The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat has received the top
graduates of “Next Coders” training program implemented by the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center
(TIEC) of the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) that is affiliated to the Ministry of
Communications and Information Technology (MCIT).
“Next Coders” programme is part of the Presidential initiative “Next Technology Leaders-NTL” that aims at building
capacity of young calibers on the latest information, communications, and electronics technologies.
The program targets secondary-school first-year students, providing them free training on “Learn to Code” and
offering certification accredited from Udacity e-learning on the basics of programming through HTML, CSS, and
Python, possible programming paths with final project selection, and the Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) paradigm
through Python.
During the appreciation event, Talaat recognized the students’ performance who represent a model of Egyptian young
promising minds. He expressed his happiness with their willingness to develop their skills and expertise, and
asserted that MCIT is keen on building youth capacity and promoting their technological innovation and
entrepreneurship.
The ICT Minister and the 20 top graduates together discussed their proposals and views to leverage training
programs. The graduates expressed their interest in programing and joining Next Coders once announced, as it is an
opportunity to hone their skills and qualify for advanced technological tracks in Artificial Intelligence (AI),
machine learning, designing mobile apps and other programs, which opens more freelance work opportunities at an
early age, as planned by many.
The students suggested to have training in entrepreneurship, and the ICT Minister called for organizing such
training during this summer holiday through TIEC.
In addition, the students asked for more IT specialized courses, and holding periodic meetings for groups of common
specializations with experts, to help develop their skills. In this regards, Talaat underlined that the seven
technology innovation centers that will be established this year nationwide represent a platform for promoting
innovators’ ideas, creating an enabling environment for entrepreneurship, and providing many specialized training
programs.
The ICT Minister referred to the digital academy launched by MCIT to provide specialized training programs in
various technology areas.
Furthermore, Talaat invited the Gambian Minister of Information and Communication Infrastructure Ebrima Sillah to
join the meeting with the graduates during his visit to Smart Village. This comes in the framework of Sillah’s visit
to Egypt, heading a high level delegation to discuss enhancing cooperation in ICTs.
The two ministers explored the graduates’ suggestions pertaining to promoting communication with students all over
Africa, and establishing a digital platform including data of skilled training programs graduates and their IT
specializations, which makes an opportunity for companies all over Africa to communicate with them as per their
needs.
The Gambian Minister praised Egypt’s experience in providing training programs in coding for school students, and
hailed the students’ exceptional suggestions, especially in terms of reaching digital means to help focus on digital
skills.
Moreover, Sillah highlighted the significance of harnessing young ideas to develop policies. He said that African
countries are facing similar challenges, for which technology can find solutions, making a broad field of
technological innovation for young people. In addition, technology offers opportunities of communication between
African youth to share and develop ideas.
At the end of the meeting, the two ministers honored the training program top graduates.
The meeting was attended by Deputy Minister for Human and Institutional Capacity Development and ITIDA Acting CEO
Hala El Gohary, ICT Minister's Advisor for Technology Innovation, Electronics and Training Hossam Osman, and a
number of MCIT officials.
The program provides training on a number of web design languages, including HTML, CSS, Python programming language,
and the Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) paradigm through Python. This is in addition to introducing different
programming languages through providing a training content comprising videos and projects reviewed by Udacity
reviewers.
The program, also, provides a forum for students all over the world to help them harness different expertise, and
provides an opportunity to hold meetings with Udacity platform reviewers at the beginning of the training.
The program approach in providing educational content is based on combining games (gamification) with education to
achieve effective interaction with the educational content. This is followed upon through weekly e-meetings with
technical guides and project reviewers at Udacity.
Next Coders’ first round started on June 21. It aimed at training 1200 out of 5000 secondary-school firs-year
students from public schools, during 2018-2019 academic year. Students receive a three-month free training through
Udacity e-learning platform.
Udacity commended the Egyptian students’ graduation, their success and how fast they were able to complete the
learning content successfully and professionally in record time. Udacity reviewers, also, praised the students’
creativity in implementing the learning tracks projects.
