Egypt has won the Outsourcing Destination of the Year 2016 award from the Global Sourcing Association (GSA) European Awards during a ceremony held in Sofia, Bulgaria on October 6. The ceremony was attended by more than 200 industry leaders from Europe, United Kingdom, North America, and Asia, bringing together some of Europe's leading outsourcing suppliers, support providers, and buyers. The GSA granted 15 awards in the various categories of the competition, including Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Contract of the Year, the IT Outsourcing Project of the Year, Shared Service Centre of the Year, Outsourcing Services Advisory of the Year, Innovation in Pan-European Outsourcing, and Best Practices in the field of outsourcing. This year, Egypt was competing with Belarus, Fiji and Sri Lanka. Solid strategies, flagship projects and positive indicators make it a strong candidate for the 2016 award. Egypt received the Offshoring Destination of the Year Award in 2010, surpassing Philippines, Colombia and Sri Lanka. The award recognised Egypt's growing position in the global market and highlighted its competitive advantages. Egypt is heavily investing in skills development and talent management. The Next Technology Leaders (NTL) is an initiative to qualify 16,000 Egyptian youths in the ICT field through online and interactive training in collaboration with MNCs, Egyptian universities, and learning institutions. This year, the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) features the innovative and collaborative environment in Egypt through its investment in the newly-founded company, Silicon Waha, for establishing science and technology parks across second-tier cities. This countrywide initiative encompasses a collaborative ecosystem of government, ICT companies, academia, and entrepreneurs and creates 500,000 jobs. The Global Outsourcing Association (GSA) is a centre of excellence for outsourcing in Europe and a leading association serving both the sourcing professionals and the sourcing industry. The GSA is committed to advancing the outsourcing profession and improving and growing the outsourcing industry by driving awareness, education, standards, and thought leadership. The GSA is a not-for-profit membership association with fully licenced, affiliate and associate members, and serves to share best practice, trends and connections across the globe and to bring the global community together in a wholly interactive manner for the first time. Its overriding objective is the ongoing development and dissemination of the standard and supporting portfolio of qualifications in order to improve the benefits and positive reputation, and therefore size, of the global sourcing industry.
