Egypt participated in Fifth World Telecommunication Development Conference, which was held from 23 May to 4 June in Hyderabad, India, and organized every four years by the International Telecommunication Union.
Dr. Ahmed El-Sherbini, The Egyptian Deputy Minister of Communications for International Cooperation and Director of the National Telecommunications Institute headed the Egyptian official delegation which was composed of representatives of Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) and the MCIT Information Center.
During a session on ITU's "Connect a School, Connect a Community" initiative, Dr. Ahmed El-Sherbini, presented Egypt's experience of connecting schools to the internet., The project first kicked off in 2002 in cooperation with Ministry of Education and Egyptian Education Initiative (EEI), which was launched under the auspices of first lady Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak and Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement.
Dr. El-Sherbini demonstrated in the conference general session Egypt's vision of the role of ITU in the coming phase as well as priorities for the field progress like large-scale infrastructure networks, internet security, child protection online, e-content development and multilingualism.
Other priorities include boosting the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in improving education and health and in handling climate change. Also Dr. El-Sherbini stressed how Egypt recognized the importance of ITU and the country's interest in cooperating effectively with the international entity as an active founding member.
The conference discussed the ITU future policy and programs during the upcoming four years from 2011- 2015. A total of 142 countries and 1200 participants took part in the conference, held every four years.
