Ministry of Communications and Information Technology intends to produce 10,000 tablet computers, as an experimental stage, in order to generalize the ministry's initiative of “Tablet for every student", which was launched about a month ago. Khalid Ebrahem, – president of electronics and computers division in the federation of commercial chambers – a participant in the ministry's committee that studies the project, said that the full production of the devices will depend on the local Egyptian industry, and he said that Egyptian factories will not just assemble the product. He mentioned that this experimental stage is expected to be finished before the end of the fiscal year 2012/2013. Khalid stated to Amwal Al Ghad, that the experimental stage will begin with the issuance of 10,000 devices, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. He mentioned that the first stage requires a content to be added to the devices, so the committee is going to hold a number of meetings with experts from the Ministry of Education, as these discussions aim at proposing schools that benefit from the project in the first stage, and the methods of generalizing the idea of the project. Dr. Mohamed Salim – Minister of Communications and Information Technology – said that the initiative targets producing these devices locally, as he mentioned that the developers can benefit from the Indian experiment of tablet production, which cost was only 35 USD per device.
