Dr. Hisham El Sherif

“Information is business, it is development, and it is life for the average citizen.” If anyone besides Hisham El-Sherif were to make such a bold statement, most people’s attention would turn elsewhere; rarely is there sufficient vision and breadth of experience to back up this sort of grand analysis. If there is one person who can be single-handedly credited with guiding Egypt into the millennium with the information technology (IT) skills it needs, that man is Hisham El-Sherif. And it is no small feat, this. Even just 10 years ago, Egypt was nowhere near developed countries in terms of information technology — a realm that suggests the widespread use of computers and the Internet for manipulating and sharing information for a vast array of purposes. Whether it be for mapping the inside of a pyramid, applying for a home loan, or linking databases in key ministries, information technology is the only step forward in the modern world, and putting Egypt on the regional and global IT map is El-Sherif’s raison d’être.

His enthusiasm is infectious, if only because of the wealth of accomplishments behind it. Though he says his main agenda is to “make a modest contribution and make a difference,” he has set enormously ambitious goals and somehow managed to meet them. Educated at the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., El-Sherif pioneered the country’s IT industry with the Cabinet Information and Decision Support Project (IDSC), his avowedly favorite enterprise (“because I realized [what was possible]”) which informs the government with the latest in data collection technology. He maintains that IT can help with economic reform, debt management and privatization, as well as enhance the legislative climate in education and health. It is in this spirit that the IDSC was developed. 
Though Egypt’s potential in the region and internationally is considerable, it faces equally behemoth challenges. Its fast-growing population is not equipped with contemporarily relevant skills, and in the modern economy, this is dire. It is now commonplace to say that today’s globablized economy prizes skills over resources, and that the world is on the verge of a knowledge-driven industrial revolution. But as much as this sound-byte analysis is over-hyped, market wealth and natural resources have receded as critical determinants of a wealth generation, replaced instead by a generation of knowledge-savvy entrepreneurs. 
El-Sherif knows this well, and that is why he insists that information technology is only the second factor after political will in the reform process. Part of his mission has been to show Egyptians the tangible potential of IT, as well as make it accessible to the society as a whole. 
“A more rational, intelligent use of information will [help] us advance and progress, and develop the status quo,” he says. 
Information, he says, can immeasurably help the decision-making process at the governmental level, as well as in terms of development issues. 
Helping the government formulate policy, “to help it see how to attain its hopes and aspirations” is the most visible fruit of IT. But El-Sherif is quick to point out that “training and awareness at the grassroots level” is key to ensuring “coherent and sustainable growth among different strata of society,” and he advocates a top-down mentality with a bottom-up approach. The program “Little Horus,” which teaches children about Egyptian culture, is just one of the way El-Sherif imagines IT making a difference in the lives of all Egyptians, rather than just the personal computer-owning few.
El-Sherif has grand plans for Egypt, and describes them with a politician’s practiced dexterity. 
“Egypt will become the Nile Silicon Valley of the world,” he declares. From Cairo to Alexandria, companies and technical zones are being developed in business technology, laying the groundwork for a major transformation. He has enough faith in Egypt’s potential as the IT center of the region that he has even launched IT Investment, essentially a venture capital firm that aims to develop the IT industry in Egypt through business ventures. 
“Egypt can easily leap-frog to the cyber e-world,” says EL-Sherif, describing a land where e-commerce and e-business are as second nature as buying cigarettes from the ba-al. 
This jump requires intellectual assets as much as financial ones, he maintains. “Young people are the oil of the future, the assets that can take us forward,” he insists convincingly. But what about the so-called “brain drain” that lures Egypt’s brightest young professionals to work and typically spend their lives abroad? 
“We need to make the climate more attractive, so Egyptians can fulfill themselves within their own country,” he says, himself an example of someone who chose a career in Egypt over an inevitably more lucrative one abroad. “If I had my life to rewind, I would do the same thing,” he says.