EED History

“Several years ago it was born, The Egyptian Engineering Day (EED), as of 2002… A new event had come to reality … prior to youthful great hopes and expectations equipped with strong will and faith”

     The Egyptian Engineering Day, or the EED for short, was born in the annual Egyptian Student Branches Meeting, ESBM 2002, where the IEEE Student Branches meet to exchange best-practices and induce new ideas that promote the engineering science and profession in Egypt. The EED was suggested in ESBM 2002 to be an expo for engineering graduation projects, as there was a usual complaint of spending too much effort and time implementing a graduation project of no application in real life.

     With this simple vision, the first EED round took place in July 2002, multiple graduation projects participated in the expo, attendees were mostly from academia and scarce attendance was from Industry.

     As EED organizers, the IEEE Egypt GOLD team, which was born with the EED idea, realized an obvious missing link in between University represented in graduation projects, research and development and Industry represented in private and public sectors and attempted throughout the following two EED rounds to drag the attention of industry, government and media towards the EED.

     By the year 2005, the EED had a mature attendance and IEEE Egypt GOLD succeeded in building a rigid network all over Egypt that encloses delegates from all sectors who are convinced that heaps of graduation projects with real industrial needs are absolutely capable to change the map of the local market.

     Although mingling all entities in the same place in harmony was not an easy job, yet the Egyptian Engineering Day (EED) team succeeded to make all players come together year after the other with an eye-kept over the Egyptian market needs and variables. As we – IEEE Egypt GOLD- believe in the key role of the civil community.

     Varying between projects introducing new ideas or products, replacing imported services or even presenting a core of new business or startup, the EED gained a lot of practical credibility from market in scope. Yet, still IEEE Egypt GOLD has seen that more can be done on the Egyptian Industry account. Industry attends, shows interest, claps, gives comments and then goes! That was not why EED had been created for…

     The Made in Egypt program, MIE for short, was firstly introduced by IEEE Egypt GOLD in 2005 aiming at establishing an actual link between university and industry and giving Industry a higher probability of interaction in the graduation project life cycle. The MIE Program takes the form of a competition among engineering and computer science graduation projects, each of which competes to solve a real industrial problem, fulfill an Egyptian industrial need, substitutes a similar imported product, creates a new need in the market or introduces a new service helping in the development of the electronic and technological sides of the society. The first finals were held in EED 2006 with participation of 19 engineering graduation projects, each of which has a sponsor from industry who technically mentors the project side to side with the academic professor throughout all the competition phases. MIE phases start with a summer training campus on soft and interpersonal skills besides, business and marketing skills that helps the team to perceive better market opportunities and effectively draw a winning plan.

     With this new strategy, EED has proven a day after the other that shelves are not the ideal place for engineering graduation projects and still too much chances are open out there awaiting in the local, and may be the international, markets.

     One of the EED main objectives also is to prepare fresh grads with the minimum skill sets needed to delve into the market, thus on its first four rounds, the EED has been focusing on soft and interpersonal skills as a good bulk of its Agenda besides latest top notch technologies in different engineering related fields. Also, EED has focused on developing the entrepreneurial spirit among young engineers since 2006 and made its best to introduce the small and medium enterprises concept to fresh grads as an alternative to the normal employment option supported with real Egyptian Success Stories!

     For freshly graduated engineers, the timing of the event is suitably chosen to introduce them to the market and for industry. The EED is a perfect chance for hiring, incubating low cost R&D based on the exhibited graduation projects and getting latest top-notch technologies and solutions fitting into current market needs, purely delivered by fresh Egyptian hands and minds.

     From 2003 on, the EED organizers - IEEE Egypt GOLD – choose a slogan for the EED that incorporates with the contemporary market variables that meet with EED objectives and stage. Following are the slogans chosen up to the 7th EED round in 2008 with an interpreting hint of the rationale/theme behind that slogan.
















By the time this History page was written, EED has become a very special national event which receives a very special deliberation from the Egyptian Government, Academia, Industry and Media with both local and regional recognition. It’s considered as the annual nexus for engineers in Egypt, an opportunity for all engineering professionals to meet new associates in the field, share ideas, collaborate on projects and learn something new. EED is where industry and university enter a win-win situation.