CAIRO - The purpose of the Zewail City of Science and Technology project, announced last week by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail, is to set up an advanced scientific base as a nucleus for centres of pre-eminence for the scientists of the future. The non-profit project, neglected for several years by the former Government under ousted president Hosni Mubarak, reflects the great interest of the interim Government in the country's future. “This project or dream has started coming true. It's an [initiative] for scientific research, as countries only move forward with scientific research,” Sharaf said, with Zewail sitting on his right, as he announced the launch of the project. 'The Zewail City of Science and Technology: Egypt's National Project for Scientific Renaissance' has been referred to by Zewail as contributing to the 'Egypt of hope and the Egypt of the future'. According to Zewail, the preliminary budget for the City is $1 billion in a fund and $1 billion in cash. He added that a bank account would be set up for Egyptian people to make donations. Zewail has yet to unfold the details of the project, but “he is worthy of a great project, useful for the future of his country, since he is a great scientist, well acquainted with scientific circles worldwide”, professor of nuclear physics and lasers at Cairo University Latifa el-Nadi told the daily Al-Akhbar newspaper. “But where will he start?” she wondered, noting that the country actually has great scientists and its scientific research “is not at square one”. Latifa called for encouraging each scientist to work on his or her individual project, while there ought also to be a national project for all scientists to contribute to. For scientist Mohamed Ghoneim, the proposed City of Science is “a great project and an excellent access to the age of science”. Ghoneim stresses the importance of the project for establishing a base for real scientific research in Egypt, which we need urgently, especially in fields like power and nanotechnology. He says that work should start with basic education, then technical and university education. “We are not in a hurry. There are centres of excellence, which use certain administrative methods, especially in scientific research. In the long run, they will converge and create a strong scientific renaissance,“ Ghoneim says, citing India as a successful example of this. The head of surgery at el-Mansoura Teaching Hospitals, Mohamed Farid, stresses the dire need to reform basic education in Egypt after “former ministers of education destroyed it over the years”. As for the Higher Council for Education, whose creation has been announced by the Prime Minister, it will include former ministers. But Farid says that, in his experience, “such higher councils are merely talk shows”. An example of this is the Higher Council for University Hospitals in el-Mansoura, formed under the former Chancellor of el-Mansoura University, of which Farid was a member. Meanwhile, a member of the Science Age Society, Dr Amr Hetta, says that the Zewail project “has been and still is a dream of Egypt's youth, as great and important as that of the High Dam in the 1960s”. “The High Dam provided Egypt with power to support the economy and the Zewail City of Science will provide it with enlightened minds,” Hetta stresses. “There is urgent need for scientific progress, that will lead to economic and then political progress. Science is the best form of soft power.” “Dr Zewail's project is a national one which we all, as Egyptians, must rally around. We have to focus our efforts on pre-university education which is now a disaster,” a researcher called Dr Abdel-Meguid Khaled told Al-Akhbar. According to Khaled, a founding member of the Science Age Society, Egypt has some of the best educational experts and scientists worldwide, but it could also call on the experience of international organisations such as UNESCO.
