Introduction to the U.S.-Egypt Higher Education Initiative (HEI)

74 Women Scholars to Depart for the U.S. Under New U.S.-Egypt Higher Education Initiative

USAID/Egypt

Cairo – Seventy-four outstanding young women from all parts of Egypt were honored on Tuesday, July 28 in Cairo as the first group of MBA and science degree students to depart very soon for the United States under the U.S.-Egypt Higher Education Initiative (HEI) launched in April of this year.

The HEI program is a multi-year, $ 250 million initiative in which the U.S. government is granting scholarships to over 1,900 Egyptian students to study at leading institutions in Egypt and the United States.  The program includes Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) undergraduate scholarships for high achieving young women from low income families in Egypt to study in the United States.

Speaking at a pre-departure ceremony honoring HEI’s first group of 53 MBA and 21 STEM scholarship winners, USAID/Egypt Education Director Katie Donohoe noted: “These girls join the ranks of thousands of Egyptians who have participated in exchange opportunities with the United States and then gone on to become leaders in medicine, law, education, business, engineering, agriculture, and the sciences.”

Speaking about HEI’s positive impact on young people who have very few opportunities and her own career plans, STEM undergraduate scholar Yara Hazem noted:  “I want to study artificial intelligence and return to Egypt and share what I learned.  I want to become a pioneer in this field.  Maybe I’ll be the founder of the first corporation that manufactures robots in Egypt.”

MBA scholarship winner Mary Adel added: “It’s an opportunity to get a competitive degree, to further our studies, and to collaborate with different people from different cultures and to show the power of our dreams – the dreams of Egyptian women that are working hard to make a difference to their country.”

Congratulating the MBA and STEM scholarship winners, Mr. Lamloum Moussa, Head of Senior Education, Ministry of Education noted that they are all deserving and will succeed.

The HEI initiative will also finance and build partnerships between Egyptian and American universities.  hose new partnerships will contribute significantly toward knowledge exchange, joint research and shared degree programs, particularly in critical disciplines such as agribusiness, engineering and entrepreneurship.