catalogue regarding the Arabic Papyri was published covering a collection of papyri that is revealed for the first time. |
|
Project Updates |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| The award-winning Eternal Egypt portal is a joint collaboration between CULTNAT, the Supreme Council for Antiquities, and IBM Corporation. Eternal Egypt showcases Pharaonic and Islamic treasures of Egypt. |
|
Project Updates |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| The Archaeological Map of Egypt employs the multimedia in conjunction with the GIS technologies to produce a powerful documentation and management tool for the Egyptian archaeological sites. |
|
Project Updates |
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| The project publishes an illustrated database of the Egyptian Geographic Society (EGS) archives on the organization’s website through comprehensive listing, scanning and bibliographical indexing of EGS resources, maps, atlases, and images. |
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| CULTNAT is documenting Egypt’s presidential palaces, and in particular the interior possessions throughout the different ages, and is digitizing and publishing the results of this study. The project is creating a database of a selected collection of artifacts that reveal important aspects of Egypt’s history. |
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| First of its kind in the Middle East, the portal offers a unique e-commerce model for cultural heritage that provides visitors and shoppers worldwide with a variety of cultural and heritage products like books, CDs, atlases and high resolution images. The trilingual portal (Arabic, English and French) also showcases different CULTNAT projects and publications. Egypt Memory Online Shop was launched in 2008 jointly with IBM.
|
|
Project Updates |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| CULTNAT’s Architectural Heritage program employs GIS technologies to document the nineteenth and early twentieth century architectural heritage of Egypt including extensive photographic documentation. |
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| The merge between printed, audible and viewed media, benchmarking this age, has brought forth a more distinguished new media, namely, "Electronic Journalism". Electronic Journalism is the legitimate offspring of the extraordinary development in IT, which come into existence as a result of the researchers and journalists attempts to produce electronic newspaper version, capable of fulfilling ordinary functions of the former regular papers, adding unprecedented capabilities, through new technologies. The internet has turned to a phenomenon, propping up electronic press, news websites and portals. |
|
Project Updates |
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| Egypt’s Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT), affiliated with Bibliotheca Alexandrina and endorsed by MCIT, documents the various aspects of Egypt's tangible and intangible cultural heritage as well as its natural heritage using ICTs. Its flagship cultural endeavors, which have won many awards over recent years, are Culturama with its patented technology, Eternal Egypt, and the Global Egyptian Museum which provides online access to Egyptian cultural products currently on display in museums around the world. The Center also aims at increasing public awareness of Egypt's cultural and natural heritage using all available media as well as building capacities of professionals in fields of conservation and documentation of cultural and natural heritage. |
|
Project Updates |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
In an ambitious project, CULTNAT is digitizing more than 90 million documents currently kept in Egypt’s National Archives. The project is employing more than 1,000 recent graduates who have been given specialized training. The National Archives of Egypt (NAE) Project is a partnership between MCIT, CULTNAT and Egyptian IT companies.
Project Objectives:
- To preserve the physical condition of national archives by producing watermarked, high-resolution digital images of 130,000 valuable documents, thereby reducing the need for physical access
- To produce digital versions of the more than 90 million documents held by the NAE for inclusion in a database currently containing over 25 million records that can be searched and accessed via the NAE intranet site
- To develop a web portal providing easy access to national archives in a digital format
|
|
Project Updates |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| Fekr Rama is a web portal that provides rich Arabic content in fields of culture, education, heritage, religion, sport and arts for the Arab and Western world. The portal also includes e-books, magazines, directories, news, audio files and animation for children and youth. Fekr Rama, an output of the Arabic e-content initiative, is derived from Panorama El-Fikr El-Araby (Arab Intellectual Panorama) and focuses on Egypt as a pioneering civilization in the spread of knowledge and as a role model in preserving Arab heritage for future generations. The portal is an outcome of a protocol agreement between MCIT and National Archives of Egypt. |
|
Project Updates |
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| Luxor Portal was developed and launched as part of Egypt’s keenness to boost tourism. The website is the official touristic portal of the city of Luxor. The portal offers tourists comprehensive, functional, and up-to-date information on Luxor in the most interactive and visually attractive manner. The portal contains a huge photo gallery of Luxor, a detailed GIS-based map of the city, a detailed illustration of all monumental sites, an updated calendar of the city’s events in addition to practical information on all possible activities that tourists can engage in and a comprehensive database of all medical, hotel accommodation, dining, transportation, airlines and banking services of the city. |
|
Project Updates |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| MCIT in cooperation with the news sector of the Egyptian Radio and Television Union established a news portal that started operating in October 2007. The portal delivers up-to-date international, regional and local news in Arabic covering all categories – politics, economy, science, sports, arts, etc. The website offers users a variety of interactive and functional information and services like live streaming, in-depth reports, desktop alerts, temperature reviews, market reports and site personalization based on user preferences. The average number of portal users per day has climbed from 1,000 in 2007 to 6,000 user in 2008. |
|
Project Updates |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| Egypt’s Science and Technology Portal, a collaboration between MCIT and the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, aims to make the scientific and technological content of the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology available to the global scientific community. The bilingual (Arabic and English) portal also avails the science and technology information from the Egyptian National Science and Technology Information Network (ENSTINET) databases to the scientific community as well as interested Egyptian citizens. In addition to academic theses and research in science and technology, the portal includes biographical databases besides featuring Egypt’s achievements, prizes and awards and latest news in science and technology. |
|
Project Updates |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| Community Development Portals (supported by the ICT Trust Fund) aim to empower Egyptian citizens in rural and urban areas to improve their standards of living through the utilization of state-of-the-art ICTs. The project was first launched in 2004 under the name of Kenana Online, a community-based portal that provides people with the necessary locally relevant knowledge and information that helps them pursue better lives both on the personal and professional levels.
Due to the portal’s growth in both scope and popularity, Kenana Online specialized portals spun off to include the Small and Medium Enterprises portal which provides information on starting a small business; the livestock production portal which provides information about agricultural and animal matters such as agricultural machinery or the breeding behavior of various species; the Arab family portal, which deals with family planning, basic health and disease, drug addiction, dieting and exercise; the youth portal which aims to empower young people and enhance their participation in public life in order to contribute to their active citizenship.
In an attempt to best meet local needs, the portals’ content is derived from local communities including NGOs, research institutions and local companies. |
|
Project Updates |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| In 2008, Egypt implemented the first telecentre network due to the vibrancy of telecentres industry in the country. The two-year research project supports efforts by Egypt ICT Trust Fund to implement a central knowledge sharing unit to create of a strong and independent national telecentre network that provides on-demand support services to all IT Clubs in Egypt. |
|
Project Updates |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|
| The Egyptian Sign Language Dictionary CD, developed by Egypt ICT Trust Fund in partnership with Vodafone, targets the hearing impaired and their surrounding communities. The CD aims to spread the sign language in an attempt to boost communication with the hearing impaired and help them communicate with each other. The CD contains module lessons covering letters, useful words and dialogues reflecting basic life needs in a multimedia form. |
|
| | BACK TO TOP |
|