The twelfth annual Al-Ahram Computer and Information Technology Exhibition (ACITEX), opened last week. Eman Youssef paid a visit The communications and information technology (CIT) revolution made for a highly successful ACITEX this year, bringing together 150 companies and a swarm of visitors. Inaugurated by Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel, Ahmed Gamal El-Din Moussa, Minister of Higher Education, Ahmed El- Maghrabi, Minister of Tourism and Amr Salama, Minister of Education, the four-day exhibit offered the latest IT high-tech including hardware, software, multimedia, telecommunications, computers and networking services. Attended by Ali Ghoneim, deputy chairman and general manager of Al-Ahram Organisation, Hassan Hamdi, general manager for advertising, Mohamed Youssef Habib, general director for classified ads and the supervisor for this exhibition, and Medhat Mansour, general manager of Pyramid Advertising Agency, the event was held at the Cairo International Conference Centre. The event offered outsiders a whirlwind tour of the local sector with its plans, potential and current projects, such as Al- Ahram's CD and DVD-manufacturing plant which produces 20,000 CDs annually and the newly launched home security electronic system by Al-Ahram Investments Company. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly, MCIT Minister Tarek Kamel expressed his enthusiasm at the industry's potential, saying that national CIT awareness has started to build momentum. This has reflected on ACITEX, which as Ghoneim said "has achieved great progress, realising the awareness given to the IT field from both the government and Egyptian society". The 13th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications (ICAIA 2005) was held on the fringe of the exhibition. "Economies go up and down, but technology just marches on," said Wafaa Abul-Kheir, the chairman of Moon Stone Computer Services. Egypt's communications and information- technology (IT) industries, managed to grow by 20 per cent last year, despite sluggish growth for the economy at large. According to Abul-Kheir, 500 locally assembled laptop computers are to be exported to Morocco, the first time Egypt has exported laptops. "This year will be promising for communications and information technology in Egypt," she told the Weekly. At ACITEX for the fifth time, Italy's SMAU Information Technology exhibition joined the event. Germany was also represented at the event promoting its CeBIT 2005 exhibit which will be held from 10-16 March in Hanover.
