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ship of the school IT infrastructure while reducing significantly

the implementation cost. Local staff were hired, maintaining

the gender balance to cater to the underrepresented female

segment of the local society and to help empower women in

Siwa. School principals, teachers and students started to get

exposed to high-speed Internet and to advanced educational

digital content introduced into the oasis for the first time

through the project.

The project also applied different methods to reduce the cost

of introducing ICT in education. Open source software and

innovative hardware solutions were used, including the ‘4-for-

1’ computer model, where four students share the same CPU

with separate monitors, keyboards and mice.

The Community Development Portal and the Community

Knowledge Generation and e-Library (CKGeL) project witnessed

a huge influx of content from the community. Communities

started to mobilize in exploring new opportunities for socioe-

conomic development. Teachers, students and other community

members such as farmers, traders and youth are developing an

understanding of how to use ICT resources to respond to their

immediate needs, such as date and olive exports, attracting

tourism, combating environmental pollution, and document-

ing cultural and natural heritage. Technology is now considered

more accessible and relevant to the day-to-day life of local

communities in Siwa.

Another project of the Egypt trust fund, ICT for Basic Literacy,

was deployed in Siwa. Illiteracy eradication classes were

conducted in the schools. In addition, when the issue of extend-

ing the outreach to local women was raised with local leaders,

they suggested that a separate women’s working group,

conducted by a trusted female community development expert,

be organized in a private home. The project management devel-

oped ways to adapt the in-home training facilities to local

customs and house organization.

Most of the women were interested to learn more about

computers, as it would help improve their economic status,

and their awareness of information on subjects of interest, such

as the raising of children. Several initiatives of the Egypt ICT

Trust Fund have been integrated in Siwa to provide a holistic

and people-centred approach to the introduction of ICT for

development. Such an approach is necessary to help commu-

nities understand and appreciate the potential and possibilities

that ICT, and new technology in general, offers. The imple-

mentation approaches adopted also overcame hurdles of local

culture to empower women. These initiatives also go hand in

hand with those of the Ministry of Communications and

Information Technology in Egypt, among which are broadband

access, free Internet, IT clubs, and the goal of having a PC in

every home.

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Beautiful Siwa

A view of Siwa

Palms in Siwa