CAIRO: The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) recently joined forces to upgrade Egypt's database system. "The protocol encompasses four major tracks: technological infrastructure, human resource and training, information society indicators' measurement and databases, the MCIT said. Both entities acknowledged that Egypt's database needs to be improved as the lack of access to statistics hinders progress of government projects, such as the subsidies system, which cannot be revised due to the lack of statistics on how many people are in the low-income bracket. The protocol has realized a number of accomplishments so far. In building the technological infrastructure, a lab with the capacity of training 2,500 people daily was established with the latest technology. Also, a data entry center was established, which enables 160 employees daily to participate in several national projects, such as registering 2.5 million rations cards for the Ministry of Social Solidarity census. To link CAPMAS's various branches and enhance the data entry process, an industrial products network was set up at the agency to connect the 15 nationwide branches. "Through the human resource training track, more than 13,000 trainees have been trained on computer basics, 5,500 of whom are fresh graduates, 3,265 from Egyptian National Post Organization (ENPO), 2,367 from Ministry of Education and 250 with visual needs. A total of 11,800 trainees have received the International Computer Driver's License (ICDL) in addition to courses offered in other IT and networks specialties, the ministry said. Reports on information society indicators were published as part of the cooperation between the two entities to assess the development of technology utilization in Egyptian families, government, public and private sectors. According to Intel, IT usage has not reached its full potential in Egypt yet, with PC penetration being around only 10 percent. Using its new resources, CAPMAS recently published a report that highlighted IT usage in pre-university and university education from July 2006 to January 2008. As part of the databases track, an industrial foundations database has been designed that includes updated data to enrich the decision-making process. Private sector foundations with annual products of more than LE 50,000 or those with more than 10 employees were included in the database. A total of 38,000 industrial foundations have been calculated so far.
